The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story

Written by Kate Summerscale

Narrated by David Morrissey

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR • The Sunday Times • The New Statesman • The Times • The Spectator • The Telegraph

Shortlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * A New York Times Book Review Paperback Row Selection

“Prepare not to see much broad daylight, literal or metaphorical, for days if you read this.... The atmosphere evoked is something I will never forget.”—The Times (London)

London, 1938. In the suburbs of the city, a young housewife has become the eye in a storm of chaos. In Alma Fielding’s modest home, china flies off the shelves and eggs fly through the air; stolen jewelry appears on her fingers, white mice crawl out of her handbag, beetles appear from under her gloves; in the middle of a car journey, a turtle materializes on her lap. The culprit is incorporeal. As Alma cannot call the police, she calls the papers instead.

After the sensational story headlines the news, Nandor Fodor, a Hungarian ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research, arrives to investigate the poltergeist. But when he embarks on his scrupulous investigation, he discovers that the case is even stranger than it seems.

By unravelling Alma’s peculiar history, Fodor finds a different and darker type of haunting, a tale of trauma, alienation, loss and revenge. He comes to believe that Alma’s past has bled into her present, her mind into her body. There are no words for processing her experience, so it comes to possess her. As the threat of a world war looms, and as Fodor’s obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed.

With characteristic rigor and insight, Kate Summerscale brilliantly captures the rich atmosphere of a haunting that transforms into a very modern battle between the supernatural and the subconscious.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Audio
• Release date: Apr 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9780593394489

Kate Summerscale

Kate Summerscale is the author of the number one bestselling The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2008, winner of the Galaxy British Book of the Year Award, a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and adapted into a major ITV drama. Her first book, the bestselling The Queen of Whale Cay, won a Somerset Maugham award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread biography award. Kate Summerscale has also judged various literary competitions including the Booker Prize. She lives in north London.

Reviews for The Haunting of Alma Fielding

[boufaroni · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

DNF at 26%
I really don’t read a lot of non-fiction but this sounded creepy, it was very dry and just not my cup of tea. Maybe it gets better but I’ve been struggling through it for over a month, even was listening to the audiobook. It was much more about the paranormal researcher Fodor and his life so far - which I just do not care about. Where are the ghosts?!

[akblanchard_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Considering her troubled marriage, traumatic memories, and World War II brewing in Europe, it was no wonder that Alma Fielding was upset. The British housewife found an effective way of expressing her negative feelings--she claimed to be haunted by a boisterous poltergeist. This supernatural entity allegedly threw teacups, destroyed furniture, stole jewelry from shops, hid household items and dead insects in Alma's body, and even laid on top of her in the middle of the night. Alma sought relief from all this activity at an institute for psychic research, where a dogged investigator named Nandor Fodor and his colleagues were eager to prove that the Alma was the victim of a verifiable paranormal phenomenon.

It is sad when a book that holds so much potential interest turns out to be deadly dull. That's what happened with Kate Summerscale's The Haunting of Alma Fielding. All the ingredients are in place, but the whole ends up as less than the sum of its parts.

[gwendydd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the 1930s, Nandor Fodor took a scientific approach to researching paranormal experiences, hoping to prove whether they were real or fake. He exposed many mediums as fake, but also believed in the possibility that ghosts and hauntings were real. For several years, he was stumped by the case of Alma Fielding, a woman who experienced constant paranormal activity, such as objects flying around her house, objects mysteriously appearing and disappearing, scratches and marks spontaneously appearing on her body, and vivid dreams and visions. This book describes Fielding's hauntings and Fodor's research in exhaustive detail.

I think the book focuses too much on the specific haunting events. Sometimes it feels like a daily diary of Fodor's and Fielding's activities. However, in among all of these details is some very interesting analysis. The 1930s were rampant with paranormal activity, but were also a very difficult time as Europe recovered from the physical and especially psychological trauma of WWI, while also worrying about the possibility of WWII. Fodor was a skilled researcher, and as much as he wanted to believe in paranormal activity, he was careful to seek out scientific proof. He was interested in psychology, and came up with psychological explanations for Fielding's experiences that were very forward-thinking for his time.

All in all, this was an interesting book, but I wish it had been about 1/3 as long.

[elimatta_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Gave up after 171 pages. I liked the context, but so much detail, instance piled in instance.

[thewanderingjew_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The time is 1938. Europe is fraught with the winds of World War II. Hitler is on the rise as is evil. It is at this time that Alma Fielding begins to witness and experience supernatural phenomenon in her home. The spectacular events also occur in the presence of her husband, her son and her boarder. She contacts the Sunday Pictorial. This company had asked citizens to write in about their supernatural experiences.
Dr. Nandor Fodor is contacted by a clergyman to investigate. He works for International Institute for Psychical Research. It is a point in his career that he needs to have some positive case to prove his theory that these supernatural phenomena arise from within a human that is able to call forth the spirits, sometimes unbeknownst to themselves. These people appear to be the medium, the conduit through which spirits can pass and cause their mischief or whatever else their purpose might be.
Thus begins a journey in which he is exposed to and exposes fraudulent mediums as well as events that seem to be real moments of unexplained bizarre behavior. Does the behavior come from the spirit world, unbidden, is it the result of some latent trauma festering in the victim, is it possession, is it energy brought forth by their hidden anxiety and unresolved secrets, is it magic or fraud? Is it the result of all these possible choices? Is it possible for objects in one place to appear in a completely different place, to move on its own, across distances? Is it possible for a human being to conjure up creatures? Is it possible for a human being to appear in two places at once, engaging in conversations in both places as if two individuals? Is it possible for alternate personalities to live within these mediums that control the bizarre behavior?
The book provides examples of all of these possibilities, but no definitive answers. In 2017, the author does the research and tells you the story that will merely provide you with the tools to decide for yourself! Do ghosts exist? How are the spirits called up from the spirit world? From where do they originate? Are the victims of these experiences with poltergeists equal participants? Is it their painful past memories that fester and then awaken them, or do they have divided personalities, hallucinations, or fraudulent manifestations that they artfully create? Are they all frauds as some surely were proven to be? Yet there are instances with witnesses so that the supernatural that cannot be explained away with logical explanations. They defy comprehension. The author leaves it up to the reader to decide.

[montzaleew · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Haunting of Alma Fielding
A True Ghost Story
by Kate Summerscale
This book was compiled into a readable format from notes and drawings from a famous researcher, Fodor, that was looking for the truth about whether there was life after death. The book contains some pictures too.
The book reads almost like a story crossed with a newspaper article. It follows Fodor and his search. It was in the late 1930's when spiritualism was spreading across Europe. WWI had finished with great lose of life along with the plague. People were just getting their bearings again and rumblings were starting there was another war possible. Death seemed everywhere. Loss was a constant theme.
People flocked to seances and there were many famous people performing them. Fodor went to investigate. He was a member of an International Research team that studied this. He was amazed by what he saw! He traveled to various events and witnessed "ghosts", ectoplasm, speaking to the dead, and more. He was convinced it was all real until a few journalists busted a few of the ones he had witnessed. He felt foolish since he was a researcher.
He then started to approach the subject with a keen eye. He revealed many deceptions and was shunned by his team because they were still all for spiritualism.
When he heard about Alma Fielding and her house, he sent an assistant there to check it out! Then he went himself!
The book logs everything that happens, inside and outside the house. At first, it sounds haunted. The researchers all think it is a poltergeist and it is Alma herself. No one thinks ghost! But as more and more information comes about, more things happen, well...then my view changes completely!
I enjoyed this book for the sociology of the time, of women, of spiritualism, and more. It was completed with notes so it doesn't flow real smooth. If the author wanted to get some of the side things in, which I am glad she did, it had to be written like this. I found all these odd stories fascinating! I won't give my opinion on what I felt was really going on in the house, I think everyone needs to read all the facts and make their own decision.
I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for making it possible for me to read this book. The review is all my own opinion. I recommend this book heartily.

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Where others might see Alma as typical of her class and gender – irrational, opportunistic, sly – to Fodor she was ingenious, complex and fun.

The non-fiction tale of a Hungarian psychic researcher’s investigation into a poltergeist event in 1930s London. He seems biased towards believing Alma, as he had been accused in a rival publication of being a sceptic who only ever wanted to find trickery, and was in the process of suing for libel.

[jillrhudy · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Historical notes and journal entries are tricky to weave into an interesting and seamless work of nonfiction, even when it's about ghosts. This book fell short when it came to pulling everything together into a linear narrative that kept my attention. I struggled not to put it down until the last fourth of the book or so.

As you might guess from the title, the book is about a haunted woman named Alma Fielding in London in the late 1930s and the "scientist," Nandor Fordor, who made her a focus of his studies at the Institute for Psychical Research. The book was rather disjointed and parts of it were really dry. I never knew what was coming next: a parallel tale of another haunting in England or elsewhere, a random literary reference, a character only loosely related to the action, a reminder that World War II was imminent. When I was in one of the book's frequent dry spells it was impossible to figure out when, if ever, the plot would perk up again. It is up to the reader to piece all of this together; Summerscale is short on segues.

The book finally began to get interesting toward the end, when it became philosophical and started touching upon where the Fielding case fits into modern psychology. Summerscale turned to a deeper analysis of Alma Fielding, and of her tireless investigator who was every bit as weird as she was. Was Alma actually haunted, and even if she were, why did Nandor obsess over her to such an unhealthy degree? Did she do it all for attention, to escape from the demands placed on women, a sort of Margery Kempe of prewar London? The whole book could have been written along these lines and been infinitely more entertaining. I realize the author was trying to do a slow burn and keep us guessing about the truth of the case, but it fizzled.

The end of the book consists of a bunch of vignettes about what became of everyone in the book later in the 20th century, which must have taken a tremendous amount of historical research on the author's part. However, these vignettes were mostly wasted on me, because there were several characters that I didn't even remember being in the book at all, or how they related to Nordor and the Fieldings. In all likelihood, whenever they appeared in the book, they seemed so random (like the other people that were thrown willy-nilly into the story) that my brain just skimmed right over them to get back to the main story: not a good sign of a true crime tale well told.