Book Review: "Ghosted: An American Story" by Nancy French
After the 2016 election, I felt the need to look for a wider range of voices on social media. I searched out thoughtful, patriotic conservatives, knowing that I would have some disagreements with them on issues. But I wanted different perspectives than the ones I’d been following. Michael Gerson, Tom Nichols, Bill Kristol were some of the people I began to read. Another was David French, currently an opinion writer for the New York Times.
The real treasure though was David French’s wife, Nancy, a former ghost writer for conservatives who, like her husband, had left the GOP over its embrace of Donald Trump. I began following her on social media. I soon realized that her journey had been a complex one. Her roots were in the mountains of East Tennessee where her grandparents still lived. She’d suffered sexual abuse by a trusted young minister at Vacation Bible School. She’d done investigative reporting about ongoing abuse at a popular Christian camp.
I discovered that she was working on a memoir about the same time she and David revealed last fall that she’d recently had a devastating breast cancer diagnosis and would be undergoing some serious treatment in hopes of beating the odds of surviving this particularly nasty cancer.
Ghosted, published in April, is a marvelous story of a woman who found her own way while dealing with rape and physical abuse early in life. Questioning her self-worth and dissatisfied with the Christian college she’d attended in Nashville, she unexpectedly connected with David French, an alum of the college she was leaving and a recent grad from Harvard Law School. Their chance meeting on a crosswalk led segued into a marathon conversation. Within a matter of weeks, they were married and living in New York City.
Her memoir is a stunningly honest account of how churches too often shield abusers from the consequences of their crimes. It’s also a love story an account of a growing family determined to live by their beliefs, even when it meant being “ghosted” by plenty of their former colleagues. And it’s funny. Her story of mysterious women calling the phone number of their New York apartment looking for “David” is hilarious. Her career as a ghost writer took her to Wasilla, Alaska, where she served bagels to Steve Bannon during a stint working on an autobiography of Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol. After serving up political jibes for years, though, she made the decision to step away when the Trump years resulted in disagreements with the Republicans she’d previously written for.
Her persistence in uncovering abuse at Kanakuk, a Christian camp in Missouri, informed by her own experience of the devastation such actions cause, honed her skills as an investigative reporter and documented a number of abuses. [Note: The camp remains open for the 2024 summer season.]
Ghosted does not cover her cancer diagnosis, which apparently came as she was finishing up the book. I’m happy to report though that she is currently doing well. The treatments appear to have been successful, so Nancy French is working on growing her hair back while continuing to make her voice heard.
Ghosted in available for checkout at Moon Lake Library.