I love a good classic horror tale, and when it comes to ones like The Haunting of Hill House, they are especially fascinating because you can see so much of modern horror reflected back in elements of these stories. Shirley Jackson is considered by many to be the original queen of horror and, if not the creator, at the very least the author most responsible for making the haunted house trope popular. Given that it’s my favorite horror trope, you can imagine the excitement and apprehension I felt over finally picking this book up.

First and foremost, Shirley Jackson’s writing was positively incredible. I love horror writing that doesn’t always make sense, that leaves much to the imagination and constantly has you wondering what really just happened, and that sums up The Haunting of Hill House in a nutshell. The writing is poetic, strange, self-contradicting, and absolutely the perfect narrative voice for the tragic atmosphere of Hill House—and poor Eleanor’s gradual descent into madness.

The events themselves are far spread, but genuinely dreadful, leaving a catch-22 of sorts: on the one hand, the pacing at times feels extremely slow, but on the other, Hill House constantly lures the reader into a false sense of security before lashing out with another fright. With classics, many readers don’t expect to be truly terrified—we modern horror fans often fall prey to the trap of thinking that we have grown numb to the fears of decades gone by—but I don’t mind admitting that The Haunting of Hill House kept me on the edge of my seat at times, jumping at every unusual noise in my dark home while I read.

The characters in the story serve a catch-22 of their own: they’re so incredibly unlikeable that it’s hard to root for them, yet their casual cruelty only endeared me further to Eleanor, while still leaving me to wonder, how much of what she perceived as rudeness was only standard human socializing, filtered through the dark lens of the slow twisting of her mind the house created? The only character beyond Eleanor who I ever found myself fond of was Theodora, though I could never make sense of her—one moment, she seemed vicious and catty, while the next, it was painfully clear that she had less than platonic feelings for Eleanor. (On that note, as is the case with so many classics, there is a tremendously obvious underlying theme of subtle queerness here, and I won’t deny how much it made me wish for a more accepting retelling in modern times.)

So, I’ll end on this note—whether you’re a fan of modern or classic horror, ghost stories or gothic subtlety, I absolutely recommend picking up a copy of The Haunting of Hill House. (If you’re looking for a specific edition, I happily recommend Guillermo del Toro’s re-release, which comes with an introduction from the infamous director, and offers a perfectly fitting aesthetic.)

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