The Ghost Network is a mystery novel at least once, but up to three times over. At the center is pop superstar Molly Metropolis, who disappears without a trace hours before a sold-out performance at the United Center. Following her disappearance, three underemployed Chicago hipster intellectuals—Gina, Molly’s personal assistant; Nick, one of Molly’s closest friends; and Caitlin, an aspiring music journalist they team up with—spend months combing through the journals and projects Molly left behind trying to discover where she went, until one night Caitlin disappears as well. The Ghost Network is ostensibly a manuscript about the two disappearances written by fictional journalist Cyrus Archer, who passed on his work to “Catie Disabato,” who edited and published the manuscript with her own footnotes.
These disparate elements are linked together with about the same logic as a music video, where you go along with the far-fetched idea that a hidden staircase leads to a secret world because everything is happening so fast and the music is great and you’re having too much fun. The Ghost Network, like a great pop song, is an intricate system and a lavish spectacle at the same time. v
By Catie Disabato (Melville House)
Reading Sat 6/20, 7 PM Book Cellar 4736-38 N. Lincoln 773-293-2665bookcellarinc.com Free
