ATDDTA (6) 166-170 b

[Monte Davis]

bekah wrote:

> I'm unsure as to when Fleetwood died.   What does "died" mean?  What 
> is a ghost?
>
> ...He either died in the City  and came home to the cottage on Long 
> Island as a ghost or he escaped the City  in such bad shape he might 
> as well have been a ghost and took to bed where he died.

There's studied ambiguity about his status, as on p. 164:
 "They don't actually know I'm here," he confided to Kit. "If they do, 
it's only in the way some can detect ghosts..."

Maybe what matters more is that he's unmoored in time.  Notice this from 
p. 166 in the African  interlude with Yitzhak:
    They sat as the sun declined over the blessed possibility. "Is this 
real?"
    A shrug. "Yes. . . . Or, no."
    "Or we're both feverish."

It could just as well describe him and Kit -- who one page before were 
standing on a hill watching the late sun over NYC as we segue'd to the 
Yitzhak reminiscence. I'm sure that's not accidental.  
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