When the days get shorter and there’s a shiver in the air,
many people turn to spooky stories. I
always say I don’t really like horror, but I do like uncanny tales that make a
little shiver run up my spine. Here are
a few of my favorites:
The Woman in Black by Susan
Hill is a classic English ghost story. Our narrator becomes upset at hearing
his family recount ghost stories because he has experienced the real thing. As
a young solicitor, he was sent to an isolated house to sort out an old woman’s
belongings, despite being warned away by the villagers. If you like atmospheric, this one has it to
spare. There have been a couple of movie
versions, but while the one with Daniel Radcliffe caught some of the feel of
the book, I was disappointed by the changes made to the story.
Shirley Jackson is one of the classic authors of the unsettling. Her short stories like The Lottery linger in the mind long after the last sentence. She wrote the legendary The Haunting of Hill House, in which four people go to stay in an old house which is purported to be haunted, and my favorite We Have Always Lived in the Castle which opens with the iconic paragraph introducing Mary Katherine Blackwood. I was hooked from that moment on.
Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes is a book that always comes to mind when autumn approaches. While it’s often shelved in children’s or YA, I find I appreciate it much more as an adult. Bradbury’s descriptions of the restlessness and unease that comes with the dying of the year strikes a chord, and the darkness that comes brings a shudder. It was also a fine movie—and yes, the library has both book and movie!
Among the more modern authors, I like Jennifer McMahon’s The
Drowning Kind. A young woman goes
home only to find that her sister who has been suffering from mental illness
has committed suicide. Her notes allude
to something or someone connected to the spring behind the family home. Even though
I figured out where the story was going, the book has such an intriguing vibe
that I was drawn in—and I love the ending. It doesn’t answer all the questions,
which is just how I like it.
A Scout Is Brave by Will Ludwigsen is
another recent favorite. Bud Castillo moves with his family to Innsmouth, MA in
the summer of 1963. It’s a big change,
moving from Queens to a small, dreary town with not much for a ten year old boy
to do. Then he meets Aubrey, a pale, sheltered boy who wants to be a Scout and
things seem to be looking up. But there
seems to be something dark lurking in Innsmouth. . . . I love the way this story is told, from the point
of view of an adult Bud remembering a pivotal summer in his life, and I also like the mid-century setting.
-Jeanne
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