Elizabeth Hand

My wife recommended this book to me and boy, she was spot on! I loved Wylding Hall.

Wylding Hall is gothic/folk horror novella about a fictional acid folk band, Windhollow Faire, and the creation of one of their most revered albums. The novella reads as an oral history of a folk band that never was. It is also the history of a haunting. The band itself is haunted by a tragedy in its recent past as events open. A young woman, who sang in the band, is dead. The band is unsettled, and their manager books them into a remote and strange old house—Wylding Hall—for the summer. To write songs, to regroup. The place is golden, maybe even a little magic. But it's also haunted. And sure, they produce their most infamous album in the process of this retreat but at what cost? You see before they leave the crumbling estate, their most popular group member, Julian, will have vanished into thin air, never to be seen or heard from again. It’s the stuff legends are made of.
But, now the surviving members are looking back on those sessions and the weird atmosphere of the house, and speculate on what may have happened to Julian, revealing a supernatural tale of gothic horror.

This Shirley Jackson Award–winning novel is fun gothic supernatural horror story set in the decadent world of British rock. As a British folk rock fan myself (I enjoy Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span), I found the references to the acid folk rock movement to be well-researched and that was probably the most enjoyable part of this novella for me. The horror aspect is restrained but effective. Mostly the novella is an exercise suspended tension. It starts with a summoning and ends in a Christopher Nolan-esque moment of "did they really happen?"

An unusual, well-written, gothic/folk horror novella that hits all my buttons: acid folk rock, summoning spirits, hauntings, ghosts, Britain.

Now, if Tor Nightfire would get the rights to this one and reprint it (cause it is hard to get your hands on a copy of this).… (mais)

Why would anyone want to live in a haunted house? In this authorized sequel to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Elizabeth Hand has an up-to-date answer: real estate! The COVID era migration to remote work in the countryside has driven housing costs up, so even Hill House looks worth renting.

This is a bad idea for playwright Holly Sherwin, who rents Hill House for two weeks in late Fall to workshop her play, about a witch with a demon dog. Fading diva Amanda will be the witch, Holly's girlfriend Nisa will be a one-person chorus singing rewritten murder ballads, and their friend Stevie will do sound design and play the demon. Omens pile up fast, often related to dark episodes in Holly's and the others' pasts. But the rental money has been spent! And the house seems perfect in many ways...

It's not necessary to read The Haunting of Hill House to appreciate this book. There are a few allusions to earlier occupants of the house in the 1950s and 1980s, and an old tree stump where the fatal tree stood in Jackson's book. Hand is good at this, and the ending delivers all of the uncanny I could ask for.… (mais)