52 pages 1 hour read

Dolly Alderton

Ghosts

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Important Quotes

Quotation Mark Icon

“[I]t had carpet the colour and texture of instant coffee granules, a peach-tiled eighties bathroom replete with abandoned bidet and two broken doors on the pine kitchen cupboards.”


(Prologue, Page 2)

The novel uses figurative language to describe the shabby outdatedness of Nina’s apartment. Despite its flaws, she loves it because it is the first home that she’s owned. The apartment represents Nina’s success as an author and as a single woman.

Quotation Mark Icon

“[T]he way he lazily outsourced his integrity to Yorkshire, so that romantic implications of miners and moors would do all the hard work for him.”


(Part 1, Chapter 1, Page 15)

Geography and place become important motifs in the narrative as Nina draws a contrast between life in the city and life in the country. Where they grew up was a point of contention between Nina and Joe in their relationship, as southern England is viewed as the seat of power and the place where more educated, wealthier people live, and northern England is a more industrial, working-class region.

Quotation Mark Icon

“Perhaps Dad always anticipated, somehow, that he should download the passing of time to papers, Filofax pages, letters, and postcards, in case those files inside him ever got wiped.”


(Part 1, Chapter 1, Page 24)

Nina sees the stacks of paper in her father’s office as a metaphor for cataloging his memories. The idea of preserving memory becomes an important motif in the narrative as Nina wrestles with her father’s memory loss and wishes there was a way to preserve it. This filing system is analog, and later she wishes she could somehow upload his memories to the internet to preserve them for all time.

Related Titles

By Dolly Alderton

Study Guide

logo

Everything I Know About Love

Dolly Alderton

Everything I Know About Love

Dolly Alderton

Study Guide

logo

Good Material

Dolly Alderton

Good Material

Dolly Alderton