The Haunting of Hill House
For well over a century during the colonial era, the Straits of Mackinac, at the junction of Lakes Huron and Michigan, served as the very epicenter of activities in the northern interior of North America. At this locale, great numbers of native people and Europeans congregated each summer to trade. In addition, fur trade personnel acquired birchbark canoes, equipment, and provisions here for their far-flung journeys to other regions, and here they stored large amounts of westbound merchandise and eastbound furs and hides. From this central location at the Straits, native and European forces were dispatched on numerous occasions over the decades, to fight military campaigns far afield. Also, amy expeditions intent upon exploration or missionary efforts were launched from Mackinac.
Timothy Kent has located and translated large numbers of original French documents concerning these various activities, while he has also gathered most of the previously published ones as well. Through this extensive research, the author has woven a highly detailed, year-by-year chronicle of these many events, which focused upon the Mackinac area but occurred in the vast region which stretched from the home colony along the St. Lawrence Valley to the distant west and northwest. He has likewise compiled a similarly thorough account of the first two decades after British forces took control of North America in 1760. During this latter period, the fur trade of the French era actively continued, with gradually increasing British participation.
More than fifty original French documents are translated and published for the first time in this work. These include legal agreements, outfitters' ledgers, letters from traders, officers, and missionaries, inventories of trading stores and military forts, official government ordinances, and lists of materiel for native allies. Interweaving these documents with hundreds of previously published government and military reports, fur trade licenses, and travel accounts, Kent clearly presents the history of the period, and exposes many aspects of life during this era which are little known. These range from rampant prostitution to widespread trade in native slaves, from the huge amounts of illegal commerce to the realities of French-native relations.
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Community Reviews
I appreciated the short length, the minimal number of characters, and how the supernatural phenomena were left ambiguous. Modern books nowadays are long and overstuffed. They spoon-feed you what they are trying to tell you. They lack trust with their own readers. This book gave readers the freedom to interpret.
My personal theory? Eleanor was completely delusional. Even before she entered Hill House, she was already showing signs of clear mental distress. She had the most supernatural experiences inside the house. Hill House was never haunted; it was the mind of Eleanor who was haunted all along.
I hated Mrs. Montague and Arthur. They came way too late into the story. Also, wouldn’t new subjects entering a live experiment disrupt the experiment? Therefore, causing everyone to redo everything? Not very scientific. Also, by adding more characters into the haunted house, the less isolating it felt. The story was fine with just the four main characters. I researched online that Mrs. Montague and Arthur were meant to be symbolic caricatures and serve comic relief. Why did a gothic horror story need comic relief?
Eleanor was also very annoying and repetitive. I felt more disdain than sympathy towards her. Her constant repetition in mentioning her mother was less eerie and more redundant. It was sort of prophetic that I finished this book around the same time I finished watching Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story (2025). Ed Gein loosely inspired Norman Bates from Psycho (1960). Many don’t realize that the film was an adaptation of the novel in 1959. That’s the same year that this book was released! Both Norman Bates and Eleanor Vance were literary characters with mothers who haunted their minds. Personally, I viewed Norman Bates as the superior character.
Throughout the book, Shirley Jackson seemed less interested in developing the characters and more interested in developing the atmosphere. Hill House was a character in and of itself. Outside of Eleanor, everyone else was pretty underwhelming. The doctor rambled through long monologues trying to make the paranormal sound scientific. Luke was dull. Theo was interesting at first but got rude towards the end.
There was a lot of online chatter about Theo and Eleanor having a romantic attraction towards each other. The more I read about Shirley Jackson, the more obvious that Eleanor was a self-insertion. Eleanor had depression, like Shirley. Eleanor had a disapproving mother, like Shirley. Eleanor attempted suicide, like Shirley. So I am trying to say that if Eleanor was truly meant to be a lesbian, wouldn’t Shirley? There is no conclusive evidence that Shirley Jackson was a lesbian. This goes back to the book’s overall ambiguity. It leads the reader to speculate and interpret everything.
My personal theory? Eleanor desired Theo not as a romantic partner but as a familial sister. Eleanor clearly disliked her own sister and throughout the book treated Hill House as her imaginary home and the others as her imaginary family. In the Netflix series adaptation, Eleanor and Theo actually were sisters! It’s hard to prove or disprove any theory because everything was so vague.
This book was ahead of its time. I cannot deny its literary significance. I liked it to an extent. It just did not necessarily rank as one of the greatest.
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