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The Ghost Network
Has the world’s hottest pop star been kidnapped, joined a secret sect, or simply gone into hiding? The answer lies in the abandoned subway stations of Chicago . . .
One minute insanely famous pop singer Molly Metropolis is on her way to a major performance in Chicago, and the next, she’s gone.
A journalist who’s been covering Molly joins the singer's personal assistant in an increasingly desperate search to find her, guided by a journal left behind in her hotel room, and possible clues hidden in her songs—all of which seem to point to an abandoned line in the Chicago subway system.
It leads them to a map of half-completed train lines underneath Chicago, which in turn leads them to the secret, subterranean headquarters of an obscure intellectual sect—and the realization that they’ve gone too far to turn back. And if a superstar can disappear without a trace . . . what can happen to these young women?
Suspenseful and wildly original, The Ghost Network is a novel about larger-than-life fantasies—of love, sex, pop music, amateur detective work, and personal reinvention. Debut novelist Catie Disabato bursts on the scene with an ingeniously plotted, witty, haunting mystery.
One minute insanely famous pop singer Molly Metropolis is on her way to a major performance in Chicago, and the next, she’s gone.
A journalist who’s been covering Molly joins the singer's personal assistant in an increasingly desperate search to find her, guided by a journal left behind in her hotel room, and possible clues hidden in her songs—all of which seem to point to an abandoned line in the Chicago subway system.
It leads them to a map of half-completed train lines underneath Chicago, which in turn leads them to the secret, subterranean headquarters of an obscure intellectual sect—and the realization that they’ve gone too far to turn back. And if a superstar can disappear without a trace . . . what can happen to these young women?
Suspenseful and wildly original, The Ghost Network is a novel about larger-than-life fantasies—of love, sex, pop music, amateur detective work, and personal reinvention. Debut novelist Catie Disabato bursts on the scene with an ingeniously plotted, witty, haunting mystery.
282 pages, Paperback
First published May 5, 2015
104 people are currently reading
4126 people want to read
About the author
Catie Disabato
3 books107 followersI am a stacked twenty-eight-year-old blonde on Sunset Boulevard. I am also a writer. Debut novel 'The Ghost Network' coming Spring 2015 from @MelvilleHouse.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 326 reviews
May 19, 2017
Enormous fun - a faux-academic text/true crime account, replete with footnotes, about the disappearance of a fictional pop star, that takes numerous detours into various ideas, conspiracies, and subplots. It's ostensibly the story of Molly Metropolis (a very Lady Gaga-esque figure) going missing, closely followed by a fan who was looking for her, music journalist Caitlin Taer, but it spins off into an exploration of situationism, psychogeography, and Chicago's public transport system. Admittedly the examination of such concepts is all very surface-level, but it's still clear the book has aspirations towards something more complex than a conspiracy thriller. These diversions and the obvious riffs on real celebrities' images are themselves a demonstration of the oft-referenced situationist concept of
détournement
, while the titular ghost network is, unexpectedly, a map of every possible permutation of 'the L', Chicago's elevated railway - real, proposed, and imagined. The Ghost Network itself is supposed to be an existing book, written about the mysteries of Metropolis and Taer by an English professor named Cyrus Archer, found and edited by a fictionalised version of Catie Disabato after his disappearance. It's all very meta - this-within-this-within-this. It's also completely absorbing, addictive, funny and wonderfully energetic.
I'm not really sure the book will reach its perfect audience while being described as 'Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl for adults' - that's pretty wide of the mark; while it frequently talks about Tumblr fan culture, etc, readers who loved Fangirl won't necessarily want to read a book that goes on about a) Guy Debord and b) trains for pages at a time. Amy hit the nail on the head much more accurately with her comment on my rating - 'a little bit Scarlett Thomas, a little bit Marisha Pessl'. Like Pessl's Night Film , this is a clue-driven, conspiracy-laden adventure that revolves around an invented pop-culture figure. Like Thomas's fiction, it touches on a lot of big ideas while remaining entirely accessible, light in tone and fun to read.
I'd been eagerly awaiting this since reading an extract - the epilogue and first chapter - in Penguin Random House's Spring 2015 Debut Fiction Sampler. That sample was so good that I ended up buying The Ghost Network on the day it came out and reading the entire thing that same day. The rest of it maybe didn't quite live up to the opening - but that's mainly because I wished it had been (and think it easily could have been) twice the length - and it's not as good as Night Film, which has a similar-ish premise. But it's still by far the best new book I have read this year.
I'm not really sure the book will reach its perfect audience while being described as 'Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl for adults' - that's pretty wide of the mark; while it frequently talks about Tumblr fan culture, etc, readers who loved Fangirl won't necessarily want to read a book that goes on about a) Guy Debord and b) trains for pages at a time. Amy hit the nail on the head much more accurately with her comment on my rating - 'a little bit Scarlett Thomas, a little bit Marisha Pessl'. Like Pessl's Night Film , this is a clue-driven, conspiracy-laden adventure that revolves around an invented pop-culture figure. Like Thomas's fiction, it touches on a lot of big ideas while remaining entirely accessible, light in tone and fun to read.
I'd been eagerly awaiting this since reading an extract - the epilogue and first chapter - in Penguin Random House's Spring 2015 Debut Fiction Sampler. That sample was so good that I ended up buying The Ghost Network on the day it came out and reading the entire thing that same day. The rest of it maybe didn't quite live up to the opening - but that's mainly because I wished it had been (and think it easily could have been) twice the length - and it's not as good as Night Film, which has a similar-ish premise. But it's still by far the best new book I have read this year.
June 18, 2015
I don’t know whose bright idea it was to describe this as “Fangirl for adults,” because that is absolutely one of the most misguided comparisons I can imagine. That’s like watching Inception and describing it as The Breakfast Club for adults. They’re not really the same thing at all, except that they’re both stories told in the same medium. Just wildly different stories, that’s all.
So if you came to this book expecting an adult version of Fangirl, you are going to be incredibly disappointed. That’s a breezy young adult novel about anxiety and romance; this is dense, slow-moving metafiction at its meta-iest. Marisha Pessl’s fans are way, way more likely to enjoy this than Rainbow Rowell’s (the basics of the plot are really quite similar to Night Film, only this version is a lot shorter and less sinister).
In early 2010, pop star Molly Metropolis disappeared without a trace while on tour in Chicago. A few months later, Caitlin Taer disappeared while she was with her girlfriend -- Molly’s former personal assistant -- and a man who had been Molly’s friend. Cyrus Archer began looking into the connection between these two disappearances and The Ghost Network is written as the long-form journalism piece that resulted from his investigation. The introduction explains how a fictionalized editor version of author Catie Disabato came into possession of Archer’s work, and the book is peppered with her footnotes. Archer's main piece of evidence is Taer’s journals, which revealed the young woman’s love for Molly Metropolis and her desire to find the missing pop star.
So this is a fake nonfiction piece about a journalist looking for a young woman who was looking for another young woman.
Things get pretty dense pretty quickly, as Disabato/Archer explains how Taer became involved with Molly’s assistant and friend, and how both missing women became fascinated with a (fictional) group that was trying to pay homage to a (real-life) philosophical movement called Situationism. There’s a lot of info dumping here that tries to explain Situationism’s history and beliefs, and I’m not sure I even begin to accurately explain the layers upon layers of investigation, philosophy, secrecy, and conspiracy theory that gets folded in. A lot of readers will be turned off by the info dumping, and that’s totally fair. I occasionally found myself struggling to remember who knew what when amidst all the philosophical discussions, especially if I was coming back to the book after some time away. In that regard, it’s not always the most rewarding read but the basic mystery of the book – what happened to Molly and did the same thing happen to Taer – is still engaging enough that I had to keep going, even if I didn’t completely grasp the Situationism stuff. And I loved Disabato’s use of the multilayered meta structure. The kind of weird, wannabe-Utopian ideas contained inside really scream out for that kind of storytelling and it’s used to great effect here.
I highly recommend this book for readers interested in experimental fiction and underground societies doing their underground thing. If you’re looking for an adult version of Fangirl, however, maybe try something a little more like Where’d You Go Bernadette ?
So if you came to this book expecting an adult version of Fangirl, you are going to be incredibly disappointed. That’s a breezy young adult novel about anxiety and romance; this is dense, slow-moving metafiction at its meta-iest. Marisha Pessl’s fans are way, way more likely to enjoy this than Rainbow Rowell’s (the basics of the plot are really quite similar to Night Film, only this version is a lot shorter and less sinister).
In early 2010, pop star Molly Metropolis disappeared without a trace while on tour in Chicago. A few months later, Caitlin Taer disappeared while she was with her girlfriend -- Molly’s former personal assistant -- and a man who had been Molly’s friend. Cyrus Archer began looking into the connection between these two disappearances and The Ghost Network is written as the long-form journalism piece that resulted from his investigation. The introduction explains how a fictionalized editor version of author Catie Disabato came into possession of Archer’s work, and the book is peppered with her footnotes. Archer's main piece of evidence is Taer’s journals, which revealed the young woman’s love for Molly Metropolis and her desire to find the missing pop star.
So this is a fake nonfiction piece about a journalist looking for a young woman who was looking for another young woman.
Things get pretty dense pretty quickly, as Disabato/Archer explains how Taer became involved with Molly’s assistant and friend, and how both missing women became fascinated with a (fictional) group that was trying to pay homage to a (real-life) philosophical movement called Situationism. There’s a lot of info dumping here that tries to explain Situationism’s history and beliefs, and I’m not sure I even begin to accurately explain the layers upon layers of investigation, philosophy, secrecy, and conspiracy theory that gets folded in. A lot of readers will be turned off by the info dumping, and that’s totally fair. I occasionally found myself struggling to remember who knew what when amidst all the philosophical discussions, especially if I was coming back to the book after some time away. In that regard, it’s not always the most rewarding read but the basic mystery of the book – what happened to Molly and did the same thing happen to Taer – is still engaging enough that I had to keep going, even if I didn’t completely grasp the Situationism stuff. And I loved Disabato’s use of the multilayered meta structure. The kind of weird, wannabe-Utopian ideas contained inside really scream out for that kind of storytelling and it’s used to great effect here.
I highly recommend this book for readers interested in experimental fiction and underground societies doing their underground thing. If you’re looking for an adult version of Fangirl, however, maybe try something a little more like Where’d You Go Bernadette ?
January 6, 2021
A combo of pop journalism and fictional investigation. In an unadorned, straightforward style, Disabato relates the events over limited timelines and spaces, traversing the same points repeatedly while layering on new meanings with each passthrough, affording an atmospheric reading experience unlike any other.
A missing popstar is only the beginning. As the author untangles the threads and threats surrounding the performances, interests, and people orbiting the gravity well of the mostly absent protagonist, we are given a well-rounded picture of an intricately planned cast of characters. Their conceits, loves, and most of all, the central axis which connects them, this abiding fascination with an idol and her redefinition of an art form, extending into every facet of life.
The mystery deepens into an exploration of missing places, cartographic anomalies, musical trivia, pop culture obsessions, and historical contexts. A thoroughly researched, impressive, immersive, loving tribute to postmodern literary genre-bending.
Sign me up for anything the author writes in the future. I'm on board. This one made me want to take a train to Chicago, to explore cities with new eyes. For I've always felt an undercurrent in inhabited places, composed of the secrets indwelling. Architectural fondness, elegiac longing for a vanished star. Metafictional footnotes. A web of intriguing possibilities, so convincing they could only be the product of a creative imagination.
Every bit of it is woven together with an assured confidence, the effort of an endless series of careful maneuvers. The author shows herself to be a capable creator of a functioning fictional universe.
A missing popstar is only the beginning. As the author untangles the threads and threats surrounding the performances, interests, and people orbiting the gravity well of the mostly absent protagonist, we are given a well-rounded picture of an intricately planned cast of characters. Their conceits, loves, and most of all, the central axis which connects them, this abiding fascination with an idol and her redefinition of an art form, extending into every facet of life.
The mystery deepens into an exploration of missing places, cartographic anomalies, musical trivia, pop culture obsessions, and historical contexts. A thoroughly researched, impressive, immersive, loving tribute to postmodern literary genre-bending.
Sign me up for anything the author writes in the future. I'm on board. This one made me want to take a train to Chicago, to explore cities with new eyes. For I've always felt an undercurrent in inhabited places, composed of the secrets indwelling. Architectural fondness, elegiac longing for a vanished star. Metafictional footnotes. A web of intriguing possibilities, so convincing they could only be the product of a creative imagination.
Every bit of it is woven together with an assured confidence, the effort of an endless series of careful maneuvers. The author shows herself to be a capable creator of a functioning fictional universe.
July 20, 2015
There have been novels that mask themselves as nonfiction (kind of like mockumentary films) for a long time, but the genre has never really taken off. This book shows a lot of the pros and cons that come with this style.
The subject matter--a Lady-Gaga-esque pop star who disappears--doesn't require this kind of format, but it's not a bad choice when you have a character who's heavily invested in research. Especially if it's obscure art and philosophy and cartography, like you have here. When your plot is bound up in much that feels academic, it makes sense to use this kind of narrative device.
THE GHOST NETWORK has a strong start and a strong finish, though the middle can feel like it loses the narrative quite often. Catie Disabato, according to the book, is not the actual author but is picking up after the death of the original author, her mentor. This device, where Disabato will occasionally show up in a footnote to comment, works very well sometimes but could be used a lot more.
The academic elements of the novel never quite gel. It all seems rather nonsensical for much of the book, and it seems even stranger that the pop star, Molly Metropolis, and her entourage and a journalist and the author of the book and Disabato all get so entranced by this information.
On the other hand, amidst the philosophy and history, there's the story of Molly's disappearance and the people who decide to find her. This story often feels much more like a novel than a work of nonfiction, since so many of the romantic and sexual relationships are outlined in the kind of detail that doesn't have much to do with the main plot.
It's choppy and uneven, but I still found myself very happy with it at the end once I'd made it through the middle. It's certainly ambitious and unusual and for that alone it deserves a lot of attention.
The subject matter--a Lady-Gaga-esque pop star who disappears--doesn't require this kind of format, but it's not a bad choice when you have a character who's heavily invested in research. Especially if it's obscure art and philosophy and cartography, like you have here. When your plot is bound up in much that feels academic, it makes sense to use this kind of narrative device.
THE GHOST NETWORK has a strong start and a strong finish, though the middle can feel like it loses the narrative quite often. Catie Disabato, according to the book, is not the actual author but is picking up after the death of the original author, her mentor. This device, where Disabato will occasionally show up in a footnote to comment, works very well sometimes but could be used a lot more.
The academic elements of the novel never quite gel. It all seems rather nonsensical for much of the book, and it seems even stranger that the pop star, Molly Metropolis, and her entourage and a journalist and the author of the book and Disabato all get so entranced by this information.
On the other hand, amidst the philosophy and history, there's the story of Molly's disappearance and the people who decide to find her. This story often feels much more like a novel than a work of nonfiction, since so many of the romantic and sexual relationships are outlined in the kind of detail that doesn't have much to do with the main plot.
It's choppy and uneven, but I still found myself very happy with it at the end once I'd made it through the middle. It's certainly ambitious and unusual and for that alone it deserves a lot of attention.
March 19, 2020
At first I was into it. The whole larger-than-life-pop-star-goes-missing thing was fun enough and kept me engaged for the first hundred pages or so.
Then I got a little lost trying to keep track of all the “Situationist” mythology and the consistently growing cast of characters with silly names. But I was still sort of enjoying it, so I kept reading.
Towards the end, I felt like every paragraph read something like this:
“Nix and Taer thought Molly didn’t like Nix even though Ali said that Peaches thought Molly said Nix was cool. Berliner makes a pop culture reference, and Peaches looked at Molly who didn’t exactly trust Berliner, but Peaches and Taer have been really close to Molly ever since Nix first met her.”
It was like reading a transcript of some annoying girl who gossips too much about dumb shit. I couldn’t help thinking “shut up and just tell me what really happened.”
Props for the clever layout (footnotes, Youtube and news article links (even though none of them are real)) and for the whole world building thing. The Ghost Network has lots of neat ideas, and it wasn’t a bad execution, I just don’t think it was for me.
Then I got a little lost trying to keep track of all the “Situationist” mythology and the consistently growing cast of characters with silly names. But I was still sort of enjoying it, so I kept reading.
Towards the end, I felt like every paragraph read something like this:
“Nix and Taer thought Molly didn’t like Nix even though Ali said that Peaches thought Molly said Nix was cool. Berliner makes a pop culture reference, and Peaches looked at Molly who didn’t exactly trust Berliner, but Peaches and Taer have been really close to Molly ever since Nix first met her.”
It was like reading a transcript of some annoying girl who gossips too much about dumb shit. I couldn’t help thinking “shut up and just tell me what really happened.”
Props for the clever layout (footnotes, Youtube and news article links (even though none of them are real)) and for the whole world building thing. The Ghost Network has lots of neat ideas, and it wasn’t a bad execution, I just don’t think it was for me.
April 24, 2015
Sounded promising but ended up being a huge drag, very un-fun and annoying. Oh my god, holy shit was it bad.
November 24, 2015
I wanted to love this book - its description piqued my interest as a puzzling plot that would tap a Westing Game vein. Instead, The Ghost Network is an homage to the amount of research Disabato did on a seemingly obscure French philosophy. Why Disabato is interested in Situationist theory, I don't know, but the book reads very much as though it's her fascination we're following and not really Molly's.
The journalistic approach Disabato takes is uneven - her footnotes are sometimes presented academically and are sometimes personal commentary. And the "onion approach" of Diabato retreading Cyrus' preliminary manuscript that followed Nix and Taer and Berliner's story following Molly's story is overly complicated and anesthetic. Somehow the novel aims to make you passionate about a moldering French philosophy instead of the people (whose passion for said philosophy seems shoehorned into them rather than organically expressed).
The relationship between Taer and Nix is the closest you'll get to humanity; Berliner has a few moments, but operates in a rather cultish fervor like droid under the influence of the incarcerated Kraus.
I'm sure there are people who thought this book was smart and meta and intricate, but I just found it forced, overly proud of its own intellectual angle, full of dry-as-dirt research and characters that never quite authentically embraced that philosophy other than the way the author shellacked it on top of them.
The journalistic approach Disabato takes is uneven - her footnotes are sometimes presented academically and are sometimes personal commentary. And the "onion approach" of Diabato retreading Cyrus' preliminary manuscript that followed Nix and Taer and Berliner's story following Molly's story is overly complicated and anesthetic. Somehow the novel aims to make you passionate about a moldering French philosophy instead of the people (whose passion for said philosophy seems shoehorned into them rather than organically expressed).
The relationship between Taer and Nix is the closest you'll get to humanity; Berliner has a few moments, but operates in a rather cultish fervor like droid under the influence of the incarcerated Kraus.
I'm sure there are people who thought this book was smart and meta and intricate, but I just found it forced, overly proud of its own intellectual angle, full of dry-as-dirt research and characters that never quite authentically embraced that philosophy other than the way the author shellacked it on top of them.
Read
July 29, 2015I have so many feels about this book. (Are we allowed to still say “feels” in 2015? Ah, who cares! I have them.) Any book that takes me this long to read because the fictional elements blend so seamlessly with the actual historical anecdotes that I end up lost on Wikipedia reading about the too-crazy-to-believe-it-was-real-life reality is going to be one of my lifetime favorites. Combine that with LGBTQA main characters and a pop-culture laden plot and I am completely and totally 100% smitten.
I was hooked from page one with Disabato’s writing which manages to make a story that includes subversive political revolutionaries, obscure secret societies, very contemporary pop culture, and a gripping mystery all blend together in a beautiful, mind-bending tale. There were times I could feel the influence of Hunter S. Thompson, other times Dan Brown, in her storytelling. Her writing is contemporary, and the book is not shy about carving out its very specific niche in time, but this book is destined to become a new classic. I can feel it in my bones. The Ghost Network has just the right balance of romance, mystery, and social commentary. –Brandi Bailey
from The Best Books of 2015 So Far: http://bookriot.com/2015/07/08/the-be...
I was hooked from page one with Disabato’s writing which manages to make a story that includes subversive political revolutionaries, obscure secret societies, very contemporary pop culture, and a gripping mystery all blend together in a beautiful, mind-bending tale. There were times I could feel the influence of Hunter S. Thompson, other times Dan Brown, in her storytelling. Her writing is contemporary, and the book is not shy about carving out its very specific niche in time, but this book is destined to become a new classic. I can feel it in my bones. The Ghost Network has just the right balance of romance, mystery, and social commentary. –Brandi Bailey
from The Best Books of 2015 So Far: http://bookriot.com/2015/07/08/the-be...
June 17, 2015
You are either a fiction book or you are not. You either want to include the "information/cite" or yo don't. None of the cites added to the narrative. It went on tirades of information that did not move the plot or explain the motives. Why put websites in the footnotes if they don't exist. If you are going to take the extra step take it all the way, make the website/facebook post. It was a total disappointment I had to force myself to finish.
March 10, 2015
This book is mostly ok but if you're going to write a book about popular music, get your facts straight. There was one glaring error a little over half way through that caused me to quit reading. Early David Bowie is the late 60s/early 70s not the early 80s and Ziggy Stardust is most definitely not "synth pop." Sorry, I couldn't keep reading, there are too many books out there.
July 6, 2015
I can not even begin to describe how awful this book was. First I will give the props it deserves. It was well written, lots of facts. The author really gives you exactly what she intends. She wants to give you a book that felt real, that made you want to look up on the internet to see if perhaps this work of fiction you were sure was fiction, might just not be so fictional after all. She does that. She achieves her goal....but that is all she does. I hated this book. It was less story and more just a bunch of facts that could be interesting if it was about something real but who wants to know all the intimate details of secrets organizations that do not exist. The book is suppose to be about a missing pop star and a girl who went missing while looking for her. It ends up being more about the reason the pop star disappears in the first place. I swear by the end of the book I wanted to throw it against the wall and don't even get me started on the epilogue. Thank goodness this book was so short. I don't think I would have made it though if it was any longer.
July 8, 2015
My reading of this book could be charted as a sharp swing up and then a slow and sad decline. On the one hand, yes, this is ingenious, original, and full of exciting notions - a missing pop star, psychogeography, a true crime thriller hiding in a novel - but I think it collapsed under its own promise. I was waiting for the big reveal, the pay-off after all this meticulous research, fake or not. But the book sort of just ended. A good book, but not as good as I'd hoped.
August 7, 2015
Framed in the style of an academic treatise, this book tells the story of the disappearance of Molly Metropolis, world-famous pop star, and the people who get lost trying to find her.
The concept of this book is really interesting, and I love books that are told in an unconventional fashion but The Ghost Network just got caught up in dull tangents on, for example, the invented philosophy that fascinates Molly. I think this book would have been much more engaging if it had actually shown the documents that the fictional academic who "wrote" the book had pulled from, rather than using a rather reserved writing style that made me feel like there was a glass wall between the characters and the reader and significantly decreased the reader's investment in the characters' fate.
Ultimately, a bit of a disappointment.
The concept of this book is really interesting, and I love books that are told in an unconventional fashion but The Ghost Network just got caught up in dull tangents on, for example, the invented philosophy that fascinates Molly. I think this book would have been much more engaging if it had actually shown the documents that the fictional academic who "wrote" the book had pulled from, rather than using a rather reserved writing style that made me feel like there was a glass wall between the characters and the reader and significantly decreased the reader's investment in the characters' fate.
Ultimately, a bit of a disappointment.
May 18, 2015
~review by j~
This wasn't my cup of tea. I got too lost in the extra facts the author threw in. And the ending. It. Was. Terrible. All of that adventure for THAT ending? I don't want to spoil anything, but the ending of the last chapter certainly had me wondering why I bothered to finish reading the epilogue, where you find the real ending. And I feel like the Sable Island thread wasn't wrapped up as neatly as the others. It was really well written, I just ended up losing myself in the fact dumps the author threw in and hating the ending. I mean, if you're up to learning all about stuff the seemingly doesn't apply to the story, then this is the book for you. If not, don't read this book.
~review by j~
This wasn't my cup of tea. I got too lost in the extra facts the author threw in. And the ending. It. Was. Terrible. All of that adventure for THAT ending? I don't want to spoil anything, but the ending of the last chapter certainly had me wondering why I bothered to finish reading the epilogue, where you find the real ending. And I feel like the Sable Island thread wasn't wrapped up as neatly as the others. It was really well written, I just ended up losing myself in the fact dumps the author threw in and hating the ending. I mean, if you're up to learning all about stuff the seemingly doesn't apply to the story, then this is the book for you. If not, don't read this book.
~review by j~
May 19, 2018
I must have come across a recommendation of ‘The Ghost Network’ on the internet somewhere, and was presumably attracted by the references to Chicago’s public transport network. The narrative has several framing mechanisms and strongly reminded me of those mystery podcasts that pretend to be non-fiction: TANIS, for example. It centres on the disappearance of Molly Metropolis, a pop star who is equal parts Lady Gaga and Janelle Monae. As in mystery podcasts, the investigation sprawls all over the place, taking in other disappearances, conspiracy theories, and crimes. Although I wasn’t altogether invested in the central mystery, I really enjoyed the way that it was told. (Despite always losing interest in similar podcasts; clearly I just favour the written word.) The range of reference points was appealing: situationists, mapmaking, and the aesthetics of pop music. The characters are an amusingly and convincingly flawed bunch of obsessives, the settings vivid and pleasantly odd. The footnotes were a nice touch.
Although shelved under ‘crime’, I found ‘The Ghost Network’ to be a fitting tribute to the Situationists as it meandered and digressed around the mystery. I didn’t feel a sense of tension and wasn’t impatient for the denouement, as the joy of the book was its abortive failed kidnappings, drunken arguments, and explanations of détournement and psychogeography. Although the epilogue tied things up with seeming neatness, I preferred to read it as another potentially unreliable source. All told, a fresh and fun novel. Did the cover need to be that unhappy shade of neon orange, though?
Although shelved under ‘crime’, I found ‘The Ghost Network’ to be a fitting tribute to the Situationists as it meandered and digressed around the mystery. I didn’t feel a sense of tension and wasn’t impatient for the denouement, as the joy of the book was its abortive failed kidnappings, drunken arguments, and explanations of détournement and psychogeography. Although the epilogue tied things up with seeming neatness, I preferred to read it as another potentially unreliable source. All told, a fresh and fun novel. Did the cover need to be that unhappy shade of neon orange, though?
abandoned
February 24, 2016I've read good reviews of this book but once I started reading it, I had a love/hate relationship with it. It's too gimmicky & I'm just plain tired of modern books that have too many product placement mentions in them. (I'm looking at you, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series; Where'd You Go, Bernadette?; and even Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore.) Sure, sometimes the product mentions fit the story, but they were well-overused in the 75 pages I read in this particular book. The concept sounded neat, but I found the writing clunky & repetitive. Pynchon can pull weird, disparate, & modern things together for a rollicking read & this isn't that. Not by a long shot. Oh well. Not my style, though reviews seem to suggest that it would certainly be liked by many. Giving up w/out finishing & returning this one to the library.
June 20, 2015
Loved the Chicago. Loved the Situationists. Really didn't love other parts. But... didn't dare put it down either. Sometimes you try a crazy recipe and it isn't nearly as good as you thought it would be - but you're still full.
March 16, 2021
Going by the description alone this book sounded wildly attractive. All the more so for featuring things that specifically wildly attract this reader, such as secret societies, mysteries and, the main one, subway systems. The latter might seem like a strange attractor, but a mere mention of metro sends my mind into a sort of Neverwhere infused happy place.
But then there was matter of reviews,…while critically acclaimed, it didn’t seem to rank as high with regular readers, neither on Amazon nor GR. Well, the good won out. And I did read the book. And now, having read it, it’s easy to understand the divergence of reviews. For all of its plot convolutions, ingenious narrative contortions, clever interweaving of real historical events and figures into a fictional story and, possibly most importantly, it’s undeniable originality, there’s much to praise here. This book practically screams critical darling. But then there’s a matter of general public appeal which usually relies on easily defined presets and ideas and likeable characters…and the book doesn’t really pander to that, almost at all.
Sure, it’s main star is a pop music juggernaut, Molly Metropolis, and the book is essentially a narrative of her adoring fans/posse/friends who are desperately trying to solve her sudden disappearance. But that oh so hip pop culture connection might not be enough to engender the book for some/most readers.
The Ghost Network is decidedly cerebral in a way that might turn off some audiences. It features random, randomly fascinating components, like obscure European counterculture artistic minded revolutionaries and extensive (and I mean extensive) coverage of the Chicago subway system, both existing and intended. It contemplates the nature of fame and meaning of life and creativity. The juxtaposition of work to play as a way to go through one’s life. It’s heavy and serious and really freaking interesting. But, unlike Molly Metropolis’ music, it isn’t an easily digestible fare.
The book is structured as a serious investigation wherein the author Disabato follows a researcher named Cyrus who followed Molly’s disappearance and tried to solve it, so it’s a fictional documentary account, comprised of interviews, observations, diary entries, etc., but all of them processed and streamlined into a cohesive chronological narrative, complete with extensive footnotes. The final result is somewhat dense for a fiction book, but like most bodies of considerable density, it exudes a potent gravitational appeal.
The structure being done this way provides a certain distance from the charaters, so we don’t really get to know them that much and that’s fine, they aren’t all that likeable, but they are interesting and searching and that certainly drives the novel along.
The Situationalists are absolutely fascinating and I’ve never heard about them until now and their concepts of detournement and derive and, especially, psychogeography were very much of interest and relevance to me. And yes, there are secrets below Chicago’s streets as the novel eventually reveals. It takes a while to get there and the final chapter seems like something of a letdown almost or at least underwhelming, until the epilogue. The epilogue absolutely kills, delivering on all of the promise of the novel with a great final twist.
So a strange, offbeat, different sort of a read. But a very good one all the same, at least for the right readers. The author states in her afterword it took years to put it all together and it’s easy to understand how, but once the plot coheres, it’s really something to behold. It certainly credit for originality alone. I enjoyed this book. Used mileage may vary. Recommended.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
But then there was matter of reviews,…while critically acclaimed, it didn’t seem to rank as high with regular readers, neither on Amazon nor GR. Well, the good won out. And I did read the book. And now, having read it, it’s easy to understand the divergence of reviews. For all of its plot convolutions, ingenious narrative contortions, clever interweaving of real historical events and figures into a fictional story and, possibly most importantly, it’s undeniable originality, there’s much to praise here. This book practically screams critical darling. But then there’s a matter of general public appeal which usually relies on easily defined presets and ideas and likeable characters…and the book doesn’t really pander to that, almost at all.
Sure, it’s main star is a pop music juggernaut, Molly Metropolis, and the book is essentially a narrative of her adoring fans/posse/friends who are desperately trying to solve her sudden disappearance. But that oh so hip pop culture connection might not be enough to engender the book for some/most readers.
The Ghost Network is decidedly cerebral in a way that might turn off some audiences. It features random, randomly fascinating components, like obscure European counterculture artistic minded revolutionaries and extensive (and I mean extensive) coverage of the Chicago subway system, both existing and intended. It contemplates the nature of fame and meaning of life and creativity. The juxtaposition of work to play as a way to go through one’s life. It’s heavy and serious and really freaking interesting. But, unlike Molly Metropolis’ music, it isn’t an easily digestible fare.
The book is structured as a serious investigation wherein the author Disabato follows a researcher named Cyrus who followed Molly’s disappearance and tried to solve it, so it’s a fictional documentary account, comprised of interviews, observations, diary entries, etc., but all of them processed and streamlined into a cohesive chronological narrative, complete with extensive footnotes. The final result is somewhat dense for a fiction book, but like most bodies of considerable density, it exudes a potent gravitational appeal.
The structure being done this way provides a certain distance from the charaters, so we don’t really get to know them that much and that’s fine, they aren’t all that likeable, but they are interesting and searching and that certainly drives the novel along.
The Situationalists are absolutely fascinating and I’ve never heard about them until now and their concepts of detournement and derive and, especially, psychogeography were very much of interest and relevance to me. And yes, there are secrets below Chicago’s streets as the novel eventually reveals. It takes a while to get there and the final chapter seems like something of a letdown almost or at least underwhelming, until the epilogue. The epilogue absolutely kills, delivering on all of the promise of the novel with a great final twist.
So a strange, offbeat, different sort of a read. But a very good one all the same, at least for the right readers. The author states in her afterword it took years to put it all together and it’s easy to understand how, but once the plot coheres, it’s really something to behold. It certainly credit for originality alone. I enjoyed this book. Used mileage may vary. Recommended.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
abandoned
June 23, 2021DNF @ 40%
I hate DNF'ing, but this is just not the book for me. I'm not a fan of meta style books that pretend to be nonfiction, and the incredibly dense and dry way this is written honestly made it feel more like a 600 page essay than an under 300 page fiction. The sheer amount of random, unnecessary details made it both uninteresting to read and the whole concept of it being pieced together from mostly 2nd and 3rd hand accounts incredibly unrealistic. I wanted to really like this book, but the mystery element was so buried in faux-research and philosophy that I genuinely dreaded picking it back up.
I hate DNF'ing, but this is just not the book for me. I'm not a fan of meta style books that pretend to be nonfiction, and the incredibly dense and dry way this is written honestly made it feel more like a 600 page essay than an under 300 page fiction. The sheer amount of random, unnecessary details made it both uninteresting to read and the whole concept of it being pieced together from mostly 2nd and 3rd hand accounts incredibly unrealistic. I wanted to really like this book, but the mystery element was so buried in faux-research and philosophy that I genuinely dreaded picking it back up.
July 26, 2022
A disappointing, overly wrought mix of Daisy Jones and the 6 with Crying of Lot 49.
July 3, 2015
My review for THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE:
The first question in the Reading Group Guide for Catie Disabato's quirky and high-concept debut novel "The Ghost Network" is: "How does the framing device of Cyrus Archer's reporting and Catie Disabato's editing alter your connection to the characters?"
The way you answer will affect whether you'll end up enjoying this conspiracy-packed mystery, full of shipwrecks, Situationism and phantom CTA lines, or whether you'll find it too gimmicky. Disabato's premise is that Molly Metropolis — a paradoxically non-conformist yet massively popular Lady Gaga-esque pop star — has gone missing while on her way to a show in Chicago, and that four months later, Caitlin "Cait" Taer, a friend and lover of Metropolis' personal assistant, Gina Nix, has disappeared — and is presumed dead — in a boating accident in Lake Michigan. These seemingly connected puzzles have prompted an author named Cyrus Archer to write a book-length account of where each of these women has vanished to and why.
This elaborate setup necessitates that Disabato, the real author, must position herself as the recipient of the account, which she does in her "Note from the Editor." "I inherited … a polished draft of this manuscript, but not a complete one," Disabato explains, which means that, "I have tried to fill in the gaps in attribution as best I can, using Cyrus' notes and in a few cases re-interviewing some of his interviewees."
Personally, I appreciated the extensive scaffolding that Disabato erects around the edifice of her story. But more importantly, the heavy framing is crucial not just to how she wants to tell this story, but also to the very story she wants to tell: one of fame and obscurity, loyalty and betrayal, knowability and the unknown, as well as "cultural obsession with mystery stories and disappearing women, critiquing the morbid curiosity in the tenor of... national response."
The novel's structure allows Disabato to layer the narrative with the multifarious documents and ephemera that constitute, and in some sense create and prove, any given person's existence, including YouTube videos, tweets, a Chicago Tribune obituary for Taer, a story about Metropolis in The New Yorker, and on and on. Disabato uses these sources to excellent effect as she creates both her characters and their circumstances, as when, in a profile from The New York Times Magazine called "Living in Molly's Metropolis," she depicts the pop star's determination in her statement that, "I wasn't like, 'I'm going to write this hit and be the world's biggest pop star.' I just wanted to feel the whole history of culture resonating through me."
The frame also lets Disabato include details like the fact that the tour Metropolis disappeared during was called "Apocalypse Ball," that her first album was entitled "Cause Célèbrety," and that she was "fascinated enough with the L to dedicate years of her life to designing a map that layered each potential, but never constructed, alternative or expansion to the L on top of a map of all the functioning L lines."
Metropolis, who grew up "biracial in a majority white space," is depicted as a Holly Golightly-esque figure who, Disabato (in her supposed editorial capacity) mentions, "tried to trick people into thinking they knew her by presenting a false version of herself." "The Ghost Network" is about fantasy and wish-fulfillment — as it applies both to people and to places — and therefore also about reality and self-deceit, and Disabato presents these competing but coexisting threads brilliantly.
Metropolis' favorite philosopher is Guy Debord, whom she has a habit of tweeting in unattributed paraphrases. Fittingly, Disabato's book is very much about both psychogeography and the society of the spectacle, and she gives readers plenty of both the city and fame's shiny surfaces, but also their depths in a way that is Pynchonesque and unpredictable, a strange and disturbing romp that is as weird and cinematic as Jacques Rivette's film "Céline and Julie Go Boating." Metropolis' single "Apocalypse Dance" has a "thirteen-minute Alice in Wonderland-themed music video," and this entire book is very down-the-rabbit-hole. Ambitious, digressive and occasionally overstuffed, "The Ghost Network" is a rewarding read — in other words, it's a rabbit hole well worth falling down.
The first question in the Reading Group Guide for Catie Disabato's quirky and high-concept debut novel "The Ghost Network" is: "How does the framing device of Cyrus Archer's reporting and Catie Disabato's editing alter your connection to the characters?"
The way you answer will affect whether you'll end up enjoying this conspiracy-packed mystery, full of shipwrecks, Situationism and phantom CTA lines, or whether you'll find it too gimmicky. Disabato's premise is that Molly Metropolis — a paradoxically non-conformist yet massively popular Lady Gaga-esque pop star — has gone missing while on her way to a show in Chicago, and that four months later, Caitlin "Cait" Taer, a friend and lover of Metropolis' personal assistant, Gina Nix, has disappeared — and is presumed dead — in a boating accident in Lake Michigan. These seemingly connected puzzles have prompted an author named Cyrus Archer to write a book-length account of where each of these women has vanished to and why.
This elaborate setup necessitates that Disabato, the real author, must position herself as the recipient of the account, which she does in her "Note from the Editor." "I inherited … a polished draft of this manuscript, but not a complete one," Disabato explains, which means that, "I have tried to fill in the gaps in attribution as best I can, using Cyrus' notes and in a few cases re-interviewing some of his interviewees."
Personally, I appreciated the extensive scaffolding that Disabato erects around the edifice of her story. But more importantly, the heavy framing is crucial not just to how she wants to tell this story, but also to the very story she wants to tell: one of fame and obscurity, loyalty and betrayal, knowability and the unknown, as well as "cultural obsession with mystery stories and disappearing women, critiquing the morbid curiosity in the tenor of... national response."
The novel's structure allows Disabato to layer the narrative with the multifarious documents and ephemera that constitute, and in some sense create and prove, any given person's existence, including YouTube videos, tweets, a Chicago Tribune obituary for Taer, a story about Metropolis in The New Yorker, and on and on. Disabato uses these sources to excellent effect as she creates both her characters and their circumstances, as when, in a profile from The New York Times Magazine called "Living in Molly's Metropolis," she depicts the pop star's determination in her statement that, "I wasn't like, 'I'm going to write this hit and be the world's biggest pop star.' I just wanted to feel the whole history of culture resonating through me."
The frame also lets Disabato include details like the fact that the tour Metropolis disappeared during was called "Apocalypse Ball," that her first album was entitled "Cause Célèbrety," and that she was "fascinated enough with the L to dedicate years of her life to designing a map that layered each potential, but never constructed, alternative or expansion to the L on top of a map of all the functioning L lines."
Metropolis, who grew up "biracial in a majority white space," is depicted as a Holly Golightly-esque figure who, Disabato (in her supposed editorial capacity) mentions, "tried to trick people into thinking they knew her by presenting a false version of herself." "The Ghost Network" is about fantasy and wish-fulfillment — as it applies both to people and to places — and therefore also about reality and self-deceit, and Disabato presents these competing but coexisting threads brilliantly.
Metropolis' favorite philosopher is Guy Debord, whom she has a habit of tweeting in unattributed paraphrases. Fittingly, Disabato's book is very much about both psychogeography and the society of the spectacle, and she gives readers plenty of both the city and fame's shiny surfaces, but also their depths in a way that is Pynchonesque and unpredictable, a strange and disturbing romp that is as weird and cinematic as Jacques Rivette's film "Céline and Julie Go Boating." Metropolis' single "Apocalypse Dance" has a "thirteen-minute Alice in Wonderland-themed music video," and this entire book is very down-the-rabbit-hole. Ambitious, digressive and occasionally overstuffed, "The Ghost Network" is a rewarding read — in other words, it's a rabbit hole well worth falling down.
August 24, 2015
This took me foreeeeeeeevvvvvveeeeeer to read. Technically sound, imaginative, and clever, but sweet baby Jesus is it a long set up for the payoff. So the premise is that a megafamous pop star styled after Lady Gaga disappears in the middle of her tour, and several months later a fan of hers disappears/is presumed dead in a boating accident in Lake Michigan, and a professor starts writing a nonfiction book about the disappearances, but then he dies and leaves his research to a former student so that she can finish the book, and she does, but uncovers a HUGE CONSPIRACY in her research.
It's pretty convoluted, but hey: at least it's novel! The problem is that the format of a non-fiction book is pretty dry to begin with, and then there's an entire thesis-worth of exposition on a defunct avant-garde French philosophical movement, the Situationist International, which drags the book down even further. Also the interactions with all of the main characters are from at least one remove, often more than one (insert footnote written by the first author and annotated by the second here), so that even when things pick up steam it's not very easy to feel invested in what's happening to them.
That being said, the last quarter of the book did pay off for me. I wasn't swept away, but I did distinctly feel like: yes, this is why I kept making myself pick this up. I spent most of the book admiring the author without enjoying the product, but the end helped tremendously. I still don't know if I can outright recommend this book because it was so much effort, but I'll pick up her next.
It's pretty convoluted, but hey: at least it's novel! The problem is that the format of a non-fiction book is pretty dry to begin with, and then there's an entire thesis-worth of exposition on a defunct avant-garde French philosophical movement, the Situationist International, which drags the book down even further. Also the interactions with all of the main characters are from at least one remove, often more than one (insert footnote written by the first author and annotated by the second here), so that even when things pick up steam it's not very easy to feel invested in what's happening to them.
That being said, the last quarter of the book did pay off for me. I wasn't swept away, but I did distinctly feel like: yes, this is why I kept making myself pick this up. I spent most of the book admiring the author without enjoying the product, but the end helped tremendously. I still don't know if I can outright recommend this book because it was so much effort, but I'll pick up her next.
March 27, 2016
What a turd.
The initial premise is interesting but the book quickly devolves into either pretentious nonsense or dry, boring descriptions of things that I didn't care about. For the number of pages that CD uses to describe the Situationists, I still didn't really understand them, sympathize with them, or find them at all interesting. They seem mostly to be inept Utopians with a half baked ideology, but are presented as having some sort of visionary philosophy (despite that philosophy never really being explained).
None of the characters are relatable, and the second, third, or even fourth hand methods of describing the 'action' of the book serve only to distance the reader even further from a number of boring people pursuing a vaguely ominous mystery. This style does have some interesting elements to it, but all of the other elements of the book were so dry I couldn't get into the narrative layers.
Overall I made it halfway through this book and then skimmed the rest. Unless you like reading about ludicrous urbanism schemes, or cant get enough of the words 'aesthetic' or 'obsession' I wouldn't waste your time on it.
The initial premise is interesting but the book quickly devolves into either pretentious nonsense or dry, boring descriptions of things that I didn't care about. For the number of pages that CD uses to describe the Situationists, I still didn't really understand them, sympathize with them, or find them at all interesting. They seem mostly to be inept Utopians with a half baked ideology, but are presented as having some sort of visionary philosophy (despite that philosophy never really being explained).
None of the characters are relatable, and the second, third, or even fourth hand methods of describing the 'action' of the book serve only to distance the reader even further from a number of boring people pursuing a vaguely ominous mystery. This style does have some interesting elements to it, but all of the other elements of the book were so dry I couldn't get into the narrative layers.
Overall I made it halfway through this book and then skimmed the rest. Unless you like reading about ludicrous urbanism schemes, or cant get enough of the words 'aesthetic' or 'obsession' I wouldn't waste your time on it.
August 13, 2015
Disclosure: I'm friends with the author. But don't let that influence your reading of my review, you know.
This is a really fascinating book. At times it's almost too convincing as a work of nonfiction -- I thought it was most successful when it allowed itself to get immersed in the story. Still, it's the sort of book that has you asking over and over again "Wait...is that for real?" The breadth of the material the book cover is pretty incredible, too: Guy Debord and the Situationists, modern pop stardom, cartography, the history of Chicago...it goes on and on.
And on top of all that, this is Disabato's first book. It's sort of unfair that she could pull this off first time out the gate.
This is a really fascinating book. At times it's almost too convincing as a work of nonfiction -- I thought it was most successful when it allowed itself to get immersed in the story. Still, it's the sort of book that has you asking over and over again "Wait...is that for real?" The breadth of the material the book cover is pretty incredible, too: Guy Debord and the Situationists, modern pop stardom, cartography, the history of Chicago...it goes on and on.
And on top of all that, this is Disabato's first book. It's sort of unfair that she could pull this off first time out the gate.
January 4, 2018
I get how this is not really for everyone, and the narrative premise is somewhat overly complicated and the pacing jumpy. But I (unsurprisingly) really enjoyed the urban and spatial philosophizing, and the obsessing over transit and spatial representation.
February 25, 2015
Not for everyone. The fake footnotes actually drove me kinda nuts.
August 3, 2015
Fantastic!
February 5, 2021
Experimental with multiple stories-within-stories. Sadly, the middle was long and plodding and lost me with the long tangents and histories of characters with complicated names. Clever with a lot of potential though, just wish the execution was better. I still give the author a lot kudos for going out on a limb with this one (and for her debut no less!).
Editing to add: so many random typos??? I caught at least 10! I even stopped reporting them as content errors because I started thinking maybe they were intentional in Cyrus’s writing (showing a deterioration of his mental state or something), but nothing at the end seemed to support that.
Editing to add: so many random typos??? I caught at least 10! I even stopped reporting them as content errors because I started thinking maybe they were intentional in Cyrus’s writing (showing a deterioration of his mental state or something), but nothing at the end seemed to support that.
January 24, 2019
I don't know why but I expected a bit more from the book. The whole "an author constructing another author's work" is an interesting style, but the contents of the book just weren't quite exciting enough to keep me enraptured. Some good twists and turns, and I loved Molly as a concept, but the final product leaves me a bit disappointed.
November 28, 2019
This was brilliantly executed. The real bled into the surreal to make for one hell of a read. I loved the style - written in a non-fiction style where the author is herself, picking up the lingering threads of the unfinished investigation of a close colleague. For an impulse library loan, this sure surprised me.
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