Happy happy October! I have a busy month ahead, but I'm hoping it will be even more horror-heavy than the rest of the year. Let's start with the always great Shirley:

"Then the stairs, step by step, and all this while the mannikins inside run screaming from each section of the house to a higher and a more concealed room, --- and I shall eat the room in one mouthful, chewing ruthlessly on the boards and the small sweet bones."

3.5 stars
Hangsaman is, in a way, familiar: the atmosphere is impeccable, you never know what you'll bump into around the corner, and there's some subtly weird things that make you slightly uncomfortable.

But, because the protagonist (Natalie, a college freshman) is such an odd introspective girl who has an unpredictable thought process, and because the story is so cryptic, it would definitely scare off people who are new to Jackson.

I still don't know what the hell was going on half the time, but I still liked it. It's just one of those things that is difficult to explain. According to latest research, the novel wasn't inspired by Paula Jean Welden's disappearance after all, but the 2020 movie Shirley still references it and is set during the time period when Jackson was writing Hangsaman. I'm thinking it could be the perfect choice for this weather.