Guestbook: Ghost Stories / Leanne Shapton

Picador, 2024. Softcover. Illustrated. Remainder mark. VG. 

A new reissue of Leanne Shapton’s Guestbook, which “elevates the traditional ghost story into an art form” (Interview), collaging the verbal and non-verbal into brief, eerie narratives.

A house stands empty. Family photographs, wrapping paper, and watercolor portraits act as windows into other lives. Little sculptures relay the story of an estranged couple. Photographs of a tennis prodigy document his exhaustive fits.

Guestbook: Ghost Stories arranges artifacts and illustrations alongside meditative dispatches from a familiar, yet new reality. Her stories invite both visual and literal readings of forgotten objects, dark interiors, memento, laid carefully before us. Shapton’s beautiful and haunting pieces last long after the page has turned and the book has closed—making one wonder, ultimately, who has visited whom.