Genre: Horror
Published: 1959
Pages: 213
Dr Montague, a scientific investigator of ghostly phenomena, has chosen to live for several weeks at Hill House, by repute a place of horror that will brook no human habitation. To check and contribute to his observations, he selects three companions previously unknown to him; two girls, Theo and Eleanor, and Luke, a young man, who is heir to Hill House. What happens cannot, in fairness, be told. But Dr Montague’s words were prophetic: ‘A ghost cannot hurt anyone; only the fear of ghosts can be dangerous.’ Whether the ghosts at Hill House caused the fear, or the fear created the ghosts, there were such manifestations as to produce, finally, an ultimate terror that was all too palpable and down-to-earth.
I borrowed the audiobook of this from my library even though I own the ebook. This is my honest review.
Because I compared Home Before Dark to the Netflix adaptation of this book, I felt it only fair that I read the book too (and I've been meaning to read it for almost a decade, at least that's as long as I've had the ebook).
This book has seen many films adaptations over the years and now I can say that those adaptations feel more like a continuation of Jackson's story than the story itself. The way the book ends left me feeling like there should be more to the story, and filmmakers have taken advantage.
Compared to some of the adaptations I've seen, the horror in this book had a bit of a Scooby-Doo quality to it. Like everything that went bump in the night felt like it could have been carried out by living people easily. But there was always the pervading feeling that the house is evil.
Overall I give The Haunting of Hill House 4.2065 out of 5 stars. - Katie
Shirley Jackson was born in San Francisco in 1916. She first received wide critical acclaim for her short story "The Lottery," which was published in 1948. Her novels--which include The Sundial, The Bird's Nest, Hangsaman, The Road through the Wall, We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House--are characterized by her use of realistic settings for tales that often involve elements of horror and the occult. Raising Demons and Life Among the Savages are her two works of nonfiction. Come Along With Me is a collection of stories, lectures, and part of the novel she was working on when she died in 1965. All are currently in print (Penguin). Two posthumous volumes of her short fiction are Just An Ordinary Day (Bantam) and Let Me Tell You (Random House). A graphic novel adaptation of "The Lottery" by Miles Hyman, her grandson, was published in 2016 (Farrar-Straus-Giroux). Also in 2016: Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson (Penguin Classics) and an authorized biography by Ruth Franklin: Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (Norton).
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