Witch House

Book #11 for 2024. So much for that reading plan, hey? And it was Horror May-hem again this month, too, and I had a whole list of potential things to read for it, none of which I’ve looked near… yet again it’s been Other Things Getting In The Way and I’m getting a bit tired of me being unable to overcome that…

Anyway, Witch House was published in 1945 as Arkham House’s first proper novel, and according to its Wiki entry took nearly two decades to sell out its one and only print run of about 3000 copies. And it’s great, so the people who slept on it in the mid-40s missed out on some quality gothicism; it starts out as kind of a haunted house affair, it looks like there might be ghost action, but as the book develops it becomes apparent that the titular house is only slightly less fucked than the House of Usher and something rather more unholy is going on with this family of bad blood… It’s got a bit of occult detective vibe, too, I suppose, although our hero, Gaylord Carew (sorry, but who on Earth ever found Gaylord an acceptable first name even before it became homophobic slang?) is a doctor rather than a detective as such; he’s learned some tricks, however, in the course of his medical studies, and good thing too cos he’ll need them. I had a lot of fun with this, and I’m glad I powered through it in one sitting.