Sunday, March 17, 2024

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Sunday, February 04, 2024

2. A Haunting On the Hill

By Elizabeth Hand

For Christmas, my BIL had given me The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, a Booker Prize shortlister I wasn’t familiar with. He said I was welcome to exchange it at Mrs Dalloway’s for something that was more in my wheelhouse.  I browsed for a long time before I spotted a single hardbound copy of A Haunting on the Hill.  I had no idea Elizabeth Hand had written an official sequel to Shirley Jackon’s most famous novel, The Haunting of Hill House!  It was released only a few months ago in October 2023.

I was a big admirer of Hand’s horror mystery thriller Generation Loss, which first won her the 2008 Shirley Jackson award.  It seemed the planets were aligned for me to read A Haunting on the Hill: it was the exact same price as The Bee Sting, so the clerk was able to do a clean exchange for me. I was really looking forward to starting 2024 with a new release! 

The novel begins with Holly and her girlfriend Nisa taking a weekend break away from NYC.  Holly is a struggling playwright who got a lucky break with a $10,000 grant to produce The Witching Hour -- a passion project inspired by Elizabeth Sawyer, who was accused of witchcraft and executed in 17th c. New England.  Nisa, a singer-songwriter obsessed with murder ballads, will compose the music and perform the songs on stage with the actors.  

While out on a drive, Holly discovers Hill House.  She had been searching for a retreat, a place where her performers could rehearse, do read-throughs and collaborate on the development of the play.  She manages to find the local real estate agent, Ainsley, who happens to own Hill House.  Ainsley is reluctant at first, but agrees to rent Hill House to Holly for the week.

Holly brings on board Stevie, a sound designer who was a former child stage actor, and Amanda Greer, a lauded theatre actor who was involved in an unfortunate accident that somewhat rerailed her career.  At first I was a little wary, as the four main characters are self-involved theatre types. What kind of eye-rolling antics would I have to endure with a bunch of clashing egos thrown into a claustrophobic haunted house.  Holly has been frustrated by her stagnant career path and considers the grant her one chance at breaking out as a successful playwright, so she’s determined to make this work, no matter how her gut keeps screaming out there is something terribly wrong with Hill House

Holly’s gf Nisa is probably the most annoying character of the four.  Blessed with a beautiful voice, she’s constantly trying to “test the acoustics" by belting out her compositions.  And with an innate talent for penning melancholy folk songs, she has a promising musical career, yet deep-down she’s suspicious that Holly wants to reign her in.  She’s also narcissistic and having a secret affair with Stevie.

Stevie is one of Holly’s best friends.  As a former child stage actor, he was sexually abused by an older costar, and has grown up dealing wit his past trauma with drugs and hedonism.  Hill House first “reveals” itself to Stevie by giving him the illusion of a safe space in the form of a secret door that’s meant just for him.

Like Nisa, Amanda also likes to command attention, yet unlike Nisa, she is horribly insecure.  Her being older than the others doesn’t help either.  It’s important to note that all three women are desperate to either revive or kickstart their respective careers, and this desperation is what binds them to Hill House.

Overall, I found A Haunting on the Hill to be extremely disappointing, almost to the point of being badly written. First, I had no connection with any of the characters.  Yes, they were immature, unlikeable theatre people, but writers like Patricia Highsmith had a way of making unpleasant characters relatable, or at the very least, fascinating.  Hand herself had created one of the most deeply flawed characters in Cass Neary, yet I could still relate to Cass’ foibles.   The four main characters in A Haunting on the Hill were too self-obsessed to truly care for anyone.  Second, the story wasn't even remotely creepy, let alone scary.  The black menacing hares of unusual size did absolutely nothing for me.  What made Shirley Jackson’s novel so effective was, as the reader, you were never sure whether the house was truly haunted, or whether all the inexplicable occurrences were all in Eleanor’s mind.

The pacing was also off somehow.  There wasn’t any sense of impending doom that ever got properly built up.  The novel was written in the first person from Holly’s POV, yet equal time was spent inside the heads of Nisa, Stevie and Amanda. Holly didn’t have a particularly unique perspective, so I thought it was strange that Hand didn’t use the third person to narrate (which Jackson did for The Haunting of Hill House).    

   Now she grew angry.  They were supposed to all be in this together, with the same goal: the play.  Yet there was Stevie, upstaging her in the parlor, pulling out all the stops as that damned dog. Her voice and her songs were what knit the entire story together, even Holly had admitted that.
   And where was her reward?  Nisa had brought beauty and a sense of ancient mystery to Holly’s words.  She’d infused them with a power and terror that echoed down through centuries unitl Nisa held them, protected them, shared them with those she thought she could trust with something so precious. 
   But all they could see and hear were their own voices.  Petty. Selfish. Greedy.  Deaf to beauty when it rang out.

Hand went deeply into everyone’s past issues, and Hill House amplified their destructive neuroses and desires, yet everyone still felt so two-dimensional, and awful.  Holly, Nisa, Stevie, and Amanda were mostly bickering, bitchy theatre types.  The three women who watched over Hill House -- Ainsely, Melissa, and Evadne -- were even more thinly drawn.  They were supposed to be good witches yet their motives or histories were never developed.  Perhaps Hand wanted to keep them mysterious or inscrutable, but they did nothing to propel the narrative.  They didn't even provide any substantial backstory to Hill House.  There was also something about a family who had lived in Hill House during 80's and a teenaged son who had disappeared, but this is only briefly alluded to.  Ainsley had agreed to rent out Hill House too easily despite knowing the danger she’d be putting her renters in.  She also never reappeared again.  Only Melissa and Evadne made half-hearted attempts to convince the occupants to leave before the forecasted October snow storm.  When Melissa mentioned “it was too late”, she just took off! 

It would’ve made more sense if Ainsley had more of a connection with the house and was making excuses to rent it out, ie. nothing bad had happened there for a long time, and she needed the money, when in actual fact, the house wanted to be “fed” a la Burnt Offerings (which I still need to watch).  There could’ve been interpersonal conflicts between Ainsely, Melissa and Evadne (which would provide a nice counterpoint to Holly, Nisa and Amanda).  And Melissa and Evadne could’ve swooped in at the last minute to extricate Holly, Amanda and Stevie (because there had to be one sacrificial victim – it’s a horror thriller after all!).  But this never happened.

 Though Stevie himself had felt it, too, in the parlor, that primal thrill as he felt himself fold into someone else. Something else…

     He knew from Holly’s expression that his performance had already surpassed whatever she’d hoped for. He still felt it, a flash of the intense charge he got when he’d nailed a part a shivery current that ran through his entire body, everything seeming to tremble, on the verge of coming apart. The others had laughed when Amanda talked about actors being possessed, but he knew that she was right.

    It had been years since he’d felt it, like a drug he’d forsaken. Only this wasn’t bad for him, like drugs. This was what he’d needed, all along. This was what he’d been secretly praying for, the chance to give himself over to something more powerful than himself. The muse, an old acting teacher called it.

I really liked the idea of having a group of actors unknowingly channelling the latent power of Hill House during their rehearsals, much like the psychics in Jackson’s original story.  The characters were definitely seeing and hearing things that didn’t make sense.  But the sightings of the menacing big black hare didn’t make much narrative or symbolic sense - it just left me scratching my head.  And that secret door leading to a psychedelic passageway just seemed kind of silly.

Many ideas that had any potential ended up feeling half-baked.  I mentioned the pacing - it took far too long for things to happen.  Like Stevie finally opening that damned secret door near the end.   Then the storm came and the strange knocking.  Then Nisa snuck up to the door because she couldn’t stand the fact that Stevie would keep something like this from her, but like an idiot, ended up getting trapped inside the bowels of the house.  It was all kind of rushed.  Too much time was spent on four annoying characters and their bitchy interpersonal dynamics, their flaws and insecurities on repeat.  Not enough effort spent creating an effective or marginally scary horror story.  

In the end, it was Nisa who got “eaten” by Hill House, not Holly.  A year later, Holly was still able to produce her play with Amanda Greer as the star and using recordings of Nisa’s music.  But it wasn’t clear whether Holly had changed or even learned anything because none of the survivors really talked about what happened at Hill House. They just moved on with their lives.

I think an important detail that Hand missed was that it was never proven that Hill House was really haunted.  Anyone who had met their fate at the hands of Hill House was mentally unstable in some way.  Hill House always knew who the most vulnerable person was.  Nisa was too self-involved and full of herself to be an Eleanor Vance.  But as the most annoying character in the novel, I was nevertheless glad the house took her!

It's a shame really, as I really wanted to like this novel. Now I'm going to have to find a way to sell or giveaway this lovely hardcover!

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Sunday, December 31, 2023

22. Beautiful Darkness

By Fabien Vehlmann & Kerascoët. Translated from the French by Helge Dascher.

Drawn & Quarterly had a Black Friday sale of their books (the second book was half off).  I found two graphic novels: Are You Willing to Die for the Cause? Revolution in 1960s Quebec and Beautiful Darkness, with the intention of respectively giving them to Olman and my daughter for Christmas. 

 

Beautiful Darkness seemed like it'd be suitable for older kids.  The illustrations were so beautiful and dreamy.  I should have read through it first, but even so, I think my 11 yo daughter would’ve been able to handle the content.  For Christmas, she had requested new clothes for the first time and not a single toy (except for Nintendo games, obvs), so this book was one of the few non-clothing items I got her. 

 

She began reading it shortly after Christmas and at some point, reproached me with something to the effect of, “Mommy, I can’t believe you got this book for me!  It’s so disturbing!”    

It turned out that the main fairy girl ends up gouging the eyes out of a mouse!  She told me that she wasn't going to read any more and handed the book back to me!

Well, I admit I felt a bit bad for not pre-reading Beautiful Darkness before giving it to the kid.  When I flipped through it, I say pages like the one to the right 👉.  I did feel she was old enough to handle some unexpected violence portrayed in comics (as long as it’s not gratuitous nor sexual), but I understand that animal cruelty is hard to stomach.   

Earlier this month, I had taken my daughter to see Ellisapie live in concert and the venue (Usine C) was located in a dodgy area of downtown Montreal.  It was sketchy enough that, as we were leaving, my husband cautioned us to stay alert.  Even though we both believe in exposing our kid to the rougher parts of the city, we won't hesitate to exercise  precautions in case of the unexpected.

 

When the concert ended around 10pm, we walked back to the metro station on Ste-Catherine East.  There was an ambulance parked by the entrance and as we approached the stairs, an old homeless-looking man was being carried away in a gurney by EMTs, his head wrapped in several layers of white gauze with a visible bloody spot seeping through the bandages.  As we passed them going down the other side of the stairs, we encountered the bright pool of blood where he fell on the muddy steps.  We didn’t stop to gawk, though we may have slowed a little to take in the unexpected scene.  When we reached the bottom, I saw that my daughter looked a little stunned, and I asked if she was ok.  She nodded and I reassured her that the man was getting the help he needed and that he should be ok.  That was the most exciting incident during our one night in the downtown east side!

 

So yeah, even though it wasn’t great that my daughter encountered some violence in a graphic fairy tale, I knew she wasn’t going to be too traumatized by it!

 

                                                                   When I finally read Beautiful Darkness myself, I was absolutely entranced by this wonderfully subversive fairy tale and the dark, horrifying evil lurking beneath the gorgeously illustrated surface.  The aesthetics and content was right in my wheelhouse!  Beautiful Darkness has been described as "Thumbelina meets Lord of the Flies" and an anti-fairy tale.  Somehow I missed this when I initially flipped through the pages, but in the prologue, there were little people having tea inside the decomposing body of a young girl deep in the forest.  Setting a very creepy tone, it did.

 

I recently rewatched The Mist (2007) and thought how very similar it was to Beautiful Darkness (2009). Both Zelie and Mrs Carmody embodied the narcissistic psychopath who preys on the weaknesses of their followers and delights in inflicting pain upon the innocent.  Zelie’s unchecked bullying finally sent the sweet and trusting Aurora into a terrifying rage and her dear mouse friend suffered because he had betrayed her.  This was the horrible act of violence that upset my daughter so much.  

 

Like The Mist, Beautiful Darkness made me question, who are the real monsters?  Are they the strange beasts outside our door, or have they always been lurking inside every one of us, needing only a trigger or two to unleash the beast within?  What is more horrifying?  The faceless man who may have murdered the young girl?  Or Zelie, the beautiful yet sadistic fairy who plucks butterfly wings for her dress and buries misfits alive for fun?  Or the followers, who represent the moral abyss devoid of empathy and reasoning?  Perhaps the real tragedy is Aurora, who once radiated light and hope, has now finally succumbed to the darkness.

 


 


      

Thursday, December 28, 2023

21. A Visit

By Shirley Jackson

First published as "The Lovely House" in 1950 and later reprinted  under the title "A Visit."  While a short story, Biblioasis reprinted it as a cute little book that's part of a series known as, A Ghost Story for Christmas, all of them designed and illustrated by Seth.  It's an attempt to revive a Victorian tradition of reading ghost stories on Christmas Eve.

So this technically counts as a book, right? I might as well end the year with a holiday book, though the actual story doesn't have anything to do with Christmas, nor winter, for that matter.

Margaret is invited to stay at her friend's estate for the summer holidays.  Carla and her parents, Mr and Mrs Rhodes, seem normal and welcoming enough, though Margaret is clearly not from money, but this difference is barely mentioned.  The house is filled with beautiful tapestries with at least one in every room, all embroidered by Carla's mother and the past generations of Rhodes women who have lived in that house.

Carla keeps talking wistfully and/or excitedly about her brother's impending visit, and he finally arrives one day with a friend.  Carla's brother is known only as "the captain", while Margaret finds it peculiar that no one calls the captain's friend by his name, so she asks him and he tells her that his name is Paul.  Margaret also later discovers an old eccentric aunt who keeps to herself (and her cat) high up in the tower.  There are hints that one or more of the characters are merely an apparition as the story goes on.  

The story is very sparsely written, and yet, even though every word is accounted for, it's what's left out that evokes a feeling of oddness and mystery, as befits a Jackson narrative.  But I wouldn't say that "A Visit" was very creepy nor unsettling, not at all like Jackson's other stories.  However, what I found most odd was that in the book, Carla's family name is Rhodes, while the Wikipedia keeps calling Carla's family as the Montagues.