Ghost 19 by Simone St. James

If The Woman in the Window and the Exorcism of Sara May had a baby, it might be something like Ghost 19...something like. I haven't actually read the Woman in the Window, but I saw the movie with Amy Adams and then I saw the even better The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window with Kristen Bell, so I know what I'm talking about.

Hear me out. We have a woman...who is afraid to leave her house...who watches the neighbors from her window...and maybe there's ghosts...and it's a period piece...all packaged in a novella (those last three are Sara May resemblances, fyi). 

What I liked was the story as a whole and how it came in a quick read. What I didn't like was the era the story was written in. The story takes place in 1959 and it's obvious. I suppose if you're going to go out of your way to set a tale in 1959, you'd want details that make the clear, but I just found things like the name Trixie, or references to taking "bennies" distracting. And the dialogue seemed old-timey and dated. Take this exchange, for instance, "You think you're an artist? Goddamn you, Ginette, You're fooling yourself! You're no goddamned artist, and you never have been - you're a hack."  And then there was this, "My diagnosis is that you've had some over excitement of the hysterical kind. It happens sometimes with unmarried women." 

It reminds me of an old movie that's overly dramatic, so much so it's not realistic. I don't know, maybe it's a noir thing and that's what St. James was going for. I'd be curious to know if there was a particular reason she chose that year.  

While I found the setting more distracting than anything, I'll admit that overall, it was a story that kept my interest, extra points for being short and sweet.