#Elizabeth Hand

[aliteraryprincess]

Recently Read: Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand - 5 stars

Thrice tosse these Oaken ashes in the ayre; Thrice sit though mute in this inchained chayre: And thrice three times tye up this true loves knot, And murmur soft shee will, or shee will not.

[professorr-lupin]

nah i KNOW the tumblr secret history girlies would absolutely eat up waking the moon by elizabeth hand LIKE it's got cults, hot men of ambiguous sexualties, and women who kill people (men) because they feel like it

like if you loved when richard got high and spouted insane shit this is what you need to read

also generally I hate the "in another lifetime we'll be together" trope BUT THIS ONE DOES IT SO SO WELL OMG

it's so aggressively 90s and I love it (I swear I'm not just saying it because I share a name with one of the main characters)

[marzipanandminutiae]

Finished A Haunting On the Hill. Assorted thoughts without spoilers:

At first I wondered why Hill House was focusing on all of them equally instead of picking a single victim from the beginning the way it did with Eleanor. Then I realized that bringing it a bunch of traumatized queer theater people is basically like presenting someone with a Golden Corral buffet

My babygirl (32) is all grown up (dead for 60 years) and haunting the narrative (Hill House, only appearing as anything like a distinct figure for like 5 seconds near the end while the story focuses more on a random Merricatcore teen boy OC, in terms of past victims)

This felt like a...different take on HH, I guess? More focused on the house as an unequivocally evil entity whereas in the original, I sympathized with it a bit. HOWEVER. I recognize that the original has one POV and it's that of a woman slowly falling under the house's spell. So I don't hold the altered perspective against it- and there's something of Eleanor's mindset in the house's chosen tribute this time around, as the story unfolds

I thought Eleanor feeling at home there was as much a product of her own independent IssuesTM and outlook on the world as manipulation by the house. However, the way it was presented in the story as purely the latter, this time around, worked for me because that attitude was explored.

I don't prefer the interpretation that it's just one of Hill House's tricks myself- shocker to anyone who knows me -but I can accept it as a valid reading. If that makes sense

This is definitely a more Modern Horror take on the house, which I did not enjoy when it became jarring. No actual body horror/gore, but it leaned way more in that direction a few times than I liked

My biggest complaint: too much showing; not enough leaving things up to the reader's feverish imagination

That was one of the original's biggest strengths and what makes it, still, ranked among the scariest novels of all time. This go-around, you see EVERYTHING the characters see, and they are always within sightline of the Weirdness. No mysterious noises from the other side of a door. Nobody glancing back and shrieking at someone to not do the same. Just "there was an apparition/object moving/sound without a source and the character was in the same room and here's what it was."

Hill House bby who filled you with modern trash furniture. I will kill them and not in a fun, subsume-y way. It's realistic but Thanks I Hate It regardless (not a writing criticism)

I DO adore the genre of "the present looking back on a historical fiction story or a work that has since become historical fiction" so that aspect was fun. Reddit threads about Hill House- I bet they're legendary

Overall: A fun, fast read. Did not reach into my brain and heart and Pull Levers the way Haunting of Hill House did, but I generally enjoyed it

We all get something different out of Hill House- or it gets something different out of us

[libraryleopard]

putting cass neary and daniel molloy in a room together and waiting to see which one comes out alive. asshole bisexual washed-up ex-punk photographer from nyc vs. asshole bisexual dying pulitzer-prize winning journalist from san francisco cagefight.

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

Quick Review: A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand Rating: 2/5

Okay, this gets points for being gay and for having an amazing audiobook production but there's really no point calling this a Haunting of Hill House sequel or companion or anything.

Literally the only shared feature is Hill House as a setting but Hand's version of Hill House is completely lacking. There's no sense of dread, there's no sense of camaraderie among the characters, and there's no aura of menace. It sucked. 

If you want to read this, don't go in expecting too many callbacks to the original and you might have a better time than I did. But if you're looking for a transformative work of Jackson's masterpiece, look elsewhere. 

[dawn-in-the--adan]

"I had from earliest childhood a sense that there was no skin between me and the world. I saw things other people didn't see. Hands that slipped through the gaps in the air like falling leaves; a jagged outline like a branch but there was no branch and no tree. In bed at night I heard a voice repeating my name in a soft, insistent monotone. Cass. Cass. Cass. My father took me to a doctor, who said I'd grow out of it. I never did, really." generation loss by elizabeth hand

[mrdcoolblue]

A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand

🐇🎭

[image id: It's a good homage to Shirley Jackson, with plenty of moody atmosphere, unsettling imagery, and building tension. It offers its own characters and story to Hill House as a backdrop. Just note that the ending hits fast.

"She recalled . . . Holly's frightened reaction when Amanda broke the fourth wall. The temporary sanctuary of the performance had been destroyed, breaking the implicit promise between actor and viewer. . . . That was what was happening at Hill House, she thought. A protective threshold had been breached, some kind of psychic fourth wall broken. /end]

I had to add this drawing to my reading journal. It's a recurring image throughout the book: the hare with a smile that's a little too sharp, a little too wide.

[haveyoureadthishorrorbookpoll]

Have you read...

Holly Sherwin has been a struggling playwright for years, but now, after receiving a grant to develop her play, The Witch of Edmonton, she may finally be close to her big break. All she needs is time and space to bring her vision to life. When she stumbles across Hill House on a weekend getaway upstate, she is immediately taken in by the ornate, if crumbling, gothic mansion, nearly hidden outside a remote village. It’s enormous, old, and ever-so eerie—the perfect place to develop and rehearse her play.   Despite her own hesitations, Holly’s girlfriend, Nisa, agrees to join Holly in renting the house out for a month, and soon a troupe of actors, each with ghosts of their own, arrive. Yet as they settle in, the house’s peculiarities are made known: strange creatures stalk the grounds,  disturbing sounds echo throughout the halls, and time itself seems to shift.  All too soon, Holly and her friends find themselves at odds not just with one another, but with the house itself. It seems something has been waiting in Hill House all these years, and it no longer intends to walk alone . .

submit a horror book!

[dramyhsturgis]

Join Me for A Haunting on the Hill

This year I've been delighted to join SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online with Signum University. This week I'm wrapping up teaching my first module, which is on The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It’s been so much fun!

Currently my March module candidate is up for vote for until 2/1. It's on A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand. I hope you'll join me!

More information on my offered modules is here.

[ubu507]

Not that anyone asked, but here my favorites of 2023 anyway:

Favorite Book – The Guest by Emma Cline. The central character is a black humor mix of Moll Flanders and Tom Ripley. Has a lot to say about our contemporary morass, too. Two of my most anticipated writers hit it out of the park this year as well with a couple of chillers, Elizabeth Hand with A Haunting on the Hill and Megan Abbot with Beware the Woman. 

Favorite True Crime Book: I’m going with a reprint, House of Pain by Helen Garner. Usually I’m more of a just the facts type guy when it comes to the genre, but Garner’s subjective approach proves immensely moving. With a forward puzzlingly more about Janet Malcolm than Garner by industry striver Sarah Weinman, who has given me the high hat on several occasions.

Best Movie: This isn’t even an opinion, just fact – Killers of the Flower Moon is, as Fran Lebowitz said in her appearance (oration?) at the Michigan Theater, a masterpiece of world cinema. And shame on you if you didn’t see it on the big screen, as Marty intended. After the debacle of The Irishman, it was great to see him come up with this one.

Favorite Horror Movie: This is definitely the genre with the most pop these days, commercially and creatively, and saw several excellent ones, including sequels (Scream VI kept up the superior standard, but who guessed Evil Dead Rise would be so much scary fun). However I’m going with a true original, Talk to Me, which was, well, really creepy and nailed a disturbing ending.

Like it or not, there you have it – and if you’ve read this far, happy new year.

[khelinski]

Betrayal twists love into blazing hatred, an evil that destroys even those helpless ones we love best.

Elizabeth Hand

[thewritehag]

A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand took me a little while to warm up to, but when it kicked into gear, it became increasingly compelling and frightening. I fully understand now why Shirley Jackson's family authorized it as an "official" sequel. Unfortunately, things didn't start to get intense until the last 25% of the book, then had the conceit to have an unsatisfying ending.

Jackson wielded ambiguity like a painter, but that's not what we get from Hand, at least not where it would hit the hardest. There is some great artistry by Hand, but everything falls apart at the end when she ignores her pre-established patterns.

The book is so close to greatness and I wonder if Hand was just tired or there's something happening in the publishing world that is making writers and editors rush their work; the majority of the recently released books I've read this year have been like this.

I listened to the audiobook. Carol Monda did a great job, from switching voices between characters to some of the loveliest, haunting singing I've heard. However, the heavy use of sound effects was more distracting from the story instead of enhancing it; it was excessive and plain annoying.

I've noticed sound effects are becoming to books what cgi is to movies. If they wanted to go the radio drama route (as if podcasts don't already do that and are the most appropriate modern format for it), they should invest in folie artists.

I gave the book a 3.5/5 on my storygraph review. It could have been amazing, a real tribute to one of the greatest horror writers of all time and a superb addition to North Eastern (or nor'easter) American Gothic.

So it goes, I guess.

[quirkycatsfatstacks]

Review: Someone in Time Anthology

Someone in Time: Tales of Time-Crossed RomanceAuthors: Nina Allen, Zen Cho, Rowan Coleman, Jeffrey Ford, Sarah Gailey, Theodora Goss, Elizabeth Hand, Alix E. Harrow, Ellen Klages, Lavanya Lakshimanarayan, Margo Lanagan, Seanan McGuire, Sam J. Miller, Sameem Sadiqui, Catherynne M. Valente, Carrie VaughnEditor: Jonathan StrahanPublisher: SolarisReleased: May 10, 2022Received: NetGalley Someone in…

[judgingbooksbycovers]

A Haunting on the Hill: A Novel

By Elizabeth Hand.

[libraryleopard]

Adult folk horror novella

Members of the rising British acid-folk band Windhollow Faire spend the summer holed up in an ancient, sinister country house to record their career-making second album, but things take a dark turn when Julian Blake, their lead singer, vanishes without a trace

Years later, the surviving band members and their associates come together for a tell-all interview to try and piece together the events of the summer–and what really happened to Julian

Told in interview transcripts

Really fantastic full-cast audiobook

[wakemewitch]

"The fairy's kiss, the sacrificial faun; enchanted swans and shoes that sliced like blades, like ice."

—Elizabeth Hand, The Far Shore