In this fictional contribution to the Writer and the City series, Patrick McGrath excavates the layers of New York's turbulent past and present. The result is a trio of tales, beginning with "The Year of the Gibbet," which tells the haunting story of a young boy during the American Revolution whose mother is hanged for defying the British army. Fifty years later, amid a deadly cholera outbreak, he harbors a festering guilt for his inadvertent part in her downfall. In "Julius," a ruthless nineteenth-century merchant punishes his son's passion for the arts by denying him the girl he loves, driving the boy to insanity. Finally, in "Ground Zero," a Manhattan psychiatrist tries to treat a favored patient reeling from the destruction of the World Trade Center. But she fails to detect the damage she herself has sustained, and suffers the consequences of her blindness.A selection of tales wracked with erotic obsession, madness, and class warfare, and ranging in style from the gothic to the coolly analytical, Ghost Town is a paean to a city that has always inspired and captivated the world. Read Less