The Single Greatest Haunted House Novel of All Times
If you’re ever hanging out at a party with a bunch of horror novel nerds, get them all good and liquored up, and then ask them what their favorite haunted house story is. If you don’t have a full-on drunken bar brawl within 20 minutes, then I’ll eat this website.
Every fan of horror has a favorite ghost story. For many it will be Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. It’s not for nothing that in 2009 The Wall Street Journal reported it is "now widely regarded as the greatest haunted-house story ever written." It also has my vote for the single best opening paragraph of any horror book. Ever. Period. I’ll die on this hill.
For other aficionados it might be Richard Matheson’s brilliant Hell House, Robert Mascaro’s Burnt Offerings, or Michael McDowell’s The Elementals. Even recently, there have been more than a few great yarns about specter inundated homes- Dan Simmons’ A Winter Haunting, Kendare Blake’s Anna Dressed in Blood, Joe Hill’s Heart Shaped Box, and Scott Thomas’ Kill Creek are all worth anyone’s time. Still other writers, like Darcy Coates and Ambrose Ibsen, seem to specialize in cranking out one spook house after another. While they aren’t all classics, they’re never dull. Like I said, every horror fan seems to have skin in this game when pressed.
My own personal choice for “Best Haunted House Book Ever” is The Woman in Black by Susan Hill. And since it is my choice, it is obviously and clearly the correct one. Don’t believe me? Pick up a copy. Don’t forget to drop me a thank you note when you near your sixth week of restless sleep.
I first picked it up in 2012 just before the premiere of the Daniel Radcliffe movie. (Yeah. I am one of those snobs that likes to read the book before I see the movie so I can complain incessantly in pompous grandiosity and pretend to have deep knowledge that comes from having read the book just days before the movie came out. If it helps, everyone I know thinks this makes me an ass too. You’re not alone. Also, I’m working on it.)
What was I saying? Oh yeah! The Woman in Black!
Susan Hill is something of a woman out of time. She’s maybe the last great practitioner of the classic British ghost story perfected by folks like M R James. The style and tone of her books have a tendency to belie their modernity. The Woman in Black was published in 1983 and her most prolific decades were the 1990’s and 2010’s. When I first read The Woman in Black I was sure it had been written in the 1940’s or earlier. The pages are filled with atmosphere of “olden times”, right down to the first person narrative format.
The Woman in Black is told by a lawyer named Arthur Kipps during a Christmas round of English ghost stories. When he was a young, wet-behind-the-ears lawyer, he was sent by his firm to the market town of Crythin Gifford. He was instructed to attend the funeral of the wealthy Alice Drablow and settle her estate.
What ensues should be a total snooze fest- lawyer settles dead lady’s estate. It’s not. It’s utterly terrifying. The first time I read it, I made the mistake of reading a little each night before going to bed. I did not get a decent nights rest for a week and a half. Susan Hill’s twisted imagination kept investing my sleep. The darkness of my bedroom came alive with ghouls and specters. I was unable to go into my attic or basement for nearly a month.
Hill hits every single trope of the classic British ghost story. You can almost see her checking off the boxes on a master list as you turn the pages. The glory of the novel is how she manages to hit a bull’s-eye each and every time. It didn’t matter that she was playing with archetypes I had seen hundreds of times. Each one seemed fresh and terrified me as they must have scared the knickers off those who first read the ghost stories told by M R James and his generation a century ago.
As you read through The Woman in Black, you are slowly introduced to a complex mystery which keeps you guessing about all the best parts up to the end. Hill managed to craft an antagonist who’s perverse, terrifying, and genuinely evil. She then surrounds her with a backstory so compelling and multidimensional that you’re left reeling from the fully formed monster she’s conjured before you on the pages of her book. Stephen King's Pennywise terrifies, but somehow I never thought I would run into him. That made him “safe” somehow. The Woman in Black, however, showed up in my closets, hallways, bedroom, and clothes washer. That bitch was everywhere in my house. For months!
If you saw the 2012 film starring Daniel Radcliffe and were not impressed, you should know it was not the best adaptation. (That was actually a 1989 made-for-tv version done by the BBC. Check it out!) James Watkin’s 2012 adaptation managed to get the aesthetic feel of the novel, but never fully managed to embody the soul and substance of what was really going on in Eel Marsh House. It also loses points for dropping the book’s ending, which sealed it as my favorite haunted house story. It is sinister, unrelenting, evil, and brave all at once.
So, that’s my pitch for the single greatest haunted house book of all time. While I know I’m right, you might have some (clearly) mistaken opinion of your own. So, what’s your favorite? Let us know in the comments below.
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