The Haunting of Hill House

Horror has to walk a fine line. An author who shows too much, imagines her own worst fears eclipse those of all her readers. An author who shows too little, leaves you frustrated and unwilling to jump at mere rustles in the bushes.

Hill House walks this line neatly by drawing on another fear. Perhaps a worse one than ghosts.

In glimpsing extraordinary things that cannot be true, is it worse to be wrong or declared insane? Or, if these things did exist, would insanity be the colours by which they paint?

Shirley Jackson manages to take all of this, put it to good narrative use, and leave you wondering about things well beyond bumps in the night.