The Greatcoat
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 First edition | |
| Author | Helen Dunmore |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Arrow Books |
Publication date | 2 February 2012 |
| Publication place | England |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 208 |
| ISBN | 0-099564-93-9 |
The Greatcoat is a 2012 ghost novel by English writer Helen Dunmore, This imprint is a partnership between Arrow Books and Hammer Film Productions.[1]
Dunmore writes in the Afterword:
When I received an email from Hammer asking if I would consider writing a ghost or horror novella...I had never attempted anything longer. Ghosts fascinated me and stir my imagination in a way that horror does not, and soon ideas begin to develop... Suddenly it came to me that the story would begin with my father's RAF greatcoat...As a small child in the 1950s I remember a particular blend of stoicism, optimism and weariness. There was a determinism that life would be better, after all the sacrifices after the war. But in almost every family there were losses, deaths, injuries and traumas which were not talked about much, if at all. It is this silence that I wanted to write about in The Greatcoat. Silence about the past does not mean that the past has died down... We may hide from the past, but it will always find us.