The Ghostly Lover

It is a hot Kentucky summer; Marian Coleman is sixteen years old and she has just left high school. As she sits in the sun on the side porch of her home she notices an attractive older man watching her. Marian is awaiting the return of her parents, drifters who have been absent for two years. She anticipates their arrival with a mixture of excitement and uncertainty, for the Colemans, still uneasy with each other after twenty years of marriage, will upset the quiet balance of the life Marian shares with her grandmother and brother. With disciplined realism and an extraordinary awareness, Elizabeth Hardwick explores the intricate web of family relationships and a young girl's quest for idealised love in this her first novel, originally published in 1945.

With a New Afterword by the Author.