Books whose narrator is a ghost?

I can’t think of a better time for this question than October :slight_smile:

What are some narrators who are ghosts? Obviously these are first person POV.

I personally like Haunted by Kelley Armstrong and **A Certain Slant of Light **by Laura Whitcomb. And didn’t so much like Ghost Story by Jim Butcher.

Yeah, Ghost Story was definitely a low point in the Dresden Files.

Wasn’t the viewpoint character of The Lovely Bones a ghost? And technically, isn’t Joe in Sunset Boulevard one? Otherwise, how are they telling the story?

The narrator/protagonist of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is essentially a ghost.

Not a book, but the short story "Wait it out."

(If he’s not dead, he’s damn close…)

Sorry…I missed “book” in the OP. Obviously, SB doesn’t count because of that…

There’s The Discontented Ghost by Scott Corbett (author of the “Trick” books with Kirby and the chemistry set), which is a retelling of “The Canterville Ghost” from the ghost’s point of view. (YA)

Murther and Walking Spirits by Robertson Davies.

Well, my own short story, “The Art of Dancing Naked” from Mortis Operandi.

Lee Killough’s short story “The Existential Man”

Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos is narrated by a ghost who waited something like 20 million years to see the final outcome of the descendants of the castaways

Muriel Spark’s short story “The Portobello Road” begins inimitably with “He looked as if he would murder me and he did.”

ETA: Oh, and “The Girl I Left Behind Me” by the same author also has a ghost narrator.

Well, that depends on what you mean by “ghost”. Susie dies early in the book, but her spirit doesn’t haunt the land of the living. She goes to heaven and observes/narrates from there.

The OP may want to check out the TV Tropes page “Dead to Begin With” for examples of stories set in the afterlives of the main characters.

Nope. Almost none of those stories involve ghosts. They’re nearly all just in some sort of afterlife rather than earthbound spirits, which is what ghosts are by definition. The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier was interesting, though, if you like afterlife type stories.

I guess you could count Palahniuk’s Damned. as the protagonist is dead and does some ghostly stuff, thiugh most of the story is set in hell.

Good pick. I’ve read all of Vonnegut’s published work (as far as I know). Started in 1973. All these years later, I find that my favorite is Galapagos.

The Girl from the Well, by Rin Chupeco. It’s an excellent book, too.

Jigsaw Man by Gord Rollo might qualify. It’s about a homeless man who is approached by a man who offers him $2mil for his right arm, and goes from there.