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PEOPLE & ARTS Tuesday 22 OcTOber 2019
Ghost hunter's work gets TV afterlife in 'The Holzer Files'

By LYNN ELBER ed paranormal team," as session." Holzer scoffed at
Associated Press the channel describes re- the movie, dismissing it as
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ask searcher and radio host "all Hollywood," his daugh-
the daughter of para- Dave Schrader, psychic ter said, while he found
normal researcher and medium Cindy Kaza and "Ghostbusters" to be funny
"Ghostbusters" inspiration technician Shane Pittman, and "endearing." Dan Ayk-
Hans Holzer whether she's who search for evidence royd who starred in and
got any scary Halloween bolstering Holzer's original co-wrote the 1984 com-
memories to share, and Al- findings and make their edy, has said he found in-
exandra Holzer doesn't dis- own discovery. The trio is spiration for "Ghostbusters"
appoint. joined on the series by Al- in Holzer's research.
She was about 12 years exandra Holzer, an author Alexandra Holzer said her
old and getting ready to who has continued her fa- father was rigorous in scru-
go trick-or-treating while ther's work, and researcher- tinizing reports of brushes
her dad typed busily away producer Gabe Roth. with the dead, whom he
in his New York City apart- Take it with a grain of considered fellow human
ment, she recalled. Head- skepticism, or a salt mine's beings who are troubled
ing toward her bedroom to worth, but ghost stories are and unable to move on.
get out a favorite costume, enduring. Upcoming epi- While he used mediums in
a witch's cape, she was sodes, which draw on Hans his research, he came to
stopped short by a holiday- Holzer's case files that in- believe that psychic gifts
worthy sight. clude audio tapes, letters are universal.
"My black cape was float- and other material, look at "What my father had real-
ing in front of the dresser, places with haunted his- ized over the years is ev-
and the drawer where I tories, including the Barn- erybody has the ability,
kept the cape was open. I stable House in Cape Cod, everybody is aware and in-
just stood there like, 'What Massachusetts, and the tuitive. It's just a question of
do I do? What am I looking Howard-Dickinson house in whether or not we're open
at?'" she said. "I ran away Henderson, Texas. enough and ready to re-
into the living room and I This Oct. 2019 photo provided by Alexandra Holzer shows Holzer Holzer was born in Vi- ceive that information and
took a deep breath. I didn't at her home to promote her new Travel Channel series, “The enna, Austria, and held have a belief system that
go get my father because Holzer Files.” post-graduate degrees in something bigger than us
I knew he would say, 'Go Associated Press comparative religion and is around us 24/7," she said.
back in and investigate it.' Hans Holzer, who died in tions and heard disembod- parapsychology. He wrote She hopes the series intro-
So I bravely went back in 2009 at age 89, spent de- ied voices, is the subject of more than 100 books start- duces her dad to new gen-
and the drawer had been cades investigating and this week's episode. Holzer ing with "Ghost Hunter" in erations, a feeling she's cer-
closed. The cape was in- some of which are revisited and a medium reported 1963 and including "Murder tain he shares.
side, and I thought I was in the new Travel Channel contact in 1961 with the in Amityville." His account "He's very aware of the
crazy." series, "The Holzer Files" (10 house's late residents and of a Long Island, New York, show ... and I'm sure he's
It was a mild encounter p.m. EDT Thursday). a 19th-century thief said house where a family's watching very closely to
with what Holzer speculat- The Whaley House, a histor- to have been hanged on 1974 killing was followed see, hopefully, a good,
ed was a mischievous spirit, ic San Diego home where the site, but he felt more re- by claims of eerie events positive ripple wave to go
certainly less hair-raising visitors claimed to have en- mained to be found. was the basis for the 1982 among those not familiar
than the goings-on that countered ghostly appari- Enter the series' "dedicat- film "Amityville II: The Pos- with the work," she said.q

New stories of an aging Olive in 'Olive, Again'

By KENDAL WEAVER Olive ages from her 70s met Olive already in the in Olive's life as she grows
Associated Press into her 80s, increasingly first book, she is no longer a old. These include the af-
"Olive, Again," Random hit with the physical and fascinating new creation. fections of a man who
House, by Elizabeth Strout emotional afflictions of her But part of the appeal wants her to live with him,
It should come as no sur- years. of this book is that Olive and Olive's agonizing rela-
prise that Olive Kitteridge The Olive Kitteridge of hasn't changed; she is still tionship with her son and
does not mellow with age. Strout's first collection of the irascible older woman his growing young family
The large, gruff woman stories — a seventh-grade in familiar Maine surround- in New York. As Olive ages,
who was the propelling math teacher in a ru- ings, whose standard cuss Strout doesn't spare the
force in Elizabeth Strout's ral Maine town — was a word is "Godfrey." intimate cruelties of the
book of short stories that captivating literary origi- As in the first book, some of body's and mind's decay. This image released by
won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize nal. Singular and wise but the stories can stand alone Strout's writing is fluid Random House shows "Olive.
for fiction — the simply rough-edged, she gave without Olive. In "Clean- and straightforward, with Again," by Elizabeth Strout.
titled "Olive Kitteridge" — a book of short stories the ing," for example, Olive is touches of descriptive Associated Press
returns in Strout's new col- range and depth of a nov- little more than a conspira- grace: "It was low tide, from her other fiction into
lection of stories, "Olive, el. torial ally of a 14-year-old and the seaweed lay like "Olive, Again," such as Bob
Again." In the new collection, girl who is experiencing combed rough hair, all in and Jim Burgess from her
As before, Olive is either a Olive is still a contrary the torments of family and one direction. The boats novel "The Burgess Boys."
central character or plays woman, blunt and conde- adolescence, along with that remained in the bay It may be that Olive, now
a peripheral role in each scending. Some old issues an odd and awkward sex- sat graciously, their thin in her final years, will show
of the 13 stories. These — family friction, marital ual awakening. The story masts pointing to the up yet again in some other
stories unfold chronologi- secrets, sickness, death — belongs to the teen. heavens like tiny steeples." Strout fiction, but the hour
cally, for the most part, as return once more. Having Other stories fill the gaps Strout brings characters is getting late.q