From behind a microphone, Joaquin spends his nights talking to people with supernatural stories to tell his radio audience. While yarns akin to spectral locomotives rocketing past the farm where your grandma grew up and free-roaming, vaporous, full-torso apparitions may make for good ratings, Joaquin could not anticipate becoming entrapped in a ghost story of his own. His is a personal tale of near-death experiences, white noise, Toltecs, vengeful spirits and they all haunt the pages of Ghost Radio: A Novel by Leopoldo Gout.

In talking about this book, I feel it is important to begin with what I felt was one of its most striking aspects- how he tells the story. This novel is not your typically linear story, plodding along in third person omniscient. Leopoldo frequently moves forward and backwards in time using flashbacks and recollections to give the reader an understanding of not only how Joaquin became who he was, but also insights into the struggle he is engaged in. Moreover, the author changes both point of view and voice to provide the perspective of other key players. In combination, these techniques jar the reader out of complacency and forces them into a place where they can juxtapose the bewildering torrent of events befalling Joaquin.

Beyond the telling, the story itself is intriguing, to say the least. Joaquin begins the story with a picturesque life. He has a beautiful woman to share his life with and his career has just taken off. At a time where he should be reveling in his own success, inexplicable events begin to transpire. Such events which challenge not only his sense of reality, but the concrete rules of space and time themselves. Leopoldo grabs the reader and shoves them into the story beside his protagonist… but he offers a lifeline. He interlaces segments of the Ghost Radio call-in show throughout the story. These periodic caller-provided supernatural tales form the backbone of the story. It was a continuity that helps the reader remain orientated to the course of the story right up to the anticlimax.

Much of Ghost Radio is set against the Goth era of the 1990’s. Joaquin moves through a world of punk music and the comic book culture, which provides an entirely unique feel to the story. The insights into the music and people of the time are as refreshing as his habit of starting each chapter with a graphic sketch.

For the negatives, I would have to say what I have cited as this book’s strength could also be its weakness. This shifting of point-of-view and dynamic time line holds the potential of putting off some readers. While these methods effectually transcend typical commercial fiction and enter into the sphere of literature, it provides the reader with a challenge that some may not be looking for in leisurely entertainment.

That aside, I recommend this book. Ghost Radio is Leopoldo’s first novel and from what I have seen I will be looking forward to what he writes next.

Ghost Radio: A Novel
By Leopoldo Gout
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: William Morrow
Official Website