In 9 spooky tales, Alison Lurie writes of women haunted by ghosts both literal and metaphorical : A woman about to marry Mr Right is visited by the spirit of his first wife: a dead fiancee haunts a foreign officer every time she has an intimate moment with another man ; the ghost of a girl in a Halloween costume disconcerts the perfect housewife. A secretary on a diet starts seeing obese people everywhere she looks; a self conscious poet is shadowed by her intrusive doppelganger;and a capricious malevolent spirit seems to have inhibited an acquisitive matron's prized piece of furniture.

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