Summer Sons goes to Haunted Prospect Place

Horror for Haunts volume 2: Defying all odds for authenticity

I really try not to spoil anything within this series, Horror for Haunts is more where a book and a particularly similar haunted location collide. I find the eerie similarities between horror novels and places I’ve investigated for the paranormal, because sometimes there’s just too much uncanniness to ignore.

As much as I am obsessed with high fantasy (and romantasy), I love a good horror read. But I don’t just save every one of those novels just for the months of September and October. There’s a lot to be said for reading a thriller that spikes one’s adrenaline with the muggy heat of summer when you’re actually suffering through freezing temperatures irl. A lot of the choices of books I’ve picked recently within the horror genre have taken place in the middle of a sweltering summer environment, and it can really lend another thick layer of oppression to any tense story.

Today’s book is no exception. Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo, published 2021, takes readers through the mind of college student Andrew Blur who’s searching for the truth about his adopted brother at a university in Nashville. and an occult situation unfolds as does the mystery.

It is best described as southern gothic academia within the horror genre, and stays at a moderate pace despite a slow beginning with considerable movement and action for the characters. The circumstances of MMC Andrew Blur’s life have gone sideways since his best friend died by apparent suicide, but Andrew’s not convinced Eddie could have killed himself.

Uncovering layers of friendship and history between himself and Eddie through his memories and Eddie’s group of friends at a Tennessee graduate school, Andrew exists in a heavy, humid atmosphere surrounding him in his grief. As he gets to the bottom of what happened to his friend, he comes to terms with himself and how he really felt toward Eddie within the larger group of male and trans friends of Eddie’s life in the south. Really deep dichotomy between wealth and poverty are a large part of the environment of the story. This subject is unpacked as Andrew navigates between both worlds and readers explore what it means contextually to the characters who inhabit them and where our MMC feels he fits into their worlds (or does not).

The deeper subjects brought up in this book are handled really carefully and realistically, and while I’m no expert on these matters within fiction, Mandelo relayed a compelling story with all of it. It’s careful but not timid, and the reader learns with the characters through their emotions, which I think makes the characters just really well written. They’re fleshy, they’re seeable. I like books that do that

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There’s occultism, hidden texts, and a coveted private library throughout the story as well, and those are the kind of horror elements that keep my interest piqued. What gives it a very solid foundation in southern gothic is the setting of both old academic buildings but also the home of a professor who is pivotal to Andrew’s understanding of Eddie’s past. The book isn’t scary as much as it’s descriptive and atmospheric, never letting up on the possibility of the paranormal, but not leading with it.

The journey Andrew takes through the story starts slow; the book takes about 100 pages or so before it gets going and the ending had me reading fast. It ends up a page-turner with really resounding emotions portrayed at each bend in the plot, and where one would expect them to be. I can’t say much more about Andrew without the spoilers that make this light horror, more modern gothic academia queer story worth the read, but I can tell you now I know exactly what haunted location this book can be paired with.

Prospect Place of Trinway, Ohio.

This central Ohio mansion was first (technically secondly, we’ll get to that) built in 1856 by George W. Adams, the son of a man of the same name and his second wife, Mary. These two have portraits in the mansion now, and while their countainances look quite severe, they were apparently quite good people. Prospect Place is technically an Adams Family Mansion. In real life!

Those pictured corbels that surround the roof are in fact four feet high and I have never been more impressed by Italianate architecture. This house has stunned me inside and out since one or both of those paranormal episodes over a decade ago now, and getting to experience it twice has been astounding. Physically experiencing the home is one aspect in which the high windows and grand fireplaces of the home will inspire admiration, but a paranormal experience brings even more intense layers to the larger picture.

Prospect Place came to be out of tragic circumstances. George had married his first wife Clarissa years prior, and they had four children together before she died around 1850. His second wife Mary was much younger than George and not long after moving in his family home near the canal where he did business, they decided to abruptly leave and build a newer, more stately home near Trinway, Ohio.

Reasons as to exactly why the family so quickly moved from their old home to a different one while the construction of their future mansion was underway were never made clear, but some rumors point to the spectre of Clarissa in the Adams’ family home disturbing their peace. Nothing historically points to any truth to this legend, but another mystery plagued the family shortly after this. Their newly constructed mansion burned to the ground mysteriously before they could even move in. Upon issuing permits to rebuilt it entirely, George Adams may have made some last minute improvements, given the chance. In fact, one might be the plumbed indoor bathroom fitted en-suite to his wife’s bathroom, something not seen in homes of the day unless immeasurable wealth were involved. In this case, it seems money was little-to-no object for the Adams’.

I’m stunned to find any historic photos of this home, known locally as the Trinway Mansion, when it was left in disrepair after the last descendant who lived there passed away. This one had to have been early 1900’s.

Whatever the circumstances, the life of George Adams was wrought with tragedy early on, despite his incredible wealth and success in the milling industry. Along with children from his first marriage, the large family enjoyed the property at Prospect Place for years. Things get more interesting as the next generation of Adams family move through life in the home. This is when this location and its former inhabitants feel like a perfect pairing to the novel Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo.

If you’d like to watch the entire walkthrough of the mansion and property, that’s here.

An Enduring Family Mystery.

There was a son-in-law of George and Mary’s who married George’s eldest daughter Anna, named William Cox. When Anna and William inherited the mansion, it apparently became widely known that the best parties in town were there, and they were thrown by William. The man’s reputation for spending quantities of money made it far enough to be historical fact, and the top floor ballroom of Prospect Place served to host many a function over the years. A mystery soon followed not long after the turn of the 20th century, though, and it’s one that persists to this day.

Upon telling his family he needed to attend to urgent business in Columbus, William Cox left town and never returned. Anna and the family were stunned, and went as far as to hire a private investigator to track William down, his last known whereabouts being a hotel in Columbus where he checked in with another man, but refused to register that man as a guest. Later, a family member of the Adams’ who had moved to San Francisco wrote back to Anna that she was certain she’d seen William there in the city and even followed him as he evaded her. He was with that same gentleman who’d been described at the hotel with him in Columbus, apparently her letter described him the same as the detective had

.Anna Adams Cox never pursued what became of her husband after that, but decades later her and William’s son George (they kept that name firmly in the family) devoted much of his life to finding his father and hanging onto the Prospect Place mansion. This is where the mansion and the old money fall into disrepair before changing corporate hands to finally an historical society who continue to preserve and protect the property.

If you’d like to see our videos investigating this incredible property for paranormal activity (authentic, no exaggerations, transparent on intent and conclusions), you can watch those right here. One video will take you to the next.

Where this horror novel and this haunted house weave together.

Within the novel Summer Sons is a massive gothic mansion where the academic portions of much of the story take place. It’s a pivotal location to the plot and without spoiling a thing, some central characters inhabit it, espousing the life of old money and wealth disparity. The academia is not just within the college campus setting and the age of the characters. Here, it’s utilized to keep reminding the reader of the difference between the power of money and what it can provide, be it knowledge (of course there’s a sketchy, important library), resources, or power over others. The massive mansion, potentially haunted by secrets of its owners and who they really are or were, is the stage to set both the ghost stories of Prospect Place and Summer Sons.

Our main character Andrew comes to Nashville to take over the occult studies his deceased best friend was embarking on in graduate school and nearly falls precisely into his former life, even wearing his old clothes and sleeping in his bed. Understanding Andrew’s relationship to Eddie takes on many layers through his memories and navigating friends, to slowly realize what his feelings really are. I am still not spoiling anything, but this is a queer love horror, and we’re given diverse groups and friends with very realistic interactions between gay and trans characters throughout the cast. The story is from Andrew’s point of view, and there’s not a massive cast involved, but they’re each a worthy dynamic to the story. The pieces fit, no one is extraneous.

There’s partying, street racing, ghosts and enduring mystery. There’s always something slightly askew or inexplicable happening throughout the novel, and the same can happen in the mansion of Ohio’s farm fields as well. The book begins with a man searching for the truth behind his best friend’s death, someone whose life ended in abrupt uncertainty for everyone around him, his own feelings completely unresolved until the end. Summer Sons may well be transported to Trinway, Ohio and set in the late 1800’s. It’s nearly uncanny how parallel the plots of the Adams family’s lives and this slowburn gothic novel can be.

I’d also like to explain that I am not just idly tying the mystery of a man who went historically missing and was speculated to have ended up in San Fransisco, and a horror novel of a man finding his own truth and that of an occult mystery for no reason. As a bisexual married woman, the queer threads are woven deep here. I want to think William Cox found his way to his own truth, even if it meant leaving everything behind in Ohio. You’ll have to pick up Summer Sons for Andrew Blur’s story. Both this book and this location have real mysteries that leave a hopeful queer like me with an imagined happy ending to them. One is written, one is left to ponder.

I love how these themes within the real histories and fictional story bring out similar elements concerning seeking one’s truth. While Lee Mandelo resolves this novel with a secure and fast-paced conclusion, we are left to assume any possibility for the rest of William Cox’s actual life, whether he ended up happily in San Francisco or not.

Thanks for reading,

Amy

Additional Sources:

https://oldhousesunder50k.com/the-haunted-house-of-prospect-place-ohio/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/549368854544065805/