ENTERTAINMENT

Let me put it subtly. Jonathan Carroll is the best writer of fantastic – notice I didn't say fantasy – novels in America.

And he doesn't even live here. For decades, he's resided in Vienna, publishing fiction that assumes no boundary between realism and the fantastic, which is to say the world we know and the world of our imaginings.

Perhaps his expatriate status gives him the perspective necessary to assume that there's a another universe, a realm of spirits similar to our own. They are good, evil, brilliant or, in this new book, somewhat forlorn or even dopey.

Whatever the reason, Mr. Carroll creates novels so fascinating and intelligent and seriously delightful that no other writer in English can touch him. This new novel is no exception, though I must warn busy readers that it sags a bit at the end.

But at the beginning, all's absolutely brilliant. As the result of a glitch in the age-old chain of life to death, a young fellow named Ben Gould falls and hits his head on the pavement. He should be dead but isn't. So the Angel of Death sends his ghost, a spirit named Ling, to sort things out. Some job she does! She falls in love with Ben's recent girlfriend, the neurotic but attractive German Landis, and cooks up a storm while longing for her.

A lesbian ghost! Well, why not? And why a Chinese ghost? Our narrator explains: "A Chinese farmer invented the idea of ghosts three thousand years ago as a way of explaining to his precocious grandson what happens to people after they die. God thought it was such a novel and useful idea that He told his angels to make the concept real and allow it to flourish within the system. In honor of the inventor, ghosts have always had Chinese names ... ."

Mr. Carroll's heavy-duty whimsy takes over in the ensuing struggle among the various fragments of Ben's splintering psyche, as well as Ling's longing. Complicating matters is a woman in Ben's city who similarly refuses to die.

The Angel of Death plays only a peripheral role. But as he and Ling dine together at a cafe, he explains that Gould's fate "is out of our hands. Plus, we're fascinated to see what will happen to him now ... ."

As will you be, dear reader, if you're alive to the experience of immersing yourself in the most seriously entertaining writing of the day, whatever the genre.

Alan Cheuse's latest novel is To Catch the Lightning.

The Ghost in Love

Jonathan Carroll

(Sarah Crichton Books, $25)