Chrysler Szarlan
Chrysler Szarlan asked Chris Bohjalian:

I loved your ghostly novel, Night Strangers. Have you ever lived in a haunted house/ do you believe in ghosts? Or are we all just haunted by our own pasts?

Chris Bohjalian Thank you so much!

Sometimes I think my own house is haunted. That novel was inspired by an actual door in my basement. Not kidding.

The house is an 1898 Victorian and it is the model for the house in the novel -- right down to the mud floor basement, the wallpaper, and the back stairway.

But it was the door in the basement that used to scare me. It was behind a pile of coal and bolted shut when we moved in.

And when I pried it open? Behind it was the sort of crypt I described in the novel.

I bolted it shut again and now keep it sealed.

Not kidding.


About Goodreads Q&A

Ask and answer questions about books!

You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.

See Featured Authors Answering Questions

Learn more