I’m a fan of Grady Hendrix, after reading two of his other books before this one. And, while I gave this five stars, it almost didn’t make it. It was the ending that pulled it through for me.
The family drama in this book was almost so “cringe” that I threatened to put it down. I mean, it was bloody awful. The relationship between Louise and her brother Mark was so difficult to read. And I have to confess that Hendrix was quite masterful at making it awkward. Makes me wonder if he writes from experience.
At first, it seems as though it’s not actually the house that is haunted, and I’m still not sure that that’s the case. And, while there have been plenty of horror stories about “haunted” or possessed dolls, in this case, while there are a couple of dolls involved, the majority of the culprits are puppets. And the master of the puppets was one called Pupkin. You see, Louise’s and Mark’s mother had a church puppet ministry. And when their mom and dad died in a horrible traffic accident, Louise and Mark had to clean out the house. This is where the awkward drama starts, and it never stops. And when I say it was “cringe,” I do not think I am exaggerating.
But, and I have found this to be the case multiple times, the last third or quarter of the book launches it into five-star-land. At some point, it becomes almost unputdownable. I definitely enjoy this in a book, too. I want to be eager to finish it because I want to find out what happens, not because I can’t wait to get on to the next book in my stack.
I can’t say a lot more about the content without spoiling. But I will say that there was a definite plot turning point on page 252 when someone says, “Why do you think they boarded up the attic? It’s not squirrels up there.”
Were the characters lovable? Absolutely not! Not any of them. Mark was probably the most annoying, but there were times when Louise was just as annoying as Mark. The rest of the family was right up there, as well.
Also, there is some pretty serious gore in the story, as well, particularly one scene late in the book. I almost couldn’t read it, because Mr. Hendrix did such a “good” job of describing what was happening.
I have to throw this in, as well. Whenever Pupkin was described, I simply could not help envisioning puppet Angel. If you know you know.
I discovered this book at the library (anyone surprised?) and when I saw that it was an “authorized” sequel to Shirely Jackson’s classic The Haunting of Hill House, I immediately checked it out.
In this book, we investigate what happens when a group of self-absorbed theater people spend a few nights at Hill House, in hopes of reading and rehearsing a new play that our main “hero” has written. Holly and her girlfriend, Nisa, have been working on a play called Witching Night. As Holly was out for a drive, one day, she was drawn to turn off of the main road onto a rarely used side road, where she eventually wound up at the gates of Hill House. She got out and looked around a little and decided that, creepy as it seemed, it would be a perfect place for them, along with Stevie, another friend, and Amanda Greer, a famous actress who was slightly past her prime, to read and rehearse.
They ignored everyone’s warnings. The realtor who now owns Hill House tried to talk Holly out of it, but went ahead and rented the house to her for two weeks. The first time Holly had driven up the road, a woman, who had been standing outside a double-wide trailer house, came toward her car with a raised knife and a somewhat wild, angry expression on her face. That woman, Evadne, turned out to be friends with Ainsley, the realtor, and aunt to Melissa, who was the woman who cleaned at Hill House every week. All of them sported the same ring on one of their fingers, made by Evadne.
Ms. Hand has done a marvelous job of continuing the legacy of Hill House. We learn in the acknowledgments that she had the blessing, encouragement, and suggestions from Laurence Jackson Hyman, Shirley’s son and “literary executor.” The psychological terror that ensues in this novel is equal to, and perhaps even surpasses that of the original book. As these four people spend time in this house, strange things happen. But they are things that makes the reader wonder, at first, is this house really haunted, or are these people just a little insane?
Time doesn’t seem to work the same at Hill House, either. In all, they don’t even spend two full nights in the house, but it doesn’t seem to flow that way. To me, the reader, it seemed like more nights, but that’s a trick that the house plays on people. And it has a way of making people not trust each other. As I said, these theater people were already self-absorbed, so it didn’t take much psychological pushing for them to begin bickering among themselves and having negative thoughts about one another.
One thing I really liked about the layout of the story is that all of Holly’s chapters were in first person, while everyone else’s chapters, Nisa, Stevie, and Amanda, were in third person. And we spent ample time in all of their heads.
The last third or so (around 100 pages) of the story is where things really begin to act like a snowball rolling down a mountain. The pace picks up and doesn’t slow down until the last chapter. The terror gets real, tempers flare, and the narcissism of each player comes to full fruition. One almost expected someone to crash into the tree at the turn in the road, again, but, you see, that tree had been cut down, as at least one other person had died from crashing into it. But then, how difficult would it have been for Hill House to grow it back?
One interesting detail . . . there is a large black hare that figures into this story, frequently. And every chapter in the book is headed by a simple drawing of a hare. Another interesting detail is that both Holly and Amanda have a strange death, from their past, in their immediate circle of influence.
I loved this book! I’m very glad that I read it, and even more glad that Elizabeth Hand was allowed to write it. I do believe Ms. Jackson would have been pleased.
This was one of those books where the number of stars kept growing, the further I got into it. In my mind, it also kind of defies genre description. There is no mistaking that it is horror, horror at its most horrible. But what kind of horror is it?
In many ways, it is a haunted house story. The Pendleton is most definitely “haunted,” but by what? It’s not ghosts. Not exactly. It’s a monster story, as well. There are definitely monsters, but are they machine or organic? Or are they both? It is also a time-travel/inter-dimensional travel story, as the people in the story, along with the dwelling place, a large building that had been converted into luxury condominiums, are transported into a bleak, desolate future where only the aforementioned “monsters” survive.
As this tale unfolds, Dean Koontz spends a great deal of time introducing us to the characters and developing their personalities. It may seem to move somewhat slowly because of this, but once we get into the second part of the book, things begin moving at a much more rapid pace.
The descriptions in the story almost defy imagination. There were times when I found that I was completely unable to even picture what was being described, and when I could, it was most horrible. In fact, I believe the book even describes itself, as one of the characters was struggling to describe what it was that he was seeing.
“It was like the weirdest movie ever, with the biggest special-effects budget in history, directed by James Cameron on methamphetamines and Red Bull.”
I found that to be an amazingly accurate description of what I was reading.
Oh, I almost forgot. This was also a tale of genetic engineering gone horribly wrong. Interspersed between the other chapters, there was a sort of first person narrative from a character known only as “The One.” God-like in nature, eventually we discover that it was not, in fact, God, or even a lesser god, but the result of experimentation inspired by one of the other characters in the story. And the eventual existence of The One was completely dependent on whether that character survived this ordeal. I will leave it at that.
But there was one thing that was said of this particular character, late in the story. A thing that we would all do well to heed.
Spoilers ahead . . . you have been warned. 5/5 Goodreads stars.
It’s hard to know exactly where to begin, with this book. After having read Jackson’s Hillhouse, last year, I came across this one during my shelving duties at the Hurst Public Library, where I work part time. For one thing, I’m not exactly sure where I would classify this book, genre-wise. Is it “horror?” Not exactly, although it has elements of horror. Is it a “ghost story?” To be perfectly honest, I’m not one hundred percent certain. I don’t think it is, but there were moments, during reading, that I wondered.
It definitely has elements of a scary story, though, and acts like a ghost story, much of the time.
Constance and Mary Katherine (Merricat, and I absolutely adore that nickname) are sisters and live together in a large house with their Uncle Julian. They are the last three members of the immediate family. It appears that everyone else in the family died from poisoning a number of years earlier. Constance was accused and tried for the murder, but not convicted. Merricat has a cat named Jonas.
The people of the nearby village, in general, don’t like the Blackwood family (that’s Constance, Merricat, and Uncle Julian). Merricat goes to town a couple days a week, to buy supplies for them, and is not normally treated very well.
One day, out of the blue, cousin Charles shows up. I’m never quite sure of the reason, or his intent, but I suspect he is after money. You see, Constance and Merricat keep all of their money hidden away in the house, most of it in a safe in their late father’s study. In addition, we eventually discover that Merricat, who likes to bury things, has buried numerous silver dollars around the property. This, of course, upsets cousin Charles to no end.
Merricat seems to fancy herself a witch of some sort, as she speaks of days when she has the most power, and also has words that she employs, that she believes protect them and the house. In addition, she is constantly wishing people dead, sometimes in horrific fashion. It must be noted, though, that these wishes are not entirely unwarranted, as the family does experience a bit of persecution, as previously alluded to.
One source of this persecution can be seen in a cruel and taunting rhyme, employed by the villagers.
“Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea? Oh, no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me. Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep? Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!”
Merricat’s response: “Their tongues will burn, I thought, as though they had eaten fire. Their throats will burn when the words come out, and in their bellies will feel a torment hotter than a thousand fires.”
Okay. Maybe this is a horror story.
My favorite line in the book occurs on the first day that Charles offers to go into town to get supplies. It is Tuesday, and that’s Merricat’s day to do this.
“Since Charles had taken my occupation for Tuesday morning I had nothing to do. I wondered about going down to the creek, but I had no reason to suppose that the creek would even be there, since I never visited it on Tuesday mornings.”
Shades of Shrodinger’s Cat! “If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it . . .” and so on.
Slightly beyond the halfway point, the story takes a tragic turn. Because of Charles’s constant pipe smoking, the house catches fire and the upper portion burns away completely. By this point, Merricat has been conspiring on ways to get Charles to leave, but with no success. Did she have something to do with the fire?
Nevertheless, the village’s firemen arrive and begin to put out the fire. The rest of the village also arrives, to watch. Things get out of hand. Some of the villagers opine that they should just let the house burn, along with Constance and Merricat. They begin trashing what is left of the house, when the fire is put out. Furniture is destroyed; Constance’s harp (I believe it was also their mother’s) was knocked over and broken; food was destroyed. And, to make matters worse, during all of this turmoil, Uncle Julian dies.
Constance and Merricat carry on, afterward, essentially shutting themselves up in the house, and will see no one, whatsoever. People come to the door, begging them to answer, but they will not. Eventually, people feel guilty for their behavior and begin leaving food at the front door, along with notes, “Sorry about the harp,” and so on.
It’s a tragic tale, I believe, about human nature and how we tend to hate things we do not know or understand. The element of ruthless greed is involved, as well, so excellently depicted in Cousin Charles, who does show up one more time, in a shameless attempt to get the money.
Honestly, I enjoyed this story quite a bit more than Hillhouse. I especially grew fond of Merricat’s cat, Jonas.
I know that other reviewers have already done this, but I’m going to do it anyway. So, there.
“Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, 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.”
Decades before Stephen King began and ended his Dark Tower epic, Shirly Jackson both began and ended her epic horror story with the same words.
I seriously thought I had read this book before. Goodness knows I’ve known about it. But I can’t find it anywhere on my reading list, which extends back to the Spring of 1974, and I honestly did not remember any of the story, so this is my first time to read this classic example of the all-familiar haunted house genre.
The premise of the story is that John Montague, a doctor of philosophy, plans a “scientific” experiment on the psychic phenomenon of house haunting. He purposes to spend some nights in this house, Hill House, of which he has heard about. He enlists the help of several younger people, one of whom is a distant relative of the last owners of the house, because they insisted on having someone connected with the family be present. This person would be Luke Sanderson.
The other two are Eleanor Vance, known as Nell or Nellie, and another young lady who is only known as Theodora, or Theo. We are not provided with a last name.
The only other characters are the long-time caretakers of the property, known only as Mr. and Mrs. Dudley. Oh, oops. And Mrs. Montague, who shows up toward the end, along with a friend known as Arthur, who is a teacher/headmaster with whom she is acquainted. I suspect there might be some romantic involvement, there, but we are never explicitly told that.
Ms. Jackson’s writing is gripping and engaging, at least for me. The “horror” in this story is not constant. In fact, out of the 235 pages in this edition, a small percentage of them could even be called “scary.” But that small percentage is oh, so very frightening. The majority of the rest of the story consists of interactions and conversations among the small group of people.
Some of this interaction and conversation is humorous, some sarcastic. Much of it seems like coping strategies to keep from going completely bonkers during their stay at the house.
The thing that really makes this story effective is that we are never given any kind of explanation about what, exactly, is haunting this house. Or if it is truly “haunted,” as opposed to simply being outright evil.
In other words, was the house haunted by ghosts, or was the house simply an evil entity in its own right?
I, personally, am leaning toward the latter of the two.
And, it seems, the house wants Eleanor. Why? Jolly good question, that. And maybe what this book is all really about is the fact that Eleanor feels guilt over her mother’s death.
Ms. Jackson’s descriptions are so good. That is another thing that really makes this book come alive. Here is the description of Eleanor’s first sighting of the house: “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.” But of course, she did not do so.
Almost immediately, at the beginning of the next chapter, we get this: “This house, which seemed somehow to have formed itself, flying together into its own powerful pattern under the hands of its builders, fitting itself into its own construction of lines and angels, reared its great head back against the sky without concession to humanity. It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for people or for love or for hope. Exorcism cannot alter the countenance of a house; Hill House would stay as it was until it was destroyed.”
I may be sleeping with the lights on, tonight.
The edition that I read included two introductions. One by director Guillermo del Toro, added in 2013, and another by Laura Miller, from 2006. Del Toro’s intro seems to be an intro designed for several editions of these Penguin Horror classics, and I got some good fuel for my To Be Read list.
I want to give a very brief comparison to Netflix’s series of the same name. It is vaguely based on the book. There are characters with the same names. However, the story is drastically changed. In the Netflix series, two different actors play Hugh Crain, who was in the book, but was the original owner/builder of the house, who had only two daughters. Nell, Theo, and Luke were all presented by the Netflix series as children of Hugh Crain, along with Steven and Shirley, who are not characters in the book.
Nell/Eleanor’s name did not became Vance in the series until she married a sleep tech named, oddly enough, Arthur. Mr. and Mrs. Dudley are both in the series, as caretakers of the house. The Netflix series seems to be more about family drama than it is about house haunting, although the haunting of the house seems to be the cause of much of the drama. I have not, at this point, however, completed the series, so I have yet to see where it winds up. The outcome of the Nell/Eleanor character is remotely similar, however, and that is all I will say about that, as I try not to include spoilers in my reviews.
I will be on the lookout for an opportunity to see the 1963 film, The Haunting, as it seems to be regarded as the best film adaptation of this book.
I consider it quite appropriate that I finished this book on Halloween.
The Constant Reader 