Madeleine's Ghost: A Novel

By Robert Girardi

Brooklyn needs a saint. Ned Conti needs a stipend. So the struggling young historian agrees to trace the mysterious past of a Brooklyn nun for evidence of miracles. Trapped in a neighborhood of cheap rents and failed promise, in a rent-controlled apartment suddenly, inexplicably seized by a beautiful and angry ghost, Ned's only refuge is the F train to Manhattan's East Village bars, where he and his friends drown their sorrows in drink....

But Ned is about to heed another call, the siren song of New Orleans, where the history of countless lost souls seems to rise from the steaming streets—and where, ten years before, he ended a brief, passionate affair with a woman whose memory has haunted him ever since. Here, in a city of spirits, Ned will embrace a dead saint and a living sinner...as a beautiful ghost offers him her desire. And his destiny....

Set amid the sleepless energy and seething passion of New York and New Orleans, Madeleine's Ghost is a spellbinding novel of lost love, history, and desire—a work of startling originality that is at once exquisitely written and compulsively readable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 20, 1999
• ISBN: 9780440333999

Robert Girardi

Robert Girardi is the author of several novels, including Gorgeous East, and one volume of novellas, all of which have been widely translated. He has written for film and television. His nonfiction pieces and reviews have been published in The Washington Post, Washingtonian, The New Republic, The National Review and Landscape Architecture Magazine, among other publications. A graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop and USC Film School, Girardi has received a James Michener Fellowship. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his three children.

Reviews for Madeleine's Ghost

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Nope. No can do. Madeleine's Ghost is not my thing. First person, slow as molasses, raunchy, depressing and dark. The writer can write, his characters are real, as are the settings, but they are not anyone I care to invest my life in. I did not get past page 50 other than some skimming because in spite of the fact that the other reviews said the pace picked up, it still looked to be raunchy and depressing. YMMV Found myself not wanting to read at all and that is always the final determiner for me.

[rocketjk · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A friendly page-turner set in Brooklyn, New Orleans and the parishes of southern Lousisiana. A young historical researcher has a ghost problem in his ancient, run-down, Brooklyn apartment. In the meantime, he is hired by the priest of a local church to find evidence of sainthood for a nun who lived and worked in the neighborhood two hundred years ago. The researcher also has a history of his own.This was Girardi's first novel, and in places the book certainly reads like a first novel, with, for instance, metaphors sometimes skirting, or even crossing, the line between effective and "trying too hard" and a somewhat overwrought story-within-the-story romance.However, all-in-all, this was a comfortable read for, say, a relaxed, rainy weekend. It works fine as an easy, "don't have to think too hard" experience. And I don't want to over-state the case: I was interested in the characters and the storyline, and there was plenty of engaging writing, as well.

[fireblossom32 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I very rarely read novels written by men anymore, but for some reason I picked this one off my shelf (after a fifteen year snooze there) and I am so glad that I did. It is simply one of the best novels I've ever read. It didn't strike me that way in the beginning, though it was good enough. We meet Ned Conti, a rather directionless, down at the heels graduate student who gets a job finding documentation to support the canonization of a nun who died nearly a century ago. The past seems to have it in for Mr. Conti; his apartment is haunted by a female spirit, and he himself is haunted by the memory of a short but intense affair with a woman named Antoinette, in New Orleans ten years before. Antoinette Rivaudais is indeed unforgettable. A raven-haired, pill-popping, charismatic, lost, wayward rich girl, she captured Ned's heart and mine as well. She is so flawed, but so heartbreakingly so. In time, the ghost reveals what she wants, and Antoinette reappears in Ned's life. It may kill him or save him to pursue the three interwoven storylines (counting the nun) to their resolution. I'll just say that, by the time I closed the book, I knew I would never forget it.

[cozylover · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Although I felt some of the details in the story were pretty vulgar and unnecessary the main plot line was well done, captivating and full of rich details.

[angella4beshara · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A little slow, but the way it all tied together was satisfying to me. Some people may say the coincidences were a little too uncanny but for me it really worked. The beautiful writing and strong sense of place added to the intricate story.

[knithappened · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If I remember correctly I was pointed in the direction of this novel based on a review I read of one of Carol Goodman's books...that if you like her writing and stories than you will enjoy this book. And I did, once I got past the first 50 pages and then I couldn't put it down. The story begins in New York when you meet a down and out historian named Ned Conti. He has just managed to sweet-talk his way into a job with a church to find documentation that could me submitted to the Vatican in order to declare a sister in the order a saint. Religion, redemption, spirits and the spiritual world, narcissism, and addiction all factor into the lives of the various clearly delineated characters in this book. I definitely enjoyed the chapters that took place in New Orleans and the bayou over the dark and dangerous streets of New York, and the most the chat with the ghost. A thoroughly entertaining read and I hope that Girardi didn't stop writing after this, his first novel.