Hill House has an impressive list of tragedies connected with it, but then, most old houses have. People have to live and die somewhere, after all, a… - Shirley Jackson

I shall commence, I think, with a slight exaggeration and go on from there into an outright lie.

She turned her car onto the last stretch of straight drive leading her directly, face to face, to Hill House and, moving without thought, pressed her foot on the brake to stall the car and sat, staring. The house was vile. She shivered and thought, the words coming freely into her mind, Hill House is vile, it is diseased; get away from here at once.

The last time I glanced at the library books on the kitchen shelf they were more than five months overdue, and I wondered whether I would have chosen differently if I had known that these were the last books, the ones which would stand forever on our kitchen shelf.