The Bell Witch: An American Haunting

This book probably intends to confuse you a little- it did me- by purporting to be a newly discovered diary of a known eyewitness to events in the historically-documented "Bell Witch" case. In fact, it's a very good novel. Monahan takes the basic facts (or claims) that we have and fleshes them out artfully, with a narrator, dialogue, and a point of view that work beautifully well. The gripping story takes the horror and suspense genres in a unique direction, and lives up to the incredible source material. A small complaint: he tries to wrap things in a too-neat 1990s package for us at the end- the only false note he strikes here.
The book left me very interested in this case, and my interest increased recently when I discovered close family ties to many of the people depicted here, including Elias and Sugg Fort.

In "THE BELL WITCH," the author asks us to believe that he has recently discovered a manuscript which documents the only case in US history when a ghost actually kills a man. At the same time, the author also admits that his story is a "faction," much like "THE EXORCIST." Whether or not some of the events really happened is up to the reader to decide.
I picked up "THE BELL WITCH" after the recent success of "THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT" and was hoping to find something as equally as entertaining but this time as non-fiction. Instead, what I read was a ghost story that was more amusing at times than frightening, more predictable than surprising and left me feeling like less of a believer than intended. The discovered "manuscript," written by the local school teacher, documents the haunting of the Bell family in too much detail to actually make the reader believe that this was a daily journal. This book is only one person's account of the poltergeist and the author/editor, Brent Monahan, tries too early in his preface to convince us that everything that lies within is all true. The only real mystery here is trying to decide what events may have truly happened.

This is one of the few books to tackle the story of the Bell Witch in narritive form. I think Brent Monahan does a good job of depicting the horror that the Bell family must have faced when under the assault of the "witch". The ending twist I found interesting and thought provoking and tied into the novel quite well. It does not follow the historical ending of the Bell Witch haunting (the witch actually came back to visit John Bell Jr. and had nothing more to do with Betsy Bell) but hey....this was written as a story, and the ending provides an "Ah-ha" moment to the end of the novel. I can't wait to see the movie. Overall a good book. I would reccomend it to anyone interested in the Bell Witch haunting.

This novel describes most of the significant Bell Witch facts as they have come to stand in American history/legend. The author chose the device of an unknown manuscript that gave inside information on the events of nearly 200 years ago, and took on the stance that this was as much a mystery (a murder mystery, no less) as it was a series of possible supernatural events. I didn't find this novel scary, but I don't know if I was supposed to. My own view is that this notorious case of a haunting witnessed by hundreds (including Andrew Jackson, if legend is correct) contains some unexplained elements but is also one that has grown in the telling over the decades. No one theory covers all elements here but the one that comes closest involves knowing participation by some of the family involved in the supposed poltergeist phenomena that surrounded them. Whatever else this matter was, it became deadly serious and the patriarch of the family did wind up dead, just as the spirit of the "witch" prophesied. More disturbing, true to her word, the witch did appear and she laughed at him at his funeral, as his casket was being lowered into the grave. I have read quite a bit about this disturbing folk history and have heard everything advocated from demonic presences to straightforward trickery. One recent claim was that the girl at the heart of the case was being molested by her father, that the pranks she claimed were a haunting were a cry for help, and that she got her revenge by poisoning her father to death. That may well be. Whatever the explanations are, the Bell Witch of Tennessee certainly deserves to be kept alive in memory, and it makes for a titillating study of the unexplained.

This story is dull and slow-moving at times, it is a worthwhile endeavor to muddle through till the end. Written about a "haunting" of the 1800's, this book is written in the literary style of that time. Sometimes, that could prove trying to some readers. This book is worth the extra effort.

Betsy is haunted by a ghost. The people of the time, the 1800's, believe it is a result of a curse placed on her when her father had a land dispute with a neighbor woman. Throughout the book we follow all the details of the haunting, as well as the town's reaction to it. It isn't until the very end, that the true reason for the "haunting" is revealed. The ending is a shocker, but satisfying.

This narration, written by Betsy's husband to their daughter, reveals the details of her mother's haunting. With the text of this book, Betsy's father also left a statement explaining that the book must be opened and read if her mother began to again show signs of the "haunting". This serves as the prologue of the book.
The haunting of Betsy is written vividly, with colorful descriptions and settings. The characters are well-developed, and the reader actually falls in love with Betsy's sweet and devoted husband.

I own ten Bell Witch books and this is my least favorite.

I do not beleive that John Bell sexually abused his daughter.

My family lives in Robertson County, Tn and both of my parents were born in Adams. I still have relatives there as well as I taught school there for 24 years.

Some of my family members in my genealogy were Bell's neighbors and interacted with Kate.

There's nothing particularly scary about this account of the bell witch presented by Brent Monahan but purportedly written by Richard Powell, a close friend of the Bell family. It is more of a mystery as the reader tries to find out what the Bell witch is and why it is haunting the Bells. One gets the impression that it's fun to be a demon, ghost, or poltergeist that plays tricks, slaps people, interrupts lives, and even kills with impunity.
Powell writes with a charming, old-fashioned style such as in this passage describing a character called Frank Miles: "Mr. Miles was not one of the community's most celebrated thinkers; manly brute force was his answer to most any problem. Despite his good intentions, he was often violent when opposed, either by animate or inanimate objects...Added to this, his vocabulary was limited to simple oaths and phrases, many of these of the crudest origin."
The most amusing parts of the book are when psychics show up to rid the house of the ghost but get their clock cleaned or scared out their wits. President Andrew Jackson attended such a session and got quite a kick out of it. The account also presents a believable account of life on the frontier during the early 1800s.
The book attempts to explain the phenomenom of a poltergeist attributing it to a disturbance that a young girl is feeling as she grows into a woman.
As for the veracity of the account actually being from Richard Powell and not Brent Monahan, I'll play along and give Monahan the benefit of the doubt. The style does change between Monahan's introduction and Powell's account. Still one would like to see this manuscript and call up the people that Monahan mentions giving him the manuscipt. And besides, I have a tendency to believe in the fanciful and outlandish, afterall, what was once considered outlandish can become status quo and what is status quo today will be considered outlandish tommorrow. However, it does seem little implausible that Richard Bell would marry Betsy given that she is being haunted by a violent ghost.

I just finished reading this book and still can't get over how this story ended. Plain & simple, it "BLEW" me away!! I was not expecting an ending such as this one in the least bit, I was floored!! This story is definately a can't put down read and it is truely frightening as well, especially for those of us who believe in the supernatural. Brent Monahan has most definately got a winner here with this novel. 10 stars for The Bell Witch: An American Haunting and I reccomend that you buy yours today!!

This was the best fiction chiller I have read all year. You never can quite tell whether it is fiction or fact. Chilling tale with a good twist at the end.

Entertaining, but not really all that scary, horror novel based on the "true" story of the haunting of the Bell family in Tennessee in the 1800's. The novel is supposedly made up of an actual record of the events written by someone who was there -- Richard Powell, a schoolteacher who was a friend of the family and who later married Elizabeth, the young girl who seemed to be the primary target of the witch. Powell is our narrator, and he begins with the theory everyone seemed to have at the time, which was that the Bell Witch was thrust upon the family by a neighbor named Kate Batts who hated John Bell (the head of the family) because of a land dispute. However, as the story progresses, we come to find out the "truth" about the reason for the haunting, which is far more dastardly, even while it's not all that terribly original.

The thing I enjoyed about this novel was the witch herself, who was definitely one of the most complex, funny, and entertaining spirits I've ever heard tell about. She mocks people, she stalks people, she loves people, she helps people, she lies, she tricks, she schemes, she's mean, she's nice, she's everything in every extreme and in every direction. I started to wish she were actually real, to be honest, because life would be so much more interesting if ghosts like Old Kate actually existed. That said, I don't believe for a minute that this story is in any way true, and I don't really care that there are historical documents that suggest it might be.

Wait, I take that back. Old Kate seemed to hate it most when people doubted she was real, and that probably means I'm in for a rough night tonight. Kate, if you're out there, I take it back! Recommended if you like a good ghost story. But you can read this one in dim lighting late into the night without having to worry about actually getting the willies.