The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons
The Kennedys’ neighbouring home seems to be possessed by an enigmatic, all-pervasive evil, and the pair watches in dread as successive owners are swallowed by the same ominous force before deciding to demolish the building themselves.
The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons
Amazon.com
The similarities and differences in human nature are explored by both literature and horror, with the exception of horror’s focus on tragedy and the sporadic usage of supernatural concepts. The goal of House Next Door is to pinpoint the very exact circumstances that, in a number of scenarios, could obliterate a particular family and then allow each of those events to occur. In front of his family and peers, a man who values dignity above all else is discovered sleeping with his male business partner; a woman whose husband is her only source of sanity after losing her son in Vietnam withdraws into final catatonia when she discovers the husband screwing her other source of strength, the friendly neighbour. Siddons gives herself room to narrate a lengthy series of catastrophes that would be too impossible in literary fiction by making an evil home the origin of each tragic event.
A fascinating collection of character profiles are presented via the prism of tragic happenstance. HND’s sharp examination of the protective side of social connections, the human instinct to save others’ faces, to uphold the delicate order in a community, and to attempt to balance allegiance and honour in minute little interactions elevates the film despite the fact that the ending feels like a last-minute cop-out and isn’t particularly brilliant. The scene and tone are both excellently done and richly lovely.
In support of this, there are many lovely small sequences. The power goes out and back on during the new owner’s dinner party, causing an unattended blender to splatter him with eggnog in front of all his guests, while his daughter has a bout of diarrhea on the floor (the house is making her sick because she is the owner’s wife’s greatest treasure). The owner then betrays his wife by publicly apologizing to the visitors on her behalf and claiming that she had not had the power checked.
The visitors assist him to clean up the mess after being appalled by this marital betrayal and sputter about mechanical problems in their own homes, but once they realize the agreement has been broken, they start to find reasons to leave the party.
I’ll have to go on to something lighter because the tragedy of HND is essentially the misery of human frailty and treachery. When the people aren’t frightened, the book’s descriptions of their nice, amiable lives are written in a comfortable, opulent tone to balance out the horror and make them both accessible and spooky at the same time.
