Review: The Haunting of Hill House
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5 stars. A young woman, after spending years as the primary caretaker for her recently-deceased mother, responds to an invitation to spend the summer at Hill House, an isolated house rumored to be haunted. There she meets carefree, feisty Theodora, handsome owner Luke and the delightfully academic Dr. Montague, who is determined to investigate supernatural phenomena in the house. You can guess what happens next ... or can you?
This book is absolute, terrifying perfection. I am so inspired by Shirley Jackson's writing here - it's gorgeous, captivating and completely unnerving. Eleanor's unreliability is portrayed with such beautiful, unsettling prose - prose that weaves threads of isolation, sexual repression, desire, identity, femininity, etc. into a blanket as cozy (for a fan of horror) as it is torturous.
I know it's full of tropes and shallow characters, but I happen to love horror tropes and there is nothing stale here. In fact, there is something that feels - even decades after it was written - revolutionary. Not just because of the lesbianism (it's blatant and a cornerstone of Eleanor's journey, sorry not sorry). The psychological terror depicted here would horrify anyone. The scares are soft but stayed with me for a long while and ... made me think. I can't remember the last time a horror story made me think. I felt this book deeply as a woman struggling to establish and embrace an identity - to reconcile what's expected of me + what I want; the pain of growing up and becoming an adult; etc.
And The Haunting of Hill House is incredibly funny. There is a sharp, dark sense of humor here that cuts the tension and strengthens the dialogue. Eleanor's self-conscious naiveté is as adorable as it is relatable even as there is a sense that she is disjointed or stunted in some way. We learn about her not just through her internal monologue but from the characters that orbit around her, first with affection, then concern, then suspicion.
I suppose a bottom line could be that this book should smell musty, but it doesn't. It's fresh. Another bottom line could be that this book is arguably the scariest ever written. Because it is, or is at least close to the top. I think the bottom line for me, though, is that this book is so much more than it promises; more than a simple ghost story; more than we rightfully deserve. The Haunting of Hill House is a gift and a treasure and should be recognized as such.