“Book Descriptions: Among Blackwood’s most effective ghost stories are several tales of rooms inhabited by the prowling presence of their former occupants. “The Listener” is an epistolary account told through the diary of its protagonist. Much like Guy De Maupassant’s similarly-themed “The Horla, or Modern Ghosts,” Blackwood’s tale depicts the gradual encroachment of a parasitic spirit into the life of an arguably mentally-compromised man. “The Listener” is an excellent exploration of approaching and voracious threat, much like Blackwood’s later masterworks “The Willows” and “The Wendigo.” The protagonist is a stubborn and caustic man who holds the entreaties of his friends and family at bay, isolating himself in a world of self-imposed exile. Tormented by hereditary mental health issues, illness due to malnutrition (and a sedentary, reclusive lifestyle), and mounting paranoia, the narrator finds that his efforts to exclude others from his personal affairs have left him defenseless from the destructive forces that loneliness invites.” DRIVE
Read Ebook 
