As the bridge between scholarly classic reading and Spooktober’s chilling thrills, I thought Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House would be an excellent final post for September’s Scholarly Reading Month. Not only is Shirley Jackson an absolute beast of a horror writer in the best possible way, but The Haunting of Hill House serves as one of the most compelling psychological horrors of its time.

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, the 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.

Shirley Jackson has an uncanny ability to set the tone and atmosphere of the book from its first sentence. With her expert word choice, perfect descriptions, and visceral detail, she makes things come alive. That is what drew me into The Haunting of Hill House, especially once Eleanor, the perspective focus, arrives at Hill House. Nothing has been so powerful and effective as the establishment of just how horrifying Hill House is to see. I have never read something so undeniably immersive, because once you get that explanation you cannot unsee it.

There is a power in writing enough to leave the reader wanting more, yet giving them that unknown to grapple with when it comes to horror and thriller novels. The unknown or unanswered is always scarier than a solution, and that is shown in full effect in The Haunting of Hill House. When you reach the ending, you feel the urge to go back work out where the switch is, trying to work out how you didn’t see it before. You try to reason with it, finding those answers that you will never truly get closure for, and the more you dig into characters and the development of relationships and actions in the house, the less clear everything becomes. This is all in the best way, but it can also be frustrating when you’re trying to get to the bottom of things. I think that is why this is such a persuasive classic horror novel, simply because there is no getting to the bottom of it.

I am so glad I picked up this classic novel because it goes to show the breadth and depth of classic fiction, the possibilities at your disposal when it comes to reading more classic fiction, and it provides a welcoming change of pace and expectation for what a classic novel is or should be. There is a timelessness about The Haunting of Hill House which works in its favour as well, making this a truly classic novel. I highly recommend The Haunting of Hill House, as well as Shirley Jackosn’s brilliant novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle which I could have included in my classics collection I had hadn’t reviewed it already.