The Astronomer's House

Spooky in topic but erudite and humorous in style, the eight stories in "The Astronomer's House" are set in and around an ancient port town called Sag Harbor. In some the devil appears, in the guise of a stout gentleman with a bushy black beard who describes himself as a therapist eager to assuage the pangs of dissatisfaction. Two others introduce ghosts whose motives are more benign--the cause of architectural preservation being dear, naturally, to the hearts of those who haunt landmark structures.

Many years ago, the author nearly bought the strange, derelict tower house by a Sag Harbor cemetery that inspires the title story. Thinking better of it, he built a home of his own design, turreted but unhaunted, in the woods not far away--a locale that, nonetheless, is visited by evil in another story.

Listen to what I have to tell you, invites the charming tempter in that tale, which opens in Vermont--"or wonder," he adds, quoting C.S. Lewis, "till it drives you mad, what would have followed if you had."