Salvation lies in the Internet.
Will the ghosts of the long-dead—and newly passed—take their place on social media, allowing them to remain in contact with the world? Can these ghosts be convinced to do the unthinkable?
One man searches the world, driven by a compulsion: to convince the dead to release their secrets.
Clouding his way: The Meritocrat, an arrogant otherworldly being whose goal is to reign supreme as the sole determiner of who is remembered and who is forgotten, who dies only once and who dies a second and final, fatal time.
Will the Meritocrat triumph, or will our hero find a way to bring the lost souls back from the dead using the Internet?
Filled with fictional interactions involving real historic characters (among them Harriet Quimby, Christine Chubbuck, Leo Ryan and Arthur Conley), He Who Shall Remain Shameless is a paranormal adventure novel that combines ghost hunting, drama and comedy to reclaim the lost tales of the dead.
Praise for He Who Shall Remain Shameless
On the surface, the story of the obsessed hero, driven to bring recognition to the ghosts of those he believes really should have it, works well. Dipping a little beneath the surface, subtly done, the author works in obsessions and madness, delusion and tragedy. Looking at memory and value, and how we choose to be seen/how others see us. It is wonderfully well written, with a sense of whimsy throughout.
— Paul Montgomery, True JDK Writes
____________________________________________________________
How could this tale fail to fascinate? The protagonist is David Ewald – not the author, but fictional character with the same name as the author – and he’s on a mission to protect some of history’s noteworthy, yet relatively obscure, from being erased from memory forever. Ewald is, in a very literal sense, accompanied by the Internet as a companion. This is fresh, unexpected writing, with a little bit of everything: an action-adventure tale, a paranormal mystery, occasional flashes of romance, and ultimately a message that makes the reader question the very meaning of existence. It’s a dark, heavy novel that never feels too heavy. Lovers of cerebral metafiction will delight in it.
– Erin O’Riordan, author of Eminent Domain
____________________________________________________________
He Who Shall Remain Shameless by David Ewald is a paranormal novel that explores the intersection of the afterlife and the digital world. The story follows a man driven by the mission to convince ghosts, both ancient and recent, to reveal their secrets through social media. His journey is obstructed by the Meritocrat, a powerful entity determined to control who is remembered and who is erased from history. The novel intertwines ghost hunting, drama, and comedy, featuring fictional interactions with real historical figures, as the protagonist fights to reclaim the lost stories of the dead. Ewald has crafted one of the most interesting books that I’ve read all year, with an original concept that was handled with a brilliant balance of humor and philosophy. His imaginative concept of blending the afterlife with modern technology is both unique and thought-provoking, questioning how our advancements in this life may have inspired what occurs when it’s over.
I loved the speculative, realistic tones of the work as the integration of real historical figures brings us closer to familiar experiences, then bounces back into humourous moments before offering some shocking deaths that shift the mood instantly and leave you pondering them long after you set the novel down. David Ewald’s core charm and readability are rooted in his ability to balance drama with humor in healthy doses, offering an engaging tone that keeps the reader invested and with confidence in the narrative that everything will work out all right in the end. There’s also such an interesting takeaway about memory and legacy, and, seen through the lens of the supernatural, this concept of who is remembered, what for, and why is both poignant and intellectually stimulating. Overall, He Who Shall Remain Shameless is a superb work of fiction that fans of engaging paranormal stories are sure to love.
— K.C. Finn for Readers’ Favorite
This has to be, hands down, one of the best concepts we’ve ever seen. Part ghost story, part philosophical fable, part obscure history lesson, part action flick, it combines the best of all worlds.
Other stories and authors have explored the idea of an inter-relationship between ghosts and memory. The idea is, “as long as a person is remembered, so does his ghost last on Earth,” with the correlating idea that “when a person is forgotten, his ghost also vanishes.” It’s an obscure theme but it does appear in various places and various times, from modern fiction all the way back to mythologies the world over. It’s an interesting concept, and one that this book subtly plays with. This book functions on the idea of preserving the human life beyond death—a “ghost” or “echo,” if you will—through the force of the internet. It’s an “old meets new” story.
The protagonist’s goal throughout the story is therefore to preserve as many people’s memories as possible. He does this by uploading information about them on the internet. He particularly targets saving people who are “almost famous,” people who would be in the history books if it were not for the streamlining of information (for example, his first target was the first woman aviatrix, Harriet Quimby, who despite her accomplishment is not present in any history book we’ve ever read). Once online, many people can see and access the information, which in turn leads to preserving the person’s memory in humanity’s collective consciousness. There’s also implications that the ghosts themselves can somehow interact online, as if even a dead person can run a blog or have a social networking page, and thus through interacting continue existing.
In opposition to Our Hero, the Meritocrat approves of the streamlining of history: there’s only so many hours in the day and so much space to be dedicated to one historical event, so the Meritocrat’s line of thinking is that naturally some people “deserve” to be forgotten so that this can free up space for important people to be remembered. Only those who are “meritorious” will last forever. As a character, the Meritocrat has mysterious abilities, which he uses to possess the other ghosts and to oppose Our Hero’s mission…
If you’re like us, you enjoy the good old-fashioned ghost story. This book is rife with them. Every chapter is named after the ghost that the protagonist is seeking within that chapter, and each time he has a mission to accomplish in order to save the ghost. Plus, ghosts and the internet combined? Yes, please.
As you might expect, many of these ghost stories feature people who have died not-so-nice deaths, and as a result there is a bit of creepiness and scary happenings whenever they are encountered. This is all good fun.
Even awesomer? A lot of these stories feature real people. Yes, you read that correctly. You can look up these people’s lives on Google. This adds a fun layer of realism to the book.
This author dances a bit around the fourth wall in this book. How? Well, he has his own characters mention him! His main character, the protagonist, happens to share the same name as the author, David Michael Ewald. This is originally depicted as a coincidence. Other characters bring up this fact, specifically mentioning that there is an author named “David Michael Ewald from Denver.” Now, we’ve seen other authors pul this trick (naming their main character after themselves, even though they are not the same person), so this isn’t unique, but it’s still rare enough that it’s notable and therefore deserves praise, at least somewhat, for the way that it’s handled.
There is also an implication that the connection between author-DME and character-DME that goes deeper than just their name. Several times, characters bring up the tale of Narcissus, which is a Greek myth of a handsome man who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool and drowned in it. The association of this myth with character-DME seems to imply that he has a closer relationship to author-DME than is being explicitly stated. Maybe he is a mirror image? If so, maybe he is somehow “drowning” in himself?
This was an intriguing diversion, and…the anticipation was exciting.
— The Good, the Bad, & the Bizarre
______________________________________________________________
Ewald is at his best when he plays the suspense card. His historical ghosts are well researched and have believable personalities. But the story’s strongest element is its exploration of death and obscurity. As we ponder his assertion that the Internet can (and should) be used to remember everyone, celebrity and average person alike, he reminds us that we’re mortal. And death is a lesson we should all remember as we conduct our lives.
— David Drazul, The New Podler Review of Books
David Ewald: Author of off-beat literary fiction & drama. This site and its contents © 2023 - 2025 David Ewald 