When We Were Ghouls: A Memoir of Ghost Stories

American Lives

by Amy E. Wallen

When Amy E. Wallen’s southern, blue-collar, peripatetic family was transferred from Ely, Nevada, to Lagos, Nigeria, she had just turned seven. From Nevada to Nigeria and on to Peru, Bolivia, and Oklahoma, the family wandered the world, living in a state of constant upheaval. When We Were Ghouls follows Wallen’s recollections of her family who, like ghosts, came and went and slipped through her fingers, rendering her memories unclear. Were they a family of grave robbers, as her memory of the pillaging of a pre-Incan grave site indicates? Are they, as the author’s mother posits, “hideous people?” Or is Wallen’s memory out of focus?

In this quick-paced and riveting narrative, Wallen exorcizes these haunted memories to clarify the nature of her family and, by extension, her own character. Plumbing the slipperiness of memory and confronting what it means to be a “good” human, When We Were Ghouls links the fear of loss and mortality to childhood ideas of permanence. It is a story about family, surely, but it is also a representation of how a combination of innocence and denial can cause us to neglect our most precious earthly treasures: not just our children but the artifacts of humanity and humanity itself.
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

294 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2018

Reviews

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have no particular interest in the macabre, the dead or ghostly entities but I am interested to know what makes people delve into such morbid curiosities. The opening chapter of this book was a look into a world very unfamiliar to me, so of course I had to keep reading!

This book is not just a ghost story but it does involve a lot of dead people! This memoir is mainly a gathering of memories, mementos and explorations into the past. The author Amy’s life is certainly something out of the ordinary as the opening chapter clearly demonstrates, a family grave digging for hidden loot in an ancient Peruvian ghost town not something you encounter on a daily basis! The book centres around Amy’s sketchy childhood memories which she tries to piece together with facts mixed in with some fantasy. There’s a lot of Amy moaning for her parents to pay more attention to her, parents that are too busy pursuing their own interests and careers that Amy feels undoubtedly neglected. The writing lacks direction and some parts felt unnecessary and felt more like filler but the story kept my attention taking me to such exotic locations such as Nigeria, Peru and Bolivia that I was more than happy to put up with Amy’s childish gripes. It just goes to show that even though Amy was given the world on a platter allowing Amy to experience different cultures front on, that all she really wanted was her parents undivided attention. There’s parts of Amy’s isolation and loneliness within her family that resonated with me but the memory vs imagined reality left me questioning too often what was truth or good storytelling from an over active imagination for these reasons this book gets 3 stars.

Thanks to Netgalley and University Of Nebraska Press for my review copy.

Publish date: 1st March 2018

[Valerity (Val) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir written by a woman trying to verify her strange memories of occasional grave robbing with her family growing up with frequent moves to unusual destinations, and some really odd memories that she can’t seem to decide if they are real or fantasy. Her siblings aren’t much help in sorting it out, so she tries fact-checking what she can on the internet and with maps, but ultimately she has to ask her parents to get the true story and she can’t wait much longer as they are already up in years, and her father is quickly losing his memory to illness. She needs to know soon, before its too late. Did they really disturb an actual grave of a prince who was buried with his faithful dog beside him? And after taking pieces of pottery and cloth that the man was buried in, along with the metal that had adorned his head...did the diggers scurry back after they left to grab the real prize, the gold buried under the body that Amy and her family has apparently been ignorant of? Being happy with their stolen trinkets (which was a serious enough crime) and may have cursed the family as it was.

An advance digital copy was provided by NetGalley, Amy E. Wallen, and the University of Nebraska Press for my review. Date of publication March 1, 2018

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Growing up in a Navy family meant moving around a lot, but one of my earliest childhood memories comes from right before my father shipped out.

My parents put my younger brother and I in a daycare facility on the Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia, so they could go shopping in peace at the commissary. I vividly recall playing outside and looking across the parking lot where I spotted my parents loading groceries into the back of the station wagon.

I watched in horror as they got in the car and drove away. I was convinced I would never see them again.

They picked us up a few hours later, but the memory lingers. I thought about this incident often as I read When We Were Ghouls, by San Diego writer Amy Wallen, published this month by University of Nebraska Press.

When Wallen was seven years old, she moved from the small town of Eli, Nevada, to Lagos, Nigeria, a city of eight million. Wallen’s father had been summoned to Africa by a petroleum company that tasked him with finding oil. That meant he was gone a lot, exploring the bush for resources to exploit. Her older siblings were sent to a boarding school in Switzerland, and after her mother was infected with malaria and was confined to bed, this left Wallen in the care of the staff that the oil company had hired to care for their expat employees.

“My family could have been magicians, their specialty: the disappearing act.”

With deadpan humor and youthful incredulity, Wallen explores a series of strange events, each more bizarre than the last: stepping over dead bodies on her way to school, witnessing a cook stab a clerk with a knife at her school and declining an invitation to attend the execution of a predator, who had, as the story goes, turned himself into a goat after being apprehended by the authorities.

Just as she was acclimating to Lagos, her family moved halfway across the globe to Lima, Peru, where things were even more ghoulish. On a rare weekend together, her family went on a trip to an ancient gravesite, which they promptly plundered for household décor. They even kept a skull, which was stashed in the pantry.

Wallen investigates these memories with the mordant wit of a wisecracking detective as she excavates the crippling loneliness and fear of abandonment that followed her from country to country.

[Pamela Everett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is unlike anything I've ever read. Amy masterfully weaves together memories of family, places and amazing experiences, and then observes them from her current perspective, reminding us all how our pasts, our lives - and other lives and deaths - are forever shaping us. I felt like she was walking me around a statue, sharing it with me from so many different angles, each one unique and compelling. A wonderful, wonderful book.

[Nic · Rating 4 out of 5]

To offer full disclosure, Amy Wallen is one of the first friends I made when I moved to San Diego and I'm a huge fan of her work, and her work with San Diego Writers Ink, Dime Stories, and other ways she contributes to our local writing community. But, as always, I will attempt an honest review.

I am not a fan of ghost stories, spookiness or being afraid, so I was a bit wary of the title. The first essay describes Wallen’s family digging through a gravesite in Nigeria - in daylight, thankfully - and though they find human bones, it has more of a geological dig vibe than a macabre scene. I did not realize Amy had grown up in third-world countries, with her father scouting sites for Big Oil, and found the environments she lived in, and the isolation of being an American child abroad quite fascinating.

Early on, this memoir poses the question: “were we good people or evil people?” and I don’t think it fully answers that question. Instead of examining US exploitation abroad, which certainly would become a polemic, Wallen strength is focusing on the loneliness of being “other” and how constantly changing circumstances (moving from country to country, culture to culture, family members and caretakers coming and going), make her world a place difficult to trust. The spirits that haunt the memoir are fading memories and siblings and parents who “disappear.” I felt a great deal of compassion for this honest portrayal of a lonely child unsure of herself, her family and the world around her. That is what makes When We Were Ghouls a compelling read.

[Susan Henderson]

Amy Wallen's wonderfully weird memoir, When We Were Ghouls, begins with a memory of grave robbing and follows her proximity to death throughout her youth spent as an ex-pat in Nigeria, Peru, and Bolivia. A mesmerizing story of the ghosts of memory that have her questioning, What really happened, and who were we? LOVED it.

[Nellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We had a new way of life, and it didn’t include the Piggly Wiggly anymore." It sure did not lol.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this book. I am delighted to have read this unique story for a review.

As I read this book, I felt a connection to the author as I live in Texas and have close friends from Peru. Although my accounts in life are not as severe as the author's, it made me think and reflect on how ghoulish we can be.

Family. Uncertainty. Discovery.

This book may not be for everyone, but I love these bits and pieces of story that will do follow me in book to real world scenarios.

I encourage you to pick it up and make your own opinion.

[Amy Wallen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought whoever wrote this book did a great job. Oh wait...

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

When We Were Ghouls was a good book. I read it in one day while waiting for a plumber to arrive…then another plumber…then a handyman. I enjoyed the thread connecting these episodes in the life of Amy Wallen and her Southern family who traveled the world due to her father’s mysterious employment, living in some downright terrifying places and situations—the idea that her family members were like ghosts, appearing for a while then disappearing suddenly. As much as I enjoyed traveling with this family, I felt sad for Amy, who had to be just about the most insecure child in the world, so afraid of being left alone. I’m glad she mentioned being friends with the protagonist of one of her favorite novels, but she doesn’t get there until part 3 of the book. I kept thinking, if you want to feel less alone, by all means, read a damn book! Parents and older sister and brother were doing their own things, not really looking after Amy, so I suppose that’s where the insecurity came from. But still, I sometimes lost patience with the narrative voice who was always feeling sorry for herself, even if she often had good reasons. At one point, she says upon watching her mother drive off, leaving her with the servants in Nigeria, “At that moment, I knew what it felt like to be wracked with sobs.” I teach essay writing to high school students, and I would never let any student get away with such a cliche, not to mention it being overly sentimental and self-indulgent. I also sometimes became annoyed when she lets the narrative veil slip, getting all self-reflexive, asking other family members if her memories were accurate. Whose story is this anyway? Amy Wallen’s story, that’s who. If your family members disagree with you about your memories, let them write their own memoirs. Just ride the wave and make no apologies. We know memory is a matter of perspective and that memoir is sometimes, “the art of inventing the truth” (William Zinsser), because no one’s memory is error proof, so have a little more faith in your readers, Wallen. If given the choice, I would give this one 3.5 stars.

[Crystal]

The description already tells you the author's greatest crime, grave robbing in Peru. It's hard to confess anything more indicative of the American pastime of plunder and, as a child, the author is far more concerned about her extreme feelings of loneliness because she is not aware on any surface level of what makes her family, as her mother puts it, "hideous people." Still, in retrospect this phrase is her constant worry, her refrain as she tries to get confirmation through conversations with her family of her evershifting memories of growing up in relative luxury in Nigeria, Peru, and Bolivia under the not-so-watchful eyes of her parents — one of whom may or may not be CIA or DEA — with the chaos of the outside world only sometimes filtering into her focus. The author wonders again and again if her loneliness is a curse that has befallen her because of her family's sins.

3.5

[Sue Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

when we were ghouls by Amy e wallen.
In this quick-paced and riveting narrative, Wallen exorcizes these haunted memories to clarify the nature of her family and, by extension, her own character. Plumbing the slipperiness of memory and confronting what it means to be a “good” human, When We Were Ghouls links the fear of loss and mortality to childhood ideas of permanence. It is a story about family, surely, but it is also a representation of how a combination of innocence and denial can cause us to neglect our most precious earthly treasures: not just our children but the artifacts of humanity and humanity itself.
 This was a good read. although I found it slow in places. I liked the story Amy wrote. 4*.

[Stella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amy Wallen's life has been anything but ordinary. Nevada, Nigeria, Peru, Bolivia and Oklahoma. Theses are the travels of a journalist, this was the life of a little girl and her family. Much of this is questioning her own memories versus what really happened and what really happened to what she believed.

This is about ghosts and ghouls, but more about the ghosts of our own lives, our own past.

Thanks to NetGalley, Amy Wallen and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Autobiographical work focused on a few years of Wallen's childhood, during which her family lived in Nigeria, Peru, and Bolivia. Recurring topics include school, pets, friends and loneliness, her father's job, and her relationship with her mother. Unusual experiences (for Americans) are scattered throughout, making this an interesting read.

I don't believe in the afterlife. But I do believe in ghosts.

Each time you remember it's a brand-new memory. Every time you remember, you re-write it. The more you remember it, the less accurate it becomes.

My family made appearances then just as quickly disappeared.

Anyone I became attached to never stayed for long. I was solidifying my fear of attachments to people or relatives.

I was always doing things I didn't want to do because everyone else was. If you didn't, you got ridiculed.

[Janilyn Kocher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess I missed the objective of this memoir. To me, the writing was disjointed and messy. It was more of a chronicle of the family's moves and the author's worry whether her mother would leave the family. I would have liked a more cohesive story. There are huge gaps that left me wondering what happened to her older siblings.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this book. In it, the writer recounts her childhood growing up overseas in an attempt to understand her family and the world around her. Both the memories she recounts from Nigeria, Peru, and Bolivia, as well as the realizations she comes to about how people move into and out her life—like ghosts—made this a really satisfying read.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fascinating life. It's no wonder that Amy became a storyteller and collector of the macabre.

[Amy Abrams · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much more than memoir - but what fascinating memoir it is! When We Were Ghouls is a beautiful exploration of the slipperiness of human memory, and the importance of story.

[Janet Topal · Rating 4 out of 5]

She had a very interesting childhood. She was very nice to meet and talk to.

[Melinda Anders · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author Amy Wallen had an interesting childhood. Her father worked for an oil company so travel throughout the world was necessary. She went from a small town in Nevada to Nigeria to Peru to Bolivia.
Amy's story gives us an insight into living in these places. It also gives us a glance into her thoughts growing up. She always seemed to feel alone and worried she would be forgotten by everyone.
I am just a few years older than Amy and I know and recognize what she talks about. I did enjoy the journey into her world.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book. The author did an amazing job of put down her thoughts and feelings of growing up in foreign lands and cultures. The emotions that came through were insightful, and the description of the different cultures through the eyes of child were interesting. The author showed how people remember things differently and as we grow old the memories sometimes change. A truly interesting book.