What is Halloween without a little H.P. Lovecraft!? I was thrilled when I learned that Chris from Chrisbookarama was interested in doing a review of one of Lovecraft’s finest short stories! So, without further ado….
Earlier this year, I was blown away by the work of HP Lovecraft. After listening to an audio book version of The Dark Worlds of HP Lovecraft, I knew I had to read more. The Shunned House was published posthumously in the October 1937 issue of Weird Tales.
In this short story, the unnamed protagonist recounts the history of a vacant house in Providence, Rhode Island. When he was a kid, he and his friends would sneak into the cellar where luminescent fungi grew and strange fogs seeped out of the ground. As an adult, he shared his interest with his uncle Dr. Elihu Whipple, also fascinated with the old house, who gives him all his research to study.
The house was built upon a former burial ground by a sea captain. Over the years his family lived there, members of the household would sicken and died. The people who survived suffer from physical or mental weakness. No one suspects the house of anything more sinister than toxic mold and tainted water. The locals are slow on the uptake because generations of folks move in and die before the house is abandoned.
The protagonist continues to research the house, looking farther back into the records for clues to the reason why the house is contaminated. What he finds spurs him into action. He plans to spend the night with his uncle in the cellar of the shunned house. That’s when things get weird.
What I like about Lovecraft’s writing is how he reports rather than tells a story. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were reading a real account of actual events experienced by the narrator. The disconcerting part of it is that you never get the whole story. There are questions left unanswered. The reader doesn’t know anything beyond what the narrator knows. I was left wondering what really dwelt in the shunned house. Where did it come from?
Lovecraft’s vivid imagination created creatures like Cthulhu and it’s not surprising that he suffered from night terrors as a child. What is lurking in the shunned house is beyond my imagining. He could have easily gone with a typical haunted house story, instead the story turns more sci-fi. It’s really bizarre, in a good way!
If you like weird and unexpected horror stories, I think you’ll like The Shunned House.
Thanks, Jenn, for letting me be a part of Murder, Monsters and Mayhem! Hopefully, your readers will fill their need for Monsters with The Shunned House. And it’s available for free from ProjectGutenberg.
Chris is a reader and blogger from Nova Scotia, Canada. Halloween is one of her favorite holidays. It gives her an excuse to read spooky stories and eat loads of candy. She blogs regularly at Chrisbookarama.
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