Book Buddy: Ghost of Atlanta is an 80s novel covering black Americans...

Wednesday 16 March 2011

Ghost of Atlanta is an 80s novel covering black Americans...

moving back to the new south and the consequences of going home again to face old demons.

All told in a tight, fast-paced novel by Julius Thompson

In The Ghost of Atlanta, Andy Michael Pilgrim faces demons from his youth that haunted his life. These are the ghosts in the crawl spaces of his life; some are real and some supernatural.

After landing a job with The Atlanta Defender, Andy returns home and visits the place where he finally faces remembrances of his deceased abusive father. While walking around the grounds, he meets his mysterious cousin, Joe Boy, and finds out that the property is going to be sold by unscrupulous cousins.

While Andy fights this battle, he must confront the personal demon of a possible drug addiction, breaking the color barrier at the south’s largest newspaper, The Atlanta Defender, meeting his old girl friend and fighting the lingering effects of segregation in small-town Georgia life.

As the story unwinds, all these forces push Andy toward the breaking point, where he almost quits on life. Malevolent mortal deeds are committed and Andy could be next in line.

"The Ghost of Atlanta" is, overall, a superbly written book. 5 stars!~Readers Favorite

Scroll down to read the review in full

Julius Thompson grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York and attended Bushwick High School. The sixties in Brooklyn was an era that had a personality, a feel, and a life-force that changed a generation. Mr. Thompson felt this energy and experienced these fires of social change.

After high school, Mr. Thompson spent the next four years riding the "A" train to Harlem, in upper Manhattan, to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree from the City College of New York. At CCNY, which was located just a few blocks from the famous Apollo Theater, Wednesday afternoons was hard on the undergraduates. The matinee performances of the major R and B groups of the times were more tempting than attending a boring college lecture. Most of the time Mr. Thompson succumbed to the temptation, but still earned a college degree from one of the best universities in the country.

At CCNY, literature instructors like Prof. Thomas Tashiro, fuelled the fire in him to become a writer!

Mr. Thompson’s journey to compose a trilogy began in 1995. The fourteen year fictional journey of character Andy Michael Pilgrim from Brooklyn, to Philadelphia and finally Atlanta is now complete. In this pilgrimage, readers experience places that are filled with hopes, dreams, challenges and fears that make us human.

The novels that make up the trilogy are A Brownstone in Brooklyn which was published in 2001, Philly Style and Philly Profile in 2007 and Ghost of Atlanta which will be published the first week of January 2011.

Mr. Thompson received the Georgia Author of the Year nomination for Philly Style and Philly Profile, from the Georgia Writers Association, in 2007.

Mr. Thompson is writing his fourth novel, Purple Phantoms, which is a story about the haunting of a mythical high school basketball team. He is currently a Creative Writing/Publishing Instructor at Atlanta’s Evening at Emory’s Writers Studio. For more information please visit him at www.ghostofatlanta.com

Read his interview here.

Review of Ghost of Atlanta:

Rating: 5 Stars - Readers Favorite Book Reviews and Award Contest.

Julius Thompson is a superb writer. "The Ghost of Atlanta" is, overall, a superbly written book. This novel is the third in a series. The book is a very fast read that builds up slowly and has a fantastic ending. Mr. Thompson has included all the ingredients that make for a well-written novel: great character descriptions, an exciting well-thought-out plot, edge-of-your-seat adventure with all the proper descriptives (old love and love rekindled, friendships-new and old, hate-the kind that festers, murder-brutal and heartless, drugs-of the worst kind, family ties-both good and bad, etc.).

The story takes place in Atlanta, Georgia, present day, the main character, Andy Pilgrim, is a newspaper reporter. His life is full of ups and downs with a past that haunts him daily, hence, 'Ghost in Atlanta'.

Only Andy can, and must, have the courage to face his ghosts, one-on-one. He has many friends and family that help him along the way, and those that would like to see him fail miserably. Can he defeat his ghosts and continue on with his life?

I will not spoil the book for you but I will say that the story is full of excitement and is really very ethereal. The reason I say that is because the characters themselves present the reader with many questions, such as, How can Andy`s friend, Philip, always be there for him just at the right time? How is it that certain characters are praying for Andy just at the right moment? How can a family cousin appear to Andy in the blink of an eye and then disappear just as quickly? How can friends and family in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Atlanta be so in tune with each other, helping Andy when he needs it the most?

All these ingredients make this novel taste like your favorite pie flavor. All these ingredients make you want to continue reading this novel in just one sitting.

I now have a very strong desire to read Julius` first two novels in the series. I can hardly wait for the next one. Julius, please keep writing. To the reader, don't hesitate to read this; you will not be disappointed. I, for one, am very glad that I read this book and I rate this book 5 stars, wholeheartedly."