“Thirty-something
Colquitt and Walter Kennedy live in a charming, peaceful suburb of the newly
bustling Atlanta. Life is made up of enjoyable work, long, lazy weekends, and
the company of good neighbors. Then, to their shock, construction starts on the
vacant lot next door, a wooded hillside they'd believed would always remain
undeveloped. Soon, though, they come to realize that more is wrong than their
diminished privacy. Surely the house can't be "haunted," yet
something about it seems to destroy the goodness of every person who comes to
live in it, until the entire heart of this friendly neighborhood threatens to
be torn apart.”
Author
Anne River Siddons was mostly known for her novels set in the South, being
closer to Pat Conroy in tone, than what she was really remembered for, the
sometimes complicated world of Chick Books. The House Next Door was her second book
and an hundred and eighty degree from her debut (and despite the success of
this book, never tried her hand a Gothic horror again). But the book, despite
the fact that Stephen King once called it the “Finest horror novels of
the 20th Century", and provides a lengthy review of the novel his non-fiction
Danse Macabre book, can go either way when it comes to what is exactly happening
here. In other words, it’s left up to reader to guess if all the things that occur
in the book, in that house, are supernatural or just a case study on our flawed
lives.
Yes, the improbably named
Colquitt and her husband Walter begin to believe otherwise, but by then I was
rushing through the book to get it done. It’s atmospheric in the beginning and
the prose is well written, and those who were born and bred in the upper
echelon of Southern life, will appreciate it never making fun of the ridiculousness
of it all. And since it was published in 1978, the book contains bits of
casual racism, homophobia, and deaths of a few pets.
It’s
certainly a different kind of haunted house story, but it won’t be for
everyone.
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