FICTION

THE LITERARY GHOST: Great Contemporary Ghost Stories, edited by Larry Dark (Atlantic Monthly Press: $22.95; 369 pp.) . Ghosts: They aren’t just chain-rattling thrills scurrying about haunted houses any more. Among these short stories by some remarkable modern authors can be found all kinds of spirits, including your garden-variety ghoulie, psychological specters and wraiths bearing a relative’s wrath, none confined to any particular eerie territory or atmosphere. Indeed, some don’t manifest at all in the typical sense. A ghost that may really be madness affects a woman professor in Penelope Lively’s “Revenant as Typewriter,” while a silly spook is determined to finish his education in Robertson Davies’ humorous “The Ghost Who Vanished by Degrees.” This excellent collection is amusing, poignant, and . . . wait, what’s that rattling noise in the next room?