Got hold of a copy of Shirley Jackson's wonderfully unsettling The Haunting (sometimes known as The Haunting of Hill House) the other day. Last read it as a youngster without realizing just how well written the opening chapter is, since all I was interested in then were the fireworks I was hoping would be let soon loose. Now I can appreciate the sense of unease that quietly pervades almost every line.
Unfortunately these days I can't get frightened like I used to, not by fiction that is. It's the real world, and its attendant madness, that bothers me now.
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