In Ghosts and Oceans, Jan Steckel has created her own magic realism, exploring fluid realms between rumor and myth. A woman becomes the color of a mango. An angel makes a hurried appearance at the hour of death. The sea is alternatively seductive and dangerous. The language is so musical; you can hear the book. Or – as one character says – “The words are one thing and the music another, but there comes a time in the imagination of the singer when the words are the music and the music the words.” Both the lush musicality and startling imagination invite the reader to travel in tilted and surprising worlds.
— Thaisa Frank, Heidegger’s Glasses and Enchantment
