Fright Tomes: Anne Rivers Siddons is Next Door to Fear
By T.J. Tranchell
A long career in horror, be it film or literature, is not necessary to be taken into the fold and considered one of us. Sometimes all it takes is one breakout role, one great film, or one single book among a writer’s entire oeuvre to be welcomed into the family of fear.
Sometimes what it takes is a shoutout from another master. My first encounter with The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons was not the book itself. Rather it was a long section of Stephen King’s 1981 book Danse Macabre that put Siddons’ 1978 novel on my radar. In his nonfiction book, King wrote about the hallmarks of great American horror in cinema, TV, and literature from the 20th century up to that point. The House Next Door, according to King, followed wonderfully in the ghostly footsteps of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959) but also contained a more modern spin from the classic that had only been out for 20 years prior.
But there it stayed. On my radar and never on my shelf until a few years ago when I snagged a Ballantine mass market paperback from a library sale. I devoured the book, despite not being able to fully empathize with the lead characters Col and Walter Kennedy. The middle-aged, successful, homeowning couple in Atlanta bore no resemblance to me at the point in which I first read the novel. Yet none of that stopped me from engaging with Col’s voice as she watched the house next door being built, with its odd architect and even odder architecture. Col tells us in a prologue that she and her husband are just normal people who happen to notice that this new house and the various people who move in — from the original owners to the architect himself eventually — have problems. It’s haunted and she doesn’t care who knows it.
The prose isn’t flashy, but it is also not the attempted journalistic style employed by Jay Anson for The Amityville Horror (1977). Siddons’ prose, and therefore Col’s narration, never seeks to glamorize or exploit the situation. Anson’s book (and the films that followed) always felt like an invitation despite the “Get Out” tagline. Col, on the other hand, is more pragmatic and that suits the story being told. There aren’t ghostly apparitions or strange noises all night long. The haunting feels much more personal and is therefore more engaging because it quickly becomes about the different people who inhabit the home. Whatever evil is there never shows itself, but instead attacks the flaws of the individuals who live there or spend enough time there to be infected.
While some 20th century haunted house tropes surface, there aren’t many. Instead, the haunting is more like a social disease, and the book’s more of a critique of late 1970s middle-class affluence. By the end, the only reason the architect can afford to purchase the home he built for someone else is because no one else will buy it. The turnover on the property causes it to be undesirable.
I think I may have closed the gap between reading about The House Next Door and reading the book itself if Siddons had written more horror. Her Southern stories lean more into realistic drama and border on romance, but like a rumor of spectral activity, I can’t confirm that. I haven’t read any of her other novels. My wife, however, tried out two more after a recent read of The House Next Door. She liked them but didn’t need to read further into Siddon’s work.
That, I think, is what makes this one book stand out. The writer returned to a similar setting with similar characters but never a similar story. There’s always the human dynamic — being a person is messy, right? — but never the inklings of the supernatural that drive Col’s growing paranoia in The House Next Door. In many ways, it makes the story of a cursed piece of land or just a cursed person spreading malevolent evil somewhat accidentally all the more believable. Col becomes the person who is not seeking fame for the story she has to tell but instead is waiting for the evil to take her and her husband’s lives simply because the house knows that they know. The rumors that spread are just as insidious as a ghost in this novel.
Compared, again, to its most contemporary novel, The House Next Door is better written than The Amityville Horror. Siddons isn’t out to shock readers although I imagine some moments were more shocking to early readers than they would be now. Siddons isn’t out to exploit the horror genre or horror fans. The novel feels more like someone exploring what might be possible if they were to venture further into such dark territory. Yet like her narrator Col, Siddons decided that this version of fame was not what she needed in her life. Instead, she trod the path of the realist for the rest of her career. At 83, in 2019, Anne Rivers Siddons passed away, never to publish another horror novel.
The House Next Door might not be a book one comes across every day. Like me, it might seem more like a legend or something King made up to fill space in his own book. He didn’t. The House Next Door is real and it’s waiting for you to visit. 🩸
About
T.J. Tranchell was born on Halloween and grew up in Utah. He has published has published six books, including The Blackhawk Cycle, a hardcover omnibus. In October 2020, The New York Times called Cry Down Dark the scariest book set in Utah. He holds a Master’s degree in Literature from Central Washington University and is pursuing an MFA through the UCR-Palm Desert Low Residency program. Tranchell has also published work in Fangoria. He currently lives in Washington State with his wife and son and teaches at a community college. Follow him at www.tjtranchell.net or on X @TJ_Tranchell.
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