"Disorientatingly, psychologically spooky" SYP LDN reads The Haunting of Hill House

Posted on November 13, 2020 in London

It’s looking pretty frosty outside, isn’t it? We’re taking down our cotton wool spiderwebs, throwing our slightly funky-smelling pumpkins into the compost and digging the tinsel out of the back of the cupboard. Also forget what I said about tentative steps back towards the Tube; I was wrong. Please, ignore me for all future COVID predictions. I, like the rest of us, am clueless.
 
What did we think of our Turning the Page Virtual Conference? Loved it? Missing the in-person thing? We want to know. Use the hashtag #SYPConf20 to tell us your favourite moments of this year’s Conference and what you’re looking forward to once the publishing world can all be in one room together once again. Don’t forget to head over to our shiny Conference website to watch back ALL the panels and best bits and careery advice nuggets.
This month at book club, on the 2^nd November 2020, we gathered around our Zoom screens with a steaming mug of tea/ cheeky glass of wine (delete as appropriate) to discuss Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.
 
Born in 1916 to a wealthy family in San Francisco, Shirley Jackson’s strained relationship with her mother permeated a large chunk of her childhood. While Jackson was in high school, the family relocated to New York where she went to Syracuse University and wrote for the literary magazine where she met her future badly-behaved albeit acclaimed-literary-critic husband, Stanley Edgar Hymen. A voracious writer in life, Jackson died after a series of health problems in 1965 at only forty-eight years old. After her death, Hymen released her unfinished last novel alongside a flurry of Jackson’s previously unpublished short stories in a volume called Come Along With Me.
 
“Disorientating and captivating!”
“Intelligently, thought-provokingly spooky!”
 
We were all surprised by the intelligence of Jackson’s ghost story! Published in 1959, The Haunting of Hill House has long been renowned by horror giants like Stephen King as the best ghost story ever written. It has been adapted into two films, both titled The Haunting, once in 1963 and another in 1999, and inspired Mike Flanagan’s 2018 Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House.
Jackson’s novel sees a group of strangers collated by Dr Montague, a scientist fascinated by the paranormal, and summoned to the secluded and reportedly haunted Hill House mansion to spend the summer examining the ghostly goings-on. There is Eleanor Vance, a shy young woman who has spent years reclusively caring for her sick mother; Theodora, the enchanting and bohemian artist; and young heir to the house, Luke Sanderson.
The story is more slow burn and psychological than many of its adaptations as we watch how the seemingly sentient house toys sadistically with each of the group in turn. Although there’s some moments of real ghostly terror, expect the spookier moments to come from the labyrinthine disorientating nature of the house, the grisly backstories and the characters’ fragmenting psyches.
 
We agreed that we would most definitely read Jackson’s novel again and were inspired to look up some of her other works including The Bird’s Nest and The Sundial, and her memoirs Life Among The Savages and Raising Demons.
If you’ve not picked up Jackson’s esteemed ghost story yet, prepare yourself for an invasive dig into your psyche. More than jump scares or lazy gore, Jackson’s story is the intelligent mixture of psychology and the supernatural that these dark and chilly evenings definitely prescribe.
Let us know what you think under #SYPLDNBookClub on Twitter and why not join us at our December book club where we’ll be discussing Abi Dare’s The Girl With The Louding Voice.
 
As ever, keep an eye on our socials for new events and don’t miss our November newsletter dropping into your inboxes soon!
 
Take care!