Horror in the House: RE's Favorite Works of Horror

by staff

Part two of our extremely biased and highly enthusiastic list of RE recommendations.

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, ed. Seamus Heaney. What can we say? Battles with monsters never sounded better, and the story itself painted the first broad brushstrokes of both fantasy and horror genres. It includes the original and modern (comfortable and elegant) English versions, as well as side notes by the nobel-prize winning Heaney; it's as beautiful to look at it as it is to read.

The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson. Forget the campy movie version; the book is the real thing. "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within..." Jackson's mesmerizing description of the mad house and its wretched construction is followed by equally lush writing. Like The Turn of the Screw, the question of supernatural horror or psychological imbalance will linger long after you finish the book.

House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski. A multi-tiered story complete with footnotes, codes, collages, and some pages containing only a handful of words, House of Leaves is in essence two books. One is the story of Johnny, a young and apparently superficial tattoo artist. When his neighbord dies, Johnny finds the remains of his unfinished book about a nonexistent documentary film. The film's focus is a house larger on the inside than the outside; this apparently harmless curiosity rapidly becomes terrifying as the story shifts from the young man's world of sex and drugs to the old man's elegant analysis of a voracious house and the family that occupies it. While its post-modern, heavily-footnoted style may at first be distracting, readers will find the questing nature of the book will only draw them in further into a novel that is not only deeply disturbing, but deeply human.

The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris, is a better book than movie - and it's a fine movie. Much of the horror of the book centers not on Hannibal Lecter but on Buffalo Bill, a sociopathic, gender-confused murderer determined to make a coat of human skin. The book takes an unflinching look at gender relations and the question of whether humans can ever transform themselves; even small character interactions show people's willingness to assume the best of others, and their simultaneous desire to hurt or control them. Silence of the Lambs is also notable for its progressive female characters - both investigator Clarice Starling and Buffalo Bill's intended victim are smart and determined while remaining independent of masculine archetypes.

Tales of H.P. Lovecraft Joyce Carol Oates compiles and annotates this collection of H.P. Lovecraft' s most influential works. Whether you are being chased through strange curves and angles or a monstrous color is sucking your life away, these moody, intellectual short stories will make you contemplate terror in ways you had never imagined.

The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James. A young governess attempts to protect her charges from what appears to be an outside malevolent force, with dark subtextual innuendo. A novel of possible ghosts, questionable narrators, and the darker side of human nature hidden under a thin veneer of precious language and melodrama, The Turn of the Screw is true horror on every level.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson, is a tale of social ostracism and class conflict, viewed by an immature and unreliable narrator. Young Merricat Blackwood is prone to magical thinking; she runs wild on her family's old estate, burying jewelry and nailing books to trees to keep the house safe - and above all, her dear sister Constance, accused (and aquitted) of poisoning the rest of the family. When cousin Charles appears to take control of the house, Merricat quickly grows to hate his rigid, presumptuous ways. When he starts to take control of Constance, something must be done. A truly creepy, yet tender, story about the conflict between self and society.

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixteenth Edition, ed. Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow. While all the books in the Year's Best series are excellent, our 16th edition is dog-eared from re-reading, and very heavy on the horror. "The Assistant to Dr. Jacob," a short, even charming, tale of a gardener, is perhaps the most psychologically disturbing tale on our list. "Standard Gauge" has the kind of last line that will haunt you for weeks, and "Nesting Instincts" is a commentary on intimacy that will make you want to be alone.

If you liked these books, you may also enjoy:

Black Water, by Joyce Carol Oates

Carrie, by Stephen King

Complete Tales & Poems, by Edgar Allen Poe

Dracula, by Bram Stoker

Dr. Faustus and Other Plays, by Christopher Marlowe

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley

In the Night Room, by Peter Straub

The Stepford Wives, by Ira Levin

Swan Song, by Robert McCammon

Twice-Told Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror: Seventeenth Annual Collection, ed. Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, and Gavin Grant

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