I didn’t finish reading ‘The Haunting of Alma Fielding’ by Kate Summerscale. I just wasn’t interested in the subject matter. I had previously enjoyed ‘The Suspicions of Mr Whicher ‘ but account of real events didn’t hold my interest.

Thank you to NetGalley.co.uk for giving me a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I must admit that I didn't read the description of this book properly, I thought it would be a fiction story about a ghost haunting. But it turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. I'm not that keen on non-fiction, especially when it talks about the paranormal.

However, this book is so beautifully written, it almost feels like a fiction book to me. My interest was captured from the first chapter.

Kate Summerscale has an amazing ability to find fascinating real stories and making them accessible and entertaining. While it will be impossible to top The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, she is to be commended at branching out from crime and focusing on some other fascinating stories that have been lost to history.

This one is strange but compelling; an interesting dive in the supernatural and the mind, and how a person's lived experience can shape them in ways no-one would have suspected. I always loved social history and there is a lot of that here, plus the relationship between Alma and Nandor Fodor was as interesting as the objects flying around the room.

Nandor Fodor is a Jewish-Hungarian refugee in 1930s London. He's also a ghost hunter and he starts to investigate the case of Alma Fielding, a surburban housewife who says she's being plagued by a poltergeist. As he starts to investigate as part of his work for the International Institute of Physical Research, the phenomena intensify and he discovers Alma's complicated and traumatic past. And all this is happening against the backdrop of the rise of Fascim in Europe as well as the obsession/renaissance in spiritualism that happened in the post Great War period.

Now although reads like the plot of a novel, this is actually non-fiction. It's sometimes hard to believe this while you read it though as Alma continues to manifest material affects after she's been strip searched and put into a special costume provided by the Institute. But it is and its fascinating. Fodor is rational although he wants to believe, but as he develops doubts about Alma, he handles it in a much more sensitive way than I was expecting. I've almost said to much here, but it's really hard to talk about non-fiction like it's a novel, when so much of whether it works is about the research and the story and whether it feels satisfying. On that front, I wanted a little bit more closure about Alma and her haunting, but I appreciate that in a work of non-ficiton, you can only work with what the sources tell you.

The juxtaposition of Alma's story and the wider context of the late 1930s also works really well. If you've read Dorothy L Sayers' Strong Poison* you'll have encountered the wave of spiritualists of the era - and seen some of their trickery exposed (to the reader at least) by Miss Climpson, but this really sets what Fodor was doing and the organisations that he worked for into the wider context. I was fascinated. If you're looking for something to read for Halloween, and don't want fiction, this is really worth a look.

Just finished this absolute beauty of a book. Psychology, hauntings, distress, repression, and so much more lurk beneath its cover. The perfect October read, an easy ten out of ten.

I was really excited to read this one, and it partially lived up to my expectations! I think my main problem with Kate Summerscale is that her books are never as good as The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. I found the background to the story really, really interesting - the rise in the belief in the paranormal, the change in types of hauntings was fascinating - but the main story felt a little dragged out and thin in places. I still really enjoyed reading it, but I do think it could possibly have been more tightly edited in places.

lA true ghost story? Would I be able to read this? Well I really wanted to as it's Kate Summerscale. And I did! Didn't even have to hide behind the sofa although it's pretty darn scary.

Based on a true case and real people - Nandor Fodor was a Hungarian man who studied the supernatural . He comes across Alma Fielding who complained of poltergeist activity in her home in Thornton Heath, London. Wanting to use Alma and this case as a study, he goes to meet her. Jeepers what goes on in that house! Believe it or not, it's pretty darn scary and I read fast as I became more and more freaked out.

The fact this was a real life case as is the norm with Kate Summerscale really fascinated me and I will read everything this woman writes to be fair. She's studied the case and really brought out the most freaky and fascinating parts of the story. It's all very Harry Price and Ghostbusters but you should remember that this was big business back in war times - many prominent people were fascinated with the other world and ghosts etc and people changed their belief systems due to the strange and unprecedented time.

Both Nandor and Alma were fascinating characters and this really interested me. Whatever you do or don't believe it, this book makes you think.

In The Haunting of Alma Fielding, Kate Summerscale moves away from the hidden secrets of Victorian drawing rooms and into the middle-class suburbs of 1930s London.

The peace of a quiet family home has been shattered – crockery has started flying off the shelves, objects throw themselves at the husband of the house, and wardrobes appear to move on their own. At the centre of it all is suburban housewife Alma Fielding, an apparently quiet and unassuming woman who is both confused and terrified by the strange goings on in her home. Desperate to find some rationale behind the apparent hauntings, she calls on the local press and they, in turn, attract the attention of Nandor Fodor, chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research.

Starting with a bang (quite literally given the amount of broken china that Fodor finds in the Fielding’s home), Summerscale’s latest work of narrative non-fiction follows Fodor’s investigation of Alma as he moves from observing incidences in her home to asking her to sit for seances at the Institute. As the investigation continues, Alma’s powers seem to increase – she manifests live animals, speaks in strange voices, and begins to develop physical scratches on her body. But is Alma really being haunted? And if so, is it by a ghost or by something much darker, hidden deep within her past?

As you would expect with Kate Summerscale, this is a thoroughly researched and comprehensive account of an unusual and little-known tale. Despite having read a number of books about the research activities of twentieth-century ‘ghost hunters’ such as Harry Price, I’d never heard of Nandor Fodor or of the International Institute, and I was fascinated by the fine balance they had to maintain between being open-minded towards their subjects and scientific in their pursuit of proof of the supernatural.

Summerscale does an excellent job of conveying both the popularity of spiritualism and psychical research at the time and the reasons behind this and, despite some of the Institute’s practices seeming far from ‘scientific’ by today’s standards, I was fascinated by how their thinking about psychic abilities and the supernatural paved the way for modern psychological thinking and techniques – especially in the field of parapsychology – today. Fodor certainly seemed to be a man ahead of him time in many ways, although his treatment of Alma is, at times, quite disturbing and the latter part of the book really does get you thinking about the ethics of treating a real person – and their past traumas – as a scientific subject.

The Haunting of Alma Fielding is also quite dense in places. For the most part Summerscale wears her research lightly but, in parts, she packs in huge amounts of detail – some of which felt extraneous, or seemed to relate to some side-character or event that wasn’t directly connected with Fodor, Alma or the investigation. Sometimes it felt as if this information was being repeated and, at times, the pace of the book seemed to slow to a crawl as a result. After a brisk and exciting start, I found myself really struggling to stay interested during the middle section before the book picked back up for the end.

If you’re expecting a true life ghost story similar to Harry Price’s account of the haunting at Borley Rectory, or the memoirs of various ‘ghost hunters’ then you’ll probably find The Haunting of Alma Fielding a little disappointing. For all the supernatural phenomena that is centred on Alma, there is very little that goes bump in the night here. However if you’re looking for a thorough and well-researched examination of the early days of para-psychological investigations, and of the fluid boundaries between science, the self, and the supernatural, Summerscale’s latest is sure to prove an enlightening read.

My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing U.K. for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Haunting of Alma Fielding: a True Ghost Story’ by Kate Summerscale in exchange for an honest review.

This is a fascinating account of a groundbreaking investigation into psychic phenomena that took place in England just prior to the outbreak of WWII.

London, 1938. Nandor Fodor, a Jewish-Hungarian refugee is the chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research. He reads of the case of Alma Fielding, an ordinary young housewife whose home has become the site of extraordinary events, such as crockery flying off the shelves, unusual noises and even small animals appearing out of thin air. It all suggests the presence of a poltergeist.

Fodor hastens to the scene and convinces Alma to allow him to undertake a scrupulous investigation on behalf of the Institute. As he unveils Alma’s history Fodor discovers that the case is even stranger than it first seemed. Meanwhile, the spectre of Fascism is growing in Europe.

This was a fascinating in-depth look at this landmark case. As with her 2008 ‘The Suspicions of Mr. Whitcher’, this is a work of nonfiction that reads like fiction. Summerscale is a gifted storyteller, weaving together dry reports, articles, and various sources into a tale as exciting as any fictional account of hauntings.

As I was reading an early proof copy it was missing the bibliography, index and acknowledgments, though there were headings for these. However, it is clear from reading the text that this was very well researched.

I felt that Summerscale presented the material in a very fair handed manner. I was interested in Fodor’s association with Sigmund Freud, who read his work on the Fielding case, and later career as a psychoanalyst. They important conclusions that Fodor made in this study has continued to be an major influence on the study of psychic phenomena.

In addition, in the final chapter she notes how Fodor’s work was a direct inspiration for later depictions in fiction of hauntings; notably Shirley Jackson’s powerful 1959 novel, ‘The Haunting of Hill House’. The novel and 1963 film had such a profound effect on me.

I expect that how this book will be received by individual readers will depend on how they feel about psychic phenomena. All my life I have been accepting of psychic and supernatural events, and my reception of ‘The Haunting of Alma Fielding’ is naturally influenced by this background.

However, I feel that whether one believes in the supernatural, hauntings, and ghosts or not, this book offers a great deal of food for thought. It likely will also generate lively discussion if chosen by reading groups.

"London, 1938. Alma Fielding, an ordinary young woman, begins to experience supernatural events in her suburban home.

Nander Fodor - a Jewish-Hungarian refugee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research - begins to investigate. In doing so he discovers a different and darker type of haunting: trauma, alienation, loss - and the foreshadowing of a nation's worst fears. As the spectre of Fascism lengthens over Europe, and as Fodor's obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed.

With rigour, daring and insight, the award-winning pioneer of historical narrative non-fiction Kate Summerscale shadows Fodor's enquiry, delving into long-hidden archives to find the human story behind a very modern haunting."

Honestly I have no idea what I was expecting when I went into this one. I've never read a book by Summerscale. I saw 'haunting', I wanted a spooky vibe, I clicked request. What this lacked in spooky vibes it made up for in candidness. It's non-fiction (which I really wasn't expecting), but reads as easily as fiction. Summerscale very obviously put so much research into this, it was endlessly compelling.

The story mainly follows Fodor and his study of one woman, Alma, and her claims of being haunted by a poltergeist. It branches off frequently in order to explain more about the times, the general obsession with the supernormal, and the different hauntings and phenomena that rose to popularity, but this never feels unnecessary or particularly meandering. I found myself feeling grateful for any information thrown my way about the topic of Psychical Research; a topic I was wholly unaware even had such a popularity in those times.

Summerscale manages to flawlessly evoke the feeling of a country in flux, still recovering from one wartime period and potentially entering another. The role of women is touched upon - the transition from housewife/mother, to working woman in wartime, and back again. The way Fodor himself goes through an evolution, moulding his work to involve psychiatry as well as the psychical, is explored throughout.

The characters are not particularly likeable, but they are certainly fascinating. Their motivations are probed, picked apart, and laid bare in the name of research. This is a well-written and easily digested snapshot of one man's project, a scientific view into a typically non-scientific world, and if you're interested in historical fiction or the supernatural then I'm sure you'll love it as much as I did.

Big thanks to the author, NetGalley, and Bloomsbury for the review copy. This one's available to purchase on the 01/10/20!

An interesting premise for a nonfiction that predictably goes the way any honest nonfiction study into ghostly activity should go: it ain't ghosts. There's the slow revelations about Alma (whaaat, she's not totally stable? Gerrout!) and the well-researched, if dry, descriptions of the era, the context, and so on. It's not that remarkable a case really, nor are any of the characters that fascinating. I wanted to enjoy this more but found it to be an obscure - for a reason - "supernatural" case.

This is an account of Nandor Fodor, a Hungarian pioneer of supernatural study, and housewife Alma Fielding, who became the centre of poltergeist activity in pre-war Thornton Heath. The book begins on the 21st February, 1938, when Nandor Fodor receives a letter from the Reverend Francis Nicolle, informing him of a story he saw in the newspaper. Fodor is keen to have a ghost story that he can prove as real and heads over to interview Alma.

Alma lives with her husband, Leslie, son Donald and a lodger, George. Stories about their the goings on at their house include smashed glasses, snapped saucers, lights that went off and on, tipped furniture, broken eggs and things that appear in odd places. These stories result in a lot of publicity and Fodor is keen to investigate scientifically. However, Fodor, and the reader, are aware that poltergeists are often seen as expressions of anxiety – as either hoaxes, or kinetic energies, which are spontaneously projected by psychic individuals.

In 1938, with a country facing war, there were lots of anxiety. Interestingly, a book out later this year, “A Demon-Haunted Land: Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post-WWII Germany,” by Monica Black, looks at supernatural events in post-war Germany, so it is obvious that times of national crisis can cause a rise of such expressed beliefs. As Britain braced itself for war in 1938, Fodor had to consider the fact that Alma’s experiences were due to some kind of trauma – either personal or external. In other words, he found himself in the odd situation of having to find her a fraud, while hoping he could prove she was not.

I found Nandor Fodor a fascinating character. He seemed truly kind, sympathetic to Alma and to her love of attention. As time goes on, we read of the endless experiments and the book flagged a little here, I thought, as there are séances, hypnosis and Alma is searched, weighed and scrutinised. Overall, though, this was a well researched account of one intense study into events to see whether they could be considered supernatural, or whether there was a darker reason. This is a worthy addition to the Baillie Gifford longlist and deserves to be shortlisted, in my opinion. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

From the outset, mixed feelings from me about this book. The premise sounded great; and I really liked ‘The Suspicions of Mr Whicher’, therefore embarking on Kate Summerscale’s new book was promising, but it just didn’t work for me.

The story is mainly about Alma Fielding, a woman from Surrey who alleges her life is affected, significantly, by poltergeist activity. Summerscale investigates the story, the supposed occurrences and the people involved, from well-known psychic investigators to Freud. This is in the 1930s and 1940s, pre- and post-WW2, when life was tumultuous and unstable. What is clear at the end of the book is that Alma was mentally unwell - and many of her encounters were linked to this.

The research is there and this is thorough and interesting to an extent. However, the book doesn’t work for me, mainly because I feel it plateaus too early - and I would have liked more, along with stronger characterisation, to make this more memorable, like the aforementioned ‘Mr Whicher’ and also, ‘The Wicked Boy’.

Despite this, Summerscale excels at researching and writing non-fiction about historical periods and one can’t argue with that.

The Haunting of Alma Fielding is an interesting factual account of a London woman who has poltergeist and other supernatural experiences just before the start of the Second World War, and the team of psychic researchers who investigate.

As might be expected from the author of books about true life cases such as The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, this is a meticulously researched book, with lots of supporting detail about the peripheral characters and the febrile pre-war political atmosphere. I particularly liked that all the characters were followed up, so you knew what became of them after the investigation finished. No loose ends here, but plenty of broken crockery and purloined Woolworths jewellery.

A recommended read, especially for Halloween.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

I have to admit, I DNF'ed this book. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, it focused a lot on Fodor instead of Alma, and it was more about discovering whether Alma was a fraud or not, than the haunting. But, credit to the author for the incredible amount of research that she clearly put in to the story!

This was a really interesting read, the story about Alma Fielding and Nandor Fodor, the ghost hunter. It was hard to know what was true or wasn't in Alma's unravelling but Fodor's observations were truly interesting. His thoughts on the link between paranormal activity and repressed feelings due to trauma, frequently in childhood were quite radical for the 1930s. It's a story that stays with you long after finishing the book.
A great book to read for Halloween!
NetGalley very kindly sent me this book in exchange for an honest review.
#TheHauntingofAlmaFielding #NetGalley

When Alma Fielding starts to experience supernatural activity in her home in 1930s London, Nandor Fodor begins to investigate.

I've been meaning to read Kate Summerscale's books for so long. The supernatural idea behind The Haunting of Alma Fielding put it to the top of my list and I'm glad that it did!

Brilliantly researched, Kate Summerscale's latest book takes you back to London in 1938. I loved hearing about 'Woollies' and the backdrop of the events of the time (the rise of Fascism and impending Second World War) provided an interesting setting.

At first I felt sorry for Alma, who comes across as a weak character being plagued by a poltergeist, but my opinion gradually changed as Fodor's did. Fodor's account is very interesting and I particularly enjoyed the mentions of other cases he'd worked on and their similarities, along with the people who he had debunked.

The only downside to the book was that the case was never really solved, but of course that is no fault of the author's!

I'll definitely be recommending The Haunting of Alma Fielding where I can. It's the perfect read for the lead up to Halloween too.

Many thanks for the chance to read this title in exchange for an honest review!

In this deeply probing historical book by Summerscale we are introduced to Alma Fielding, who in 1938 is a 34 year old married woman from south London with a son of 17. He works with his father in the small family business and all live in their respectable house with the lodger, around the corner from Alma’s family. All seemingly normal. But in February 1938 newspapers will report that Alma is the centre of increasingly wild poltergeist activity. Summerscale will research this and present to the reader not just the basic facts, but the wider background of how this “story” will develop, outside responses to her actions, a cast of characters interested in psychic research and public awareness of, and interest in, psychic activity in the years between the World Wars, but particularly as with another war imminent, mass trauma is starting to re-manifest itself.
Alma very rapidly comes to the attention of a number of psychic” researchers”. She becomes subject to extensive investigation by Nandor Fodor who is the researcher for the International Institute of Psychic Research. He is both a man of his time, but also a paid employee of the Society and so is subject to the whims of the influential Committee Members. His research notes form the basis of much of what is known now to have happened. Alma will have to be “tested” to see if her experiences are genuine or a scam and whether they can be replicated at IIPR headquarters in front of witnesses. It becomes increasingly clear that some experiences are falsified, but others might be “true”. But poltergeist activity is not the only thing of psychic interest. Since WW1 there had been huge interest in mediums who could talk to the dead. Alma is “tested to see if she is a medium and gradually starts to develop this skill, with eventually a spirit guide and multiple personalities using her body.
If poltergeist activity is true then what trips it? Fodor comes to believe it is the result of repressed childhood (or other) trauma. Summerscale is able to point to the difficulties of Alma’s back life. Subjecting her to intense scrutiny and expecting her to “perform” was therefore risky to her well being, something that gradually came to be appreciated. Medium activity had become increasingly mainstream since the war and it was well documented in newspapers, novels, books film and plays of the period, so Alma could easily become aware of the expected tropes of such roles, behaviour – and indeed expectations. She became an increasingly consummate “performer” and attracted greater attention. But this attention effectively made it harder for Institute members to seriously review what was happening as they were drawn into collusion with her behaviour. Psychic activity increasingly high interest had developed a train of highly competitive people with self interest in both researching and presenting the phenomena.
With war about to be declared in September 1939, Fodor will already have been sacked and will need to emigrate to support himself. He will publish a text on Fielding, but not until 1956. His notes, held by the IIPR were passed to the Society of Psychical Research on the first organisation’ demise and there wrongly accessioned until Summerscale rediscovered them in 2017. She then analysed their behaviour in their turn, not all the participants can be seen in a positive light.
But Summerscale while presenting a broad social history book here of seemingly just 19 months, never forgets that Alma Fielding is a human being and an extraordinary one at that. She was able to step out of her poor educational background and class and impel the actions of a range of otherwise influential people. She was a consummate “player” in this respect, with wide imagination and no doubt charisma. Summerscale never forgets that she was a real woman though who had to lead a real life with difficulties and challenges – very much a creature of her times. Once again she has taken a seemingly “simple” press report and used it to speak to so much more, presenting a woman with compassion but showing the multiple complexities and impacts of human life.

‘The Haunting of Alma Fielding’ is a fascinating, meticulously researched, true life story of an alleged poltergeist phenomenon in the 1930s. Summerscale writes of a bygone age, the brief lull between two devastating world wars, a time when the world was on the cusp of irrevocable change.

Alma Fielding was an ordinary housewife and mother, but when she began to experience terrifying poltergeist activity in her home, a ghost hunter was called in to try and make sense of the situation.

What follows is an intimate, thrilling, unnerving account of one woman’s ‘haunting’. Summerscale deftly leads the reader through the tawdry world of spiritualism, full of frauds and trickery, into a deeper, darker truth, where eerie, sometimes inexplicable, often bizarre events gradually reveal themselves to be something more ‘super-normal’ than anyone realised.

I found Summerscale’s book intriguing, unsettling, but above all thought-provoking. It’s definitely a book to read in the bright, reassuring light of day...

Thank you to Bloomsbury and Netgalley for the ARC.

Very disappointing. Another example from this author of taking a slight story and padding it out to a full book. It doesn't work!