Guestbook

In a new incarnation of an ancient form--the ghost story--one of our most imaginative storytellers and artists explores the earthly and sublime experience of existence.

What haunts us? What can’t we let go of?

A tennis prodigy collapses after his wins, crediting them to an invisible, not entirely benevolent presence, until one day he vanishes. A series of ghosts appear at their former bedsides, some distraught, some fascinated, to witness their unfamiliar occupants. A woman returns from a visit to Alcatraz with an uncomfortable feeling. The spirit of a prisoner has attached himself to you, a friend tells her. He sensed the empathy you had for those men.

In more than two dozen stories and vignettes accompanied by an evocative curiosity cabinet of artifacts and images--found photographs, original paintings, Instagram-style portraits--Shapton's Guest Book beckons us through a glimmering, unsettling exploration of the evidence that marks the path of our earthly existence and the visitations that haunt us even in the midst of life.