Italian immigrant area, from among which build-
ings he sees the tower of an elderly church. Blake
grows increasingly intrigued by the building and
eventually sets out to find it, a process that proves
difficult because none of the local residents are will-
ing to be helpful. He perseveres and finally enters
the abandoned and decrepit church, once the
home of the Starry Wisdom Cult, who were driven
from the city after a series of mysterious disappear-
ances for which they were blamed.
Inside the church he finds a collection of ar-
cane books, a mysterious artifact, and the skeleton
of a long-missing journalist that appears to have
been burned or fused by acid. A nameless dread
drives him from the building, carrying away a
manuscript that he subsequently translates. The
description of a creature from another plane of ex-
istence that so abhors the light that it cannot
stand even a dimly lit city street seems fanciful
until later, when he hears rumors of strange sounds
and movements from inside the church. Blake feels
a compulsion to return to the site but resists, even
tying himself to his bed at night to prevent sleep-
walking. Unfortunately, there is eventually a power
failure, and the following morning Blake is found
dead, apparently killed by a lightning strike, even
though he is in a sealed room.
Lovecraft’s fiction is replete with suggested
rather than minutely described creatures, usually
infiltrators from another reality intruding into our
world, and the doomed humans who dare to inter-
fere in their affairs. For a fellow writer to be ele-
vated to the status of victim of one of his horrid
alien creations would have been considered a con-
siderable honor.
The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson
(1959)
If GHOST STORY(1981) is the greatest ghost story
of all time, then The Haunting of Hill House,by
Shirley JACKSON, is the greatest haunted house
tale. Jackson, most of whose fiction has an air of
strangeness even when there is no fantastic con-
tent at all, is best remembered for this highly effec-
tive mix of psychological horror and the
supernatural and for her memorable but nonfan-
tastic horror story “The Lottery” (1948).
Hill House is a sprawling estate with a reputa-
tion for strange goings on in the night, generally
assumed to be the antics of restless spirits. A team
of four people with supposed sensitivity to such
phenomena are sent to stay there for a few days
and conduct an investigation, but the story focuses
primarily on Eleanor Vance, an introverted, inse-
cure, and potentially unstable middle-aged woman
whose life is falling apart and who in some strange
way views this temporary respite as the key to a
better future. Although the manifestations are
quite subdued by the standards of modern horror
films and many recent horror novels, the effect on
the reader is considerable, partly because of Jack-
son’s ability to build suspense through subtle incre-
ments and partly because she is so skilled at forcing
the reader to examine events through the eyes of
the characters.
The tension begins to fray tempers as well.
Eleanor has started to identify with the house,
which is seducing her into abandoning herself to
its insidious aura. Although she eventually finds
the will to flee, the effort is abortive, as she loses
control of her vehicle and is killed, so that her
spirit is forever trapped at Hill House. Jackson is
never too explicit about what is happening, and
one might interpret the whole thing as mass hyste-
ria and telekinetic poltergeist activity. For Eleanor,
of course, it makes no difference what was truth
and what was delusion.
The novel was brought to the screen with
considerable loyalty and quite effectively as The
Haunting(1963) and remade in a less interesting,
special effects–dependent version in 2001. Jack-
son’s novel is the benchmark against which all
other stories of haunted houses are inevitably
measured.Hautala, Rick(1949– )
Although very few modern horror novelists use
ghosts as a major theme, Rick Hautala has drawn
upon that tradition more often than any other and
generally with excellent results. He started his ca-
reer with a werewolf novel, Moondeath(1980), a
straightforward tale of lycanthropy with a hint of
witchcraft. His follow-up was Moonbog (1982),
which hints at the supernatural but is actually theHautala, Rick 157