Ghost Radio: A Novel

In this chilling first novel by filmmaker, composer, and graphic novelist Leopoldo Gout, a ghost story call-in program opens a doorway into the paranormal. “Ghost Radio reminded me of early Stephen King. The story sticks with you long after you’ve finished the final page.” —James PattersonFrom the cramped bowels of a dimly lit radio station, Ghost Radio is beamed onto the airwaves. More than a call-in show to tell scary stories about vampires and poltergeists, Ghost Radio is a sanctuary for those sleepless denizens of the night, lost halfway between this world and the next. Joaquin, the hip, melancholy host, sits deep in a fog of cigarette smoke, fielding calls from believers and detractors alike. He is joined in the booth by his darkly beautiful girlfriend, Alondra, and his engineer, Watts. Soon what began as an underground cult sensation is primed to break out to mainstream audiences. When a huge radio conglomerate offers to syndicate the show and Ghost Radio becomes a national hit with an expanding legion of hardcore fans, neither Joaquin, Alondra, nor Watts is remotely prepared for what is about to happen.When Joaquin notices a curious and troubling phenomenon, he is inexplicably drawn further and further into the terrifying stories he solicits on the radio. As he slowly loses control over his reality and finds himself unable to distinguish between the real world and the world populated by the nightmares on Ghost Radio, he’s forced to confront his past and his own mortality in order to repair the crumbling wall between the living and the dead.

From Publishers Weekly

Joaquin, the host of Ghost Radio, a call-in show based in Joaquin's native Mexico, builds a devoted audience with his combination of talk therapy and sharing of urban legends and spooky stories in Gout's first novel, a twisty if less than original supernatural thriller. When Joaquin's growing prominence lands him a Newsweek interview, he decides to relate on the air a near-death experience decades earlier, which claimed the life of a close friend. Joaquin's personal problems mount as he begins to be drawn into his callers' stories and the line between reality and fantasy becomes increasingly blurred. The prose can be awkward at times (he wondered how he got himself into this situation: a mysterious phone call, and less than an hour later, he's wrestling with a reverend of Toltec Christianity), and Gout adds little that's either new or remarkable to the ghostly radio waves premise used more effectively elsewhere, notably William Sloane's The Edge of Running Water (1939). (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Gout tells a strange tale of Gabriel and Joaquin, two boys orphaned when their parents' vehicles collide on a Houston road and who become residents at a rehab hospital. Sounds and music fascinate both young men, particularly the Dead Kennedys and fractured pieces of everyday noise. They take to recording and collecting sounds, creating instruments and strange taped commentaries late into the night. One evening they stumble upon an unusual radio program, Ghost Radio, where people call in and retell bizarre and macabre events and stories. The format fascinates them and they set out to duplicate the show. But events take a weird turn—Gabriel dies, and Joaquin wakes to find a mysterious tattoo on his forearm, falls in love, travels back in time, witnesses a murder, experiences flashbacks, and is visited by Gabriel's ghost. All of these curious happenings connect to Joaquin's current radio program's success and its future. Fans of The Twilight Zone will be intrigued with this tale of radio broadcast and its effect and on characters both living and dead.—Joanne Ligamari, Twin Rivers United School District, Sacramento, CA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In his debut novel, Gout mines the current fascination with electronic voice phenomena and afterlife studies for the makings of a deliciously creepy yarn about the connections and friendships that transcend death. Joaquin is a former punk rocker hosting Ghost Radio, a call-in show on Mexican airwaves. As the survivor of a deadly car crash that killed his own and his best friend Gabriel’s parents, Joaquin feels sympathy and skepticism for his callers’ tales about odd hauntings and demonic encounters. When an American producer offers a time slot for the show on a station further north, Joaquin is forced to pick up a loose thread from his past, one involving Gabriel’s death in a horrific accident and the unsettling otherworldly presence that has haunted Joaquin since then. Despite his newfound success, Joaquin quickly feels his version of reality giving way to a new awareness of doppelgangers and alternate dimensions in which Gabriel is very much alive—and angry. Gout’s deft fusion of radio-show culture and paranormal occurrences produces a winning compound. --Carl Hays

From the Back Cover

Ghost Radio is a terrifying novel about a ghost-story call-in radio show that inadvertently opens a doorway into the paranormal, giving voice to the dead and instigating an epic battle for the souls of the livingFrom the cramped bowels of a dimly lit radio station, Ghost Radio is beamed onto the airwaves. More than a call-in show to tell scary stories about vampires and poltergeists, Ghost Radio is a sanctuary for those sleepless denizens of the night, lost halfway between this world and the next. Joaquin, the hip, melancholy host, sits deep in a fog of cigarette smoke, fielding calls from believers and detractors alike. He is joined in the booth by his darkly beautiful girlfriend, Alondra, and his engineer, Watts. Soon what began as an underground cult sensation is primed to break out to mainstream audiences. When a huge radio conglomerate offers to syndicate the show and Ghost Radio becomes a national hit with an expanding legion of hardcore fans, neither Joaquin, Alondra, nor Watts is remotely prepared for what is about to happen.Though a charismatic host, Joaquin remains a skeptic even as he begins to notice a curious and troubling phenomenon—he feels himself drawn further and further into the terrifying stories he solicits on the radio. Slowly he loses control over his reality and finds himself unable to distinguish between the real world and the world populated by the nightmares on Ghost Radio. He is forced to confront his past and his own mortality in order to save that which is most precious to him and repair the crumbling wall between the living and the dead.

About the Author

Leopoldo Gout is a producer, director, graphic novelist, writer, and composer. He is currently producing an animated film with NBC and Curious Pictures. He lives in New York City. Ghost Radio is his first novel.

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