The Haunting of Hill House

After reading a bio of Shirley Jackson I was eager to read, for the Halloween season, The Haunting of Hill House, her most famous novel, generally acclaimed as the best haunted house novel of all time. It did not disappoint--though the scares were mostly in the mind, they were vivid.

"Hill House itself, not sane, stood against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, its walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone." That's the killer opening, as the central "character," so to speak, is the house itself. Jackson often wrote works that made houses important, such as in her last novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle. She does much to make you feel like you're in there, with lines like, "The face of Hill House seemed awake, with a watchfulness from the blank windows and a touch of glee in the eyebrow of a cornice."

The set-up is simple: a Dr. Montague, an investigator of the paranormal, has rented the house for the summer, as it has long been a hotbed of ghostly encounters. "He had been looking for an honestly haunted house all his life." He invites many who have had encounters with things that go bump in the night, but only two accept: Eleanor Vance and Theodora.

Eleanor is a typical Jackson female character, a mousy, inhibited woman who is bitter for spending most of her adulthood caring for her invalid mother. She has to steal her sister's car to get there, and there's a great scene when she has coffee and a donut at the local cafe in the run down town near Hill House. Eleanor feels at sixes and sevens immediately: "The house was vile. She shivered and thought, the words coming freely into her mind, Hill House is vile, it is diseased; get away from here at once." Eleanor is invited because she once had a paranormal incident when stones mysteriously fell on her house.

Theodora is a flashy woman with psychic ability and probably a lesbian. She speaks of a partner but the gender is never mentioned, so Jackson may have slipped in a gay character into a popular novel without anyone realizing it.

The fourth member of the group is Luke Sanderson, a member of the family who owns the house. He is witty and urbane, and the dialogue between he and Theodora is quite enjoyable.

So, do we see a ghost? Possibly not. There is plenty of banging doors as the woman huddle in their rooms. As time goes by, Eleanor starts feeling consumed by the house. She and Theodora, in broad daylight, see a family of spooks having a picnic. There are words written on the wall, with Eleanor's name mentioned. Theodora suspects Eleanor, and the tension runs high.

The book's last section includes Dr. Montague's harpy of a wife, and that doesn't really work--she's too broadly drawn. But Eleanor, who will have something of a breakdown, is a gripping character who has a mysterious end.

The book ends with the same paragraph that opened it, indicating nothing has changed or ever will. While you may not be kept awake by this book, it is certainly a talented exercise in creepiness.