Hungry Ghost Theater by Sarah Stone (WTAW Press)

Written By Amanda Barusch
Cover of “Hungry Ghost Theater” showing ghostly wild animals and ghostly hands reaching out to them as if from another dimension.

Readers change the publishing world with every purchase. That's why I'm so excited about WTAW Press,  a non-profit publisher working to build literary community and publish extraordinary books - just two a year. When you're looking for a good read I hope you'll check them out! Here's a link to their site.

That's where I discovered Sarah Stone's gorgeous new novel. Hungry Ghost Theater takes us from Zanzibar to Santa Cruz through the trials and adventures of a truly complicated three-generation family.  I'm wild for the young girls: Katya, trying to figure out what kind of superhero she is,  and Amelia, the cutter, who's fragility drove me (and her family) mad. The prose is lovely and the book has a brilliant innovative structure. Midway through, we are transported from the Santa Cruz mountains to Hell. The naive reader (me) takes this literally, setting aside the fact that much of the book's action takes place in theaters. It's only later, when I watch the actors struggling to develop their next performance piece,  that I realize the hell I just went through was only make believe. Or was it? I'll be chewing on this one for a while.  It's a great read for anyone interested in family dynamics and beautiful writing!

Amanda Barusch

Amanda Barusch has worked as a janitor, exotic dancer, editor, and college professor. She lives in the American West, where she spends as much time as possible on dirt paths. She has an abiding disdain for boundaries and adores ambiguity. Amanda has published eight books of non-fiction, a few poems, and a growing number of short stories. Aging Angry is her first work of creative non-fiction. She uses magical realism to explore deep truths of the human experience in this rapidly changing world.

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