Telling ghost stories: Collateral consequences, haunting, and a criminology of fiction

In this paper we explore the potential of literary fiction to cultivate a more robust, rigorous, and creative criminological imagination. In particular, we initiate a dialogue between Tayari Jones’ 2018 novel An American Marriage and recent theoretical developments in ghost criminology to extend scholarly understandings of the impact of imprisonment on romantic relationships. Relying on ghost criminology’s major theoretical tenets—presence/absence, (in)visibility, and disrupted temporalities—we make a case for conceptualizing the novel’s central romantic relationship as haunted by imprisonment. We conclude with some forward-looking considerations of how these findings could inform new empirical research and theorizing at the intersection of incarceration, romantic relationships, and collateral consequences.