The House Next Door

by Anne Rivers Siddons

Book Overview

An unparalleled picture of that vibrant but dark intersection where the Old and the New South collide. Thirtysomething Colquitt and Walter Kennedy live in a charming, peaceful suburb of newly bustling... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345281721
• ISBN13: 9780345281722
• Release Date: October 1979
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 279 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.

Customer Reviews

My favorite of all Ms. Siddons's novels

I've read them all and loved them. Siddons is a fine tale-teller (just as you'd expect from a Southerner) and she has a talent for creating real and believable characters. I'm not a fan of horror and picked this up thinking it was suspense. I was right -- horror suspense!When strange things begin happening at the new house next door to the Kennedys, this book just takes over. I couldn't get away from it until I finished it.Siddons was a long time reporter for Atlanta magazine, honing her craft under one of the best editors of the 50s and 60s. That's why her prose is so magical -- descriptions of people and places are vivid and never dull.This is Siddons at her very best. I hope she writes another suspense novel someday. I'd like to have that to look forward to.

A must read

This is a wonderful novel. I read it after reading Outer Banks so I knew I was in for some kind of treat. I had no idea this book would be as wonderful as it was. Full of suspense to the very, very end. This is great summer reading, folks, I recommend it highly.

An Intense and Original Take On the Haunted House

This book is so different from the usual haunted house fare. There really isn't much that serves as a tangible reason for the house being so evil, it just apparently is. And it's a vicious house for certain, preying on psychological fear rather than manifesting itself as a poltergiest or apparition. Things just "happen" in or around the house, disturbing things. Lives are ruined and that is the only motiff that emerges. It's not a singular entity with just murder in mind. It wants to cause pain to its victims on an inner level and that is extremely frightening in concept. The novel is like a constant mind rape of the characters involved and it is so very delicious in its malice. One of the top 10 horror novels I have ever read and way more intense than Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House or Richard Matheson's Hell House. A must read for any fan of the horror genre or any new home owner.