Janis Owen takes inspiration from real-life events to tell the story of a fictional Florida town haunted by its past in the perceptive, well-paced American Ghost. In the 1930s, a white shop-owner in the panhandle community of Hendrix was shot and killed in a robbery by a black man, and a lynching followed. Decades later, Sam Lense, a Jewish graduate student in anthropology, comes to Hendrix to study the region's ethnic composition, including a group of close-knit townsfolk who are distrustful of outsiders.
While doing his research, Sam falls in love with Jolie Hoyt, the humble, sheltered daughter of a protective, old-school preacher. The intensity of the young couple's three-month affair is the talk of the town. Some believe Jolie enraptured with Sam because he is a "rich Jew," while others feel that Sam is using Jolie and her connections to the "useless old lynching" for his own gain. The mounting tension threatens the small community until Sam's work is dramatically cut short and the bond between the lovers is ultimately severed.
The novel then fast-forwards 12 years: Jolie and Sam, transformed for better and worse, are reunited when a black businessman arrives in Hendrix seeking answers to a past that affects him personally. Owens weaves complex narrative strands together in a captivating story abundant with historical context and characterizations that reflect the foibles of human nature. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines