Familiar Spirits is a memoir published in 2000 by American writer Alison Lurie. In it, she recounts a friendship with poet James Merrill and his life partner David Jackson which began in the 1950s.
Merrill and Jackson were both wealthy, well-educated men, who lived an openly gay life decades before that was common. Together, the two men spent many years gathering Ouija board messages during séances, a fact of which Lurie was made aware of early on, and about which she never lost her early skepticism. For Merrill, the poetic result was a 560-page apocalyptic epic called The Changing Light at Sandover (1982), which is in large measure transcribed from supernatural voices. In Familiar Spirits, Lurie attempts to provide several rational and mundane explanations for Merrill and Jackson's epiphanies and revelations.
Famous quotes containing the words familiar and/or spirits:
“I heard the bells, on Christmas Day,
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“They who have considered our nature, affirm that shame and disgrace are two of the most insupportable evils of human life: the courage and spirits of many have master’d other misfortunes and borne themselves up against them; but the wisest and best of souls have not been a match for these.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)