{"id":20539,"date":"2025-12-20T01:00:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T05:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/?p=20539"},"modified":"2026-01-07T03:03:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T07:03:24","slug":"book-the-haunting-of-hill-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/book-the-haunting-of-hill-house\/","title":{"rendered":"The Haunting of Hill House"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"book-3079\" class=\"bdb-book-info\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_thehauntingofhillhouse.png?fit=250%2C383&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"The Haunting of Hill House\" class=\"alignright\"\/><strong>Title:<\/strong> The Haunting of Hill House<br \/><strong>Author:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/book-database\/author\/shirley-jackson\/\">Shirley Jackson<\/a><br \/><strong>First Published:<\/strong> <span content=\"1959-10-16\">October 16, 1959<\/span><br \/><strong>Publisher:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/book-database\/publisher\/penguin-books\/\">Penguin Books<\/a><br \/><strong>Pages:<\/strong> 256<br \/><strong>Genre:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/book-database\/genre\/classics\/\">Classics<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/book-database\/genre\/gothic\/\">Gothic<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/book-database\/genre\/horror\/\">Horror<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/book-database\/genre\/paranormal\/\">Paranormal<\/a><br \/><strong>Format:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/book-database\/format\/paperback\/\">Paperback<\/a><br \/><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/book-database\/source\/library\/\">Library<\/a><br \/><strong>Rating:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/book-database\/rating\/5\/\"><span class=\"bdb-font-awesome-star-wrap\"><i class=\"fas fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fas fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fas fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fas fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fas fa-star\"><\/i><\/span><\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/6393407-the-haunting-of-hill-house\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/addtogoodreads.png?ssl=1\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\"\/><\/a><br \/><br \/><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong> <p>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 \u201chaunting\u201d; Theodora, his 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\u2014and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.<\/p>\n<strong>Get the Book:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3NcKFKo\" target=\"_blank\">Amazon<\/a>\r\n<hr \/><\/div>\t\t<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">\n\t\t\t{\n\t\t\t\t\"@context\": \"https:\/\/schema.org\/\",\n\t\t\t\t\"@type\": \"Review\",\n\t\t\t\t\"datePublished\": \"2025-12-20T05:00:20+00:00\",\n\t\t\t\t\"description\": \"The Haunting of Hill House\",\n\t\t\t\t\"publisher\": {\n\t\t\t\t\t\"@type\": \"Organization\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\"name\": \"Radical Dreamer\"\t\t\t\t},\n\t\t\t\t\"url\": \"https:\\\/\\\/pastelgoth.net\\\/blog\\\/book-the-haunting-of-hill-house\\\/\",\n\t\t\t\t\"itemReviewed\": {\n\t\t\t\t\t\"@type\": \"Book\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\"name\": \"The Haunting of Hill House\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\"author\": [\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t{\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"@type\": \"Person\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"name\": \"Shirley Jackson\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"sameAs\": \"https:\\\/\\\/pastelgoth.net\\\/blog\\\/book-database\\\/author\\\/shirley-jackson\\\/\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t],\n\t\t\t\t\t\"isbn\": \"\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\"numberOfPages\": 256,\n\t\t\t\t\t\"publisher\": {\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"@type\": \"Organization\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"name\": \"Penguin Books\"\t\t\t\t\t},\n\t\t\t\t\t\"image\": \"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/pastelgoth.net\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/book_thehauntingofhillhouse.png?fit=250%2C383&ssl=1\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\"datePublished\": \"1959-10-16T00:00:00+00:00\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\"sameAs\": \"https:\\\/\\\/www.goodreads.com\\\/book\\\/show\\\/6393407-the-haunting-of-hill-house\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\"genre\": \"Classics\"\t\t\t\t},\n\t\t\t\t\"author\": {\n\t\t\t\t\t\"@type\": \"Person\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\"name\": \"Jamie\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\"sameAs\": \"https:\\\/\\\/pastelgoth.net\\\/blog\\\/\"\t\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t, \"reviewRating\": {\n\t\t\t\t\t\"@type\": \"Rating\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\"ratingValue\": 5,\n\t\t\t\t\t\"bestRating\": 5\t\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t}\n\t\t<\/script>\n\t\t\n<h2>Review<\/h2>\n<p>Hill House is suffocatingly atmospheric, illiciting an intense feeling of isolation\u2013the house is buried in hills far away from the nearest town. The house\u2019s architecture is imperfect, the crookedness throws one\u2019s balance just a little bit off. The urban legends of the house\u2019s tragic history are ripe for a haunted house, but is the house actually haunted? Is there some supernatural force that drives the inhabitants to madness? Or perhaps the hauntings are the product of a disturbed mind?<\/p>\n<p>This book is absolutely brilliant in its ambiguity. I loved that things aren\u2019t very direct, leaving the reader to decide how to interpret the story for themselves. A reader\u2019s imagination is a writer\u2019s best tool. One of the first things that struck me was the unusual dialogue between characters, particularly Eleanor. At times it felt like characters were talking at the other person rather than <em>with<\/em> them. This behavior is a sign of a person that is unable to relate or empathize with other people.<\/p>\n<p>It becomes clear not long after this that there\u2019s something not quite right about Eleanor. She\u2019s lonely and depressed, she lies constantly about her life and desperately seeks approval. She reassures herself constantly that she belongs at Hill House with the other people there and struggles with her attempts to make connections with the other guests. As the story goes on Eleanor perceives everyone else as being both loving and cruel. She sneers at Theo for trying to steal attention away from her out of some conceived notion of jealousy. Eleanor can only view relationships as being built on dependency, her psyche is fractured.<\/p>\n<p>I won\u2019t go into too much more of my thoughts because I don\u2019t want to spoil the plot. It\u2019s definitely not an average ghost story and those looking for more visceral horror will probably be disappointed. The plot is thick with metaphor about trauma and the slow-burn while it worked for me may be too slow for others. Regardless, I loved this book and completely understand why it is held in such high regard and the more I think about it, the more my love for it grows. There were points where my gut was in knots with anxiety and anticipation and I just have to admire Jackson\u2019s master craft with her prose.<\/p>\n<h2>Quote<\/h2>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I am like a <em>small creature<\/em> <strong>swallowed whole<\/strong> by a <strong>monster<\/strong>, she thought, and the monster <em>feels<\/em> my tiny little movements <strong>inside<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n<h2>Content Warnings<\/h2>\n<span class=\"ubb-spoiler\"><a class=\"ubb-view-spoil\">View Spoiler &raquo;<\/a><span style=\"display: none;\" class=\"ubb-thespoil\">Death <a class=\"ubb-hide-spoil\" style=\"cursor: hand; cursor: pointer;\">&laquo; Hide Spoiler<\/a><\/span><\/span>\n<h2>About the Author<\/h2>\n<div class=\"ubb-about-author\">\n<h3>About Shirley Jackson<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/author_shirleyjackson.png?fit=200%2C200&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignleft ubb-about-author-photo\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/author_shirleyjackson.png?w=200&amp;ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/author_shirleyjackson.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/author_shirleyjackson.png?resize=75%2C75&amp;ssl=1 75w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Shirley Jackson was an influential American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years. She has influenced such writers as Stephen King, Nigel Kneale, and Richard Matheson.<\/p>\n<p>She is best known for her dystopian short story, &#8220;The Lottery&#8221; (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson&#8217;s story &#8220;The Lottery&#8221; was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that &#8220;no New Yorker story had ever received.&#8221; Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, &#8220;bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jackson&#8217;s husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that &#8220;she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years.&#8221; Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson&#8217;s works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of &#8220;personal, even neurotic, fantasies&#8221;, but that Jackson intended, as &#8220;a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb&#8221;, to mirror humanity&#8217;s Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed by Hyman&#8217;s statement that she &#8220;was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned The Lottery&#8217;, and she felt that they at least understood the story&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ubb-author-links\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/13388.Shirley_Jackson\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Goodreads<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Y9jM0r\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Review Hill House is suffocatingly atmospheric, illiciting an intense feeling of isolation\u2013the house is buried in hills far away from the nearest town. The house\u2019s architecture is imperfect, the crookedness&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[230,70],"book-author":[167],"book-illustrator":[],"book-series":[],"book-publisher":[],"book-genre":[],"book-source":[],"book-format":[],"class_list":["post-20539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","tag-american-classics","tag-american-literature","book-author-shirley-jackson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_thehauntingofhillhouse-header.png?fit=1080%2C540&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20539"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28277,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20539\/revisions\/28277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20539"},{"taxonomy":"book-author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-author?post=20539"},{"taxonomy":"book-illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-illustrator?post=20539"},{"taxonomy":"book-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-series?post=20539"},{"taxonomy":"book-publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-publisher?post=20539"},{"taxonomy":"book-genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-genre?post=20539"},{"taxonomy":"book-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-source?post=20539"},{"taxonomy":"book-format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-format?post=20539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}