The Haunting of Hill House versus The Real World

Shirley Jackson’s book The Haunting of Hill House might be the literary version of MTV’s The Real World. The premise of The Real World television show was putting strangers in a house together and following what happens “when people stop being polite and start being real.”

Our characters in The Haunting of Hill House are strangers, brought together when Dr. Montague seeks to document the allegedly haunted house. Theodora and Eleanor are brought in to assist the doctor in his summer of research. Luke is a member of the family that owns the home, and the family will only allow Dr. Montague to rent the home with Luke there. Four strangers find themselves living together for the sake of paranormal research, so what could possibly go wrong?

Just like every season of The Real World, it seems in the beginning as though everyone will get along and have a lovely time. They take meals together and relax with chess and brandy.

Hill House is full of things that go bump in the night, which was their reason to be there in the first place. Like The Real World, it’s not enough to live together without taking sides and ostracizing someone.

Eleanor wants so badly to belong somewhere and fit in to a group. That desperate longing to be included is part of what brought her to Hill House. Eleanor tries to get close to Theodora, even offering to follow Theo home after their research is done, but Theo is having none of that. Eleanor sets her sights on a grand romance with Luke, and that effort goes nowhere. Theodora won’t have her, and Luke won’t have her. All that’s left to do is lose what few marbles she has and give herself over to the house.

Eleanor feels a sense of belonging in the house and she opens herself to the house and its spirits. She feels at home there, the only time in her life she’s felt that sense of being part of something large and important.

Eleanor wakes everyone as she runs through the house, hearing what she believes to be her mother beckoning her. Eleanor ends up in the library at the top of a rickety staircase, trying to climb out to the turret. Luke plays the hero and gets her down from the stairs.

In the morning, everyone is insisting that Eleanor leave. This is another great parallel to The Real World, where every season someone is bullied to the breaking point and the others all victim-blame. Instead of being excited that the house is just strange enough to have shattered Eleanor’s fragile mind and digging into what happened, they want her to leave. They have decided that they are done with Eleanor, and she needs to go. Eleanor, of course, doesn’t want to leave but they have made up their minds.

They pack her in her car and insist she skedaddle. They underestimated Eleanor’s commitment to give herself over to the house. Instead of driving away from Hill House, Eleanor drives into a tree, committing suicide to avoid leaving the place she thinks of as her only true home.

Eleanor’s death ruined the whole summer research shindig for the remaining group, and they all went their separate ways.

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Why aren’t you wearing a werewolf hoodie?

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Sunday Funday: Let’s Go to the Movies

Sunday is usually our day to get out of the house in search of some fun. With both of us fighting off some February germs, my sweetie and I decided to take it easy and just catch a movie.

We’d seen the trailer for The Lodge a few weeks back when we went to see Color Out of Space. I thought The Lodge looked suitably creepy and have been on the lookout for it to land in the local theaters.

This is not a blood, chainsaws, and jump scares movie. This film is a heavy, stressful kind of scary.

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” — Stephen King

You have Dad’s new girlfriend caring for his two kids in Dad’s winter vacation cabin just before Christmas. Dad’s a workaholic that skedaddles back to his job in the city, leaving the kids with this woman who is pretty much a stranger to them. He’ll be back in two days, so what can go wrong?

Everything goes wrong. The kids are jerks. The girlfriend is more than a little off her rocker. Let’s toss a blizzard into the mix and lose power so the cell phones are dead. Everyone’s stranded in this cabin miles from nowhere with no communication and no vehicle. Sounds like a super good time in the making, right?

What’s horrific in this movie is the churning of emotions. The landscape is bleak, frozen white as far as the eye can see. The situation is awful and getting worse every moment. Our characters are cold, hungry, and desperate. The two days that Dad is supposed to be gone seem more like a month.

Who is the villain in this movie; who is the monster? Every character shows their ugly side, their darkness, at some point, but they also show their weak spots. They are all at fault on some level; that’s why the movie stressed me out, because there really are no innocents and there is no happy ending lurking around the corner.

When the credits rolled, I was like, well, at least there weren’t screaming alpacas (Color Out of Space was stressful, particularly the alpacas). I let out a sigh of relief for being set free from the weight of this movie.

The Lodge is scary because humans are terrifying. There are no vampires or mask-wearing nuts roaming the woods, but this movie doesn’t need those gimmicks.

Let’s Be Creepy Together

Creepy Book Cover

This is a super short read, but it is one of my favorites. These are true stories from my life experiences with ghosts and other things that go bump in the night.

I asked an artist to do the ghost design for the cover based on some ideas I had, and I love the design she created. I love this design so much it’s available on mugs and t-shirts on CafePress.com.

I think there will be more of these stories to come, or perhaps I will share bonus stories to my website followers!

How to Be a Crappy Boss

Cover of Crappy Boss Book

Wow, I have had some seriously crappy bosses over the years. I had notes about some of these bosses because someday I may turn these notes into a work of fiction.

For now, you can figure out what not to do in your new leadership role from this book. Being a supervisor, manager, director, or whatever is not free license to be the Mayor of JackAssville. Micromanaging, taking credit for the work of others, and being a horrible human in general: these are not good leadership traits.

10 Ways to Work Yourself to Death

10 Ways Book Cover

I love James Altucher and his book Choose Yourself. He suggests a daily practice of making lists to keep your creativity and ideas flowing. He posted a challenge to his social media followers to write a short book in a weekend based on one of these lists. Challenge accepted!

You can follow 10 Ideas to Work Yourself to Death as a manual if you would like to run yourself into the ground…or you can do the opposite if you would like some balance in your life.

Love Unstitched

cover of Love Unstitched

This book was unplanned! I rented a hotel room for a couple days to work on some short stories set in Asheville that had been bouncing around in my brain for several months.

I sat down with my notebook and pen to write, and the characters of the Asheville short stories were not what flowed onto the pages. Instead, essays and thoughts around love came tumbling out.

When I finally put the pen down, I didn’t have what I expected at all. I also had a weird feeling about it, like I needed to do something with this pile of words.

Driving back home from the hotel, I decided I would type everything up and publish it on Amazon as Love Unstitched. It felt cathartic to publish it, like by posting it online, I was putting some ugly feelings down and walking away from them.

Those Asheville short stories still aren’t finished, even after all this time. I pick them up, noodle around a bit, then put them back down. I may revive that project, or like so many projects, it may rest half-written in one of my zillions of spiral notebooks.

Truth and Fiction in Ashevegas

This was my first book on Amazon. When I put Truth and Fiction in Ashevegas together, I was trying to learn how self-publishing worked. I wanted to understand how to get a book on Amazon. I learn best by doing, so I put this small book together and started the process. It didn’t take long to get it uploaded and approved; the turnaround time was shorter than I expected.

This one was available as an eBook and as a print book. When I held a copy of this book in my hands for the first time, it was an amazing feeling! I felt on top of the world.

It was also a thrill to see it on Amazon. I was a published author on Amazon! Woohoo!

What’s Different About 2019?

Image by Christina Rutz

I submitted a story to an anthology of spooky stories recently. The decisions won’t be announced until later this year, but I haven’t submitted to a collection like that since…ummm, I think it was 1991 and I typed my submission on a typewriter?!

I drafted a non-fiction book proposal targeted at a specific publishing house and sent it in last month. I should hear back on that around August.

Last but not least, I am working on a fiction book that I would like to be able to share with agents by my birthday.

Why now? What’s different about 2019? I’ve been a fan of self-publishing for years.

I’d like to work with a great publisher because I have accepted that I am lousy at many aspects of self-publishing, like creating covers. I need editors. I need someone plugged into a big email list of readers. I could go on, but writing is my jam…the rest of it, well, I could use help. I need people for that!

In 2019, I’m trying to find “my people.” Somewhere out there is a team ready to help work some book magic with me. This is my year!

Kat Craig

Writer

Author: Kat