Review: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

4 stars for The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

This is one of the best old horror stories.

The Haunting of Hill House is more terror than horror, at least that is how I feel. The paranormal factor embedded in the root of the story is so skilfully presented that reading the uncanny episodes bring on a sudden awareness that sends chills up my spine, such that each and every trivial sound that permeates the air in my living room while I read the book late into the night makes me jump up in my couch with a thumping heart and surreptitiously turn my head around as if I am being watched by unseeing eyes. Yes, I am spooked.

A Doctor of Philosophy wants to investigate the causes and effects of psychic disturbances in a house commonly known as "haunted". He set his eyes on Hill House which is built some eighty-odd years ago and engages assistants to observe and explore this house of despair to find out why all the people who rent Hill House make an effort to provide a rational reason for leaving, never staying more than a few days and certainly never the full terms of their leases.

Are you keen to find out the real reason as well? Are you game enough to set foot in the Hill House? If it's a yes and yes, enter and be forewarned.


Publisher: Penguin Classics; 1 edition
Publication date: 28 Nov 2006

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First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

*Blurb from Goodreads*

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