 Recorded Books presents a griot audio production of Joplin's Ghost by Tananarive Du. This unabridged recording is narrated by Lisanne Mitchell and directed by Drew Sussman. Griot Audio celebrates the best and contemporary African American fiction and non-fiction. This book is copyrighted 2005 by Tananarive Du. This recording is copyrighted 2005 by Recorded Books, producer and publisher of Griot Audio. Author Tananarive Du opens this tale with the following quotes. The first is from the song Trimonisha by Scott Joplin. If at night while passing graveyard you shake with fear the most, just step a little faster forward before you see a ghost. The next quote is from the diary of Lewis Carroll. We often dream without the least suspicion of unreality. Sleep has its own world and it is often as lifelike as the other. The final quote that opens this book is from Lewis Armstrong. What we play is life. And now, Joplin's Ghost. Prelude, A Piano Chapter 1, 1917 The new arrival wheeled himself through the day room of Manhattan State Hospital on Wards Island whispering to his dead wife who always walked beside him. The man had outlived one wife and his baby girl. Pure bad luck, his first wife had called him. His second wife, Freddie, was the only one of the dead who still enjoyed his company. He was talking to her, as he often did, about the stage set he was going to build as soon as he was able. Murals of cloud banks, majestic live oaks, and a sea of ripening corn stalks. Talking to Freddie was like walking onto the stage itself, standing in the stare of a footlight. The light filled him with wonder, and wonder was hard to come by these days. But Freddie's voice interrupted him so loudly that he wondered why the droop-jawed attendant in the doorway didn't call for them to hush that racket. You're so... Sample complete. Ready to continue?