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Summary: Not Your Average "Ghost Story"
Review: I have to admit that "A Face at the Window" was not at all what I was expecting. I was prepared to read a "cookie cutter" ghost story. I had not read any reviews, having simply picked this book up at a library sale.
The main character Cookson Selway, an early-retired restauranteur and his wife Ellen, who is a fiction writer travel to England after their daughter goes away to boarding school. Note that this novel is written in what I call "Conversation Form", that is to say that it is written as if the central character, "Cook" is talking to the reader. Prior to leaving American, Cook has an unusual experience which reminds him of a somewhat "psychic" ability he had as a child. A self-described ex-addict [drugs, alcohol] Cook has not had these experiences for years, yet after this daughter leaves for school he has an incident and chalks it up to anxiety over the separation. When he and Ellen travel to England and settle in a very old flat, things begin to get very out of control for Cook. He begins to see and hear things that no one else can see. He strikes up an unusual friendship and bond with Paschal, the hotel's young porter and begins to distance himself from his wife. There are some very spooky appearances, which Cook seems to take in stride and embrace in an obsessive manner which creates a terrific strain on his marriage. There is quite a bit of soul-searching by the main character in this novel, therefore creating a story-within-a-story feel to the novel. A final tragedy finally breaks the obsession Cook has with "helping" the apparitions he encounters and the novel resolves from there. There is a bit of back-tracking in the beginning of the novel, which is truly important later in the story, and the conversational writing style takes a few pages to get used to but overall, this is a very interesting novel, not at tall typical of any ghost story I have ever read. It is much more and well worth reading.
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Summary: Great ghost story!
Review: I purchased this as a gift for my wife who LOVES ghost stories, and she said it was really great. She was turned off by a scene involving a ghost and his auto-eroticism, but other than that, she loved it.
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Summary: This story haunted me.
Review: I read this a while ago and bits from the story still pop into my mind. It's a very unusual tale.
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Summary: An eerie read...
Review: McFarland writes, "I suppose I had already begunto realize that ghoulishness wasn't truly scary.Scary was the surprise lurking beneath the altogether ordinary surface, the earwigs writhing inside the mailbox." This literary ghost story has plenty of the traditional ghoulishness to recommend it, but also delves into the inner phantoms of separation and loss that haunt a recovering drug addict.
Rating: 
Summary: A Suspiciously Average Work
Review: Sadly, the truly haunting Face at the Window is the ghost of the elegant prose that filled The Music Room with lyricism. I'm inclined to believe (or at least hope) this novel is a much earlier work than the copyright date indicates. Compared to The Music Room (a novel I consider brilliance bound) ... A Face at the Window should be ignored and the curtains drawn, or like me, you may find yourself making faces back.
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Summary: Bold Type Feature on Dennis McFarland
Review: the Bold Type (www.boldtype.com) feature on Dennis McFarland includes an original includes an original essay and exclusive audio reading
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Summary: Definately not a book i would recommend...
Review: The book was very boring in the beginning, but I thought it might get better in the middle so I read the first 100 pages. It started to pick up a little so I figured, "okay, I'll just keep reading." It never really picked up after that. It would talk about the ghosts for a few pages, then it would stop and go on to the guy's life, then go back to the ghosts. Back and forth from there. For scariness, it wasnt at all...just mysterious. Even at the end, it never really explains it. This book is definately for a person with a great vocabulary because I even had trouble understanding some of the words. If you have 300 pages worth of time to kill, you might want to read it just to say you read a Dennis McFarland book, but if you are expecting to be scared or interested, you won't want to read it. Sorry, but that's just my opinion. I am very picky about books and movies, so if I say a book or a movie is good, IT IS GOOD! My favorite book is Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix. It is the best book ever written, I think, and it is a book for all ages. Not too kiddy for adults, and not to adult for kids. Just perfect. The sequels are: Among the Impostors and Among the Betrayed. These are also a good, fun read. DEFINATELY READ IT! Well, I'm off for now. Until I read again...
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Summary: A Spine-Tingling Suspense Story
Review: This book had me on the edge my seat until the very last page, where I still sat begging for more. It is not the typical ghost story, because it combines the story of the ghosts extrodanarily well with the real main character'severyday life. Dennis McFarland did a fantastic job of developing his characters and holding his reader's suspense. This is one of the best books I have read in a long time, and I strongly recommend it to fiction readers of all kinds
Rating: 
Summary: Looking for Ghosts... Go somewhere else!
Review: This book was not only disappointing, but a complete waste of time. McFarland has no idea about suspense, and insists on painting a picture that is far from frightening. There was a lot that could have been done with this idea, to bad McFarland was the one to lay it to ruin.
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Summary: a literary pageturner & psychological/supernatural thriller
Review: This is Henry James's turf: a ghost story, a psychological thriller, a portrait of a marriage and the story of Americans in London, with some homoerotic undercurrents. But it's also a literary page turner (something James has probably never been accused of writing). I especially loved the way McFarland explored the blurry line between supernatural and psychological demons (cf. Toni Morrison's Beloved). I also loved the complex and nuanced portrait of a long-term marriage, the alternating dance between intimacy and estrangement. Plus, McFarland is just, plain and simple, a stunningly good and unconventional writer. An intelligent good read!
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