… for Hallowe’en! This month our book club’s pick was a haunty one.
Our host was Alyssa, our actress and newly-minted marathon runner, who lives in a cozy home that looks like mine might look if I took control of it and bought furniture. Alyssa is a funny bundle of same and opposite for me – like me, she feels like she is far from being the kind of playground uber-mom that make us both feel reclusive, yet she struts her stuff onstage in theatre productions that have yet to be anything less than very impressive. She puts you right at ease, her goofy side coming out easily, and is eager to share her love of baking, for she has, it must be said, a very, very sweet tooth. Inspiring, down-to-earth, and a fantastic maker of desserts, Alyssa is a terrific hostess.
Her book pick for the month was apropriately spooky, too, and said by a good few book club member to be among our best yet. It is also her second pick that was an older title, since she picked Revolutionary Road last year, another very worthy read.
The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson
Penguin
ISBN: 9780140071085
Let me start by saying, for the record, that I am not into scary stuff. I don’t watch horror movies, and occasionally, if I read mysteries that are too tense, I have to wake up the man I sleep beside and make him walk me to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I am not made of stern stuff when it comes to this, because my imagination runs away with my sense. But. this came highly recommended by my book club ladies, so I decided to steel myself and wade in, lest I miss great stuff because I’m a big ol’ chicken.
The story builds slowly, letting anticipation do it’s worst with both the characters and the reader here – this is no gory slasher flick, but psychological, even in it’s damage to the visitors to the house. Being an older book, I wondered as I read how much it followed some of the conventions of the genre already established, and how much it had laid out for others, for certainly, though this is restrained, it does employ familiar tricks – doors that close, disjointed angles, and ghostly pranks that I won’t reveal, as they are better read under the tension of waiting.
If you’re looking for a little creepy reading to set the mood this Hallowe’en, I suggest you try out a classic. Myself, I am quite thoroughly creeped out, and embarrassed that I’m about to ask the man to go downstairs and get me the toasted pumpkin seeds, because I don’t want to go myself…
Happy haunting, everyone!