By Sam Graham
I still remember the tears and shock in the cinema when the film scared the shit out of all those pre-teen Harry Potter fans.
I reserved my tears however, for the sequel.
Yes, before The Woman in Black was a vehicle for Daniel Radcliffe to shake off the Harry Potter fame (because trying to convince the world he was a raving alcoholic didn’t work), it was a novel by Susan Hill. Published in 1983, it is a gothic ghost story in every sense of the word. This is probably bolstered by the fact it’s set in the late 1800’s, but thankfully it doesn’t read like one.
The story opens at Christmas- the scariest of all holidays, because tradition forces you to associate with people you can’t actually stand- and an old man called Arthur Kipps decides to royally shit his family up by telling them about that one time he saw a ghost and it ruined his life.
Well done, Granddad.
The rest of the story is told as a flashback to Arthur’s salad days as a solicitor. He’s sent to the bland North Eastern town of Crythin Gifford which is, for all intents and purposes, a bit like Filey, to clear up the paperwork of the late Mrs Drablow.
What they don’t tell old Kippsy is that she lives in a massive empty house all alone on an island that’s only accessible by causeway when the tide is out. Also, it’s haunted, further adding to the sense that it's eerie as shit.
Harry Arthur does some digging and turns out a kid once died on the causeway and that kid’s mum, Drablow’s mental sister, Jennet, blamed Mrs Drablow for it. Jennet eventually died and from then on, became the titular Woman in Black. Sightings of her are always followed by one certainty: a child will die.
A lot of the story is Kipps in the Drablow house on his own getting progressively more scared. The story achieves this by doing very little. He hears doors opening and closing somewhere in the house, he hears a pony and trap crash and the screams of a child out on the causeway, but there’s nothing there when he investigates, and he never shakes the feeling that that woman in the black dress he saw at Mrs Drablow’s funeral is close by. Simple tricks that you could call cliché for a ghost story, but overused tropes or not, they work. Plus, this story is set around the same time these very devices were used in ghost stories. The ghost in Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost goes as far as to rattle his chains as well as slam doors, so The Woman In Black’s ghostly goings on are in keeping with the spirit of the times.
Yes, I wrote this entire paragraph just so I could make a ghost/spirit pun.
The writing here is very sharp. If anything, Hill underplays the events in the story. At the same time, even a small degree of more description would ruin it. Whereas some horror authors hold the reader’s hand and spoon feed them every iota of detail, Hill trusts her audience enough so that she doesn’t need to do that. She says what’s important. The foreground stuff. The rest is for your imagination to fill in, which I can very much appreciate. Hill’s ego is completely removed from the narrative. There’re no big/old words chucked in to show off to the reader (I always imagine these writers crank out these thesaurus-born sentences, thinking “oh look how many words I know. Worship my articulary genius, you fucking pleb.”). It’s simply good writing telling a good story.
The story itself moves at a quick pace for what is mostly a guy in a waistcoat rummaging around a dusty old house, and it’s a fairly short book that you could get through in a few hours. Because of this, there aren’t any major lulls. It doesn’t have time for them. The tension builds as soon as Kipps arrives at Crythin Gifford, because the locals do the usual locally thing of being shit scared of the very thing the protagonist is conveniently talking about.
As if by accident, I’ve absorbed almost every incarnation of this story. I’ve read the book, seen the 2012 film, the 1989 TV movie (where, in an eerie coincidence, the guy who played Harry Potter’s dad played Arthur), seen the play, and seen that two-bit hack sequel they pumped out too. I’d say the play was the best incarnation. It was the most engaging and felt like a more personal story, because the entire play was performed by two male actors playing everyone and one female playing the titular spectre.
If you liked the 2012 film- by far the most popular incarnation - but thought that whole ‘reunited in death’ ending was a load of tacked-on, wishy-washy, Potter fangirl pleasing, audience placating, pre-watershed bullshit, then read this book. The ending is absolutely savage.
Yes, before The Woman in Black was a vehicle for Daniel Radcliffe to shake off the Harry Potter fame (because trying to convince the world he was a raving alcoholic didn’t work), it was a novel by Susan Hill. Published in 1983, it is a gothic ghost story in every sense of the word. This is probably bolstered by the fact it’s set in the late 1800’s, but thankfully it doesn’t read like one.
The story opens at Christmas- the scariest of all holidays, because tradition forces you to associate with people you can’t actually stand- and an old man called Arthur Kipps decides to royally shit his family up by telling them about that one time he saw a ghost and it ruined his life.
Well done, Granddad.
The rest of the story is told as a flashback to Arthur’s salad days as a solicitor. He’s sent to the bland North Eastern town of Crythin Gifford which is, for all intents and purposes, a bit like Filey, to clear up the paperwork of the late Mrs Drablow.
What they don’t tell old Kippsy is that she lives in a massive empty house all alone on an island that’s only accessible by causeway when the tide is out. Also, it’s haunted, further adding to the sense that it's eerie as shit.
Harry Arthur does some digging and turns out a kid once died on the causeway and that kid’s mum, Drablow’s mental sister, Jennet, blamed Mrs Drablow for it. Jennet eventually died and from then on, became the titular Woman in Black. Sightings of her are always followed by one certainty: a child will die.
A lot of the story is Kipps in the Drablow house on his own getting progressively more scared. The story achieves this by doing very little. He hears doors opening and closing somewhere in the house, he hears a pony and trap crash and the screams of a child out on the causeway, but there’s nothing there when he investigates, and he never shakes the feeling that that woman in the black dress he saw at Mrs Drablow’s funeral is close by. Simple tricks that you could call cliché for a ghost story, but overused tropes or not, they work. Plus, this story is set around the same time these very devices were used in ghost stories. The ghost in Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost goes as far as to rattle his chains as well as slam doors, so The Woman In Black’s ghostly goings on are in keeping with the spirit of the times.
Yes, I wrote this entire paragraph just so I could make a ghost/spirit pun.
The writing here is very sharp. If anything, Hill underplays the events in the story. At the same time, even a small degree of more description would ruin it. Whereas some horror authors hold the reader’s hand and spoon feed them every iota of detail, Hill trusts her audience enough so that she doesn’t need to do that. She says what’s important. The foreground stuff. The rest is for your imagination to fill in, which I can very much appreciate. Hill’s ego is completely removed from the narrative. There’re no big/old words chucked in to show off to the reader (I always imagine these writers crank out these thesaurus-born sentences, thinking “oh look how many words I know. Worship my articulary genius, you fucking pleb.”). It’s simply good writing telling a good story.
The story itself moves at a quick pace for what is mostly a guy in a waistcoat rummaging around a dusty old house, and it’s a fairly short book that you could get through in a few hours. Because of this, there aren’t any major lulls. It doesn’t have time for them. The tension builds as soon as Kipps arrives at Crythin Gifford, because the locals do the usual locally thing of being shit scared of the very thing the protagonist is conveniently talking about.
As if by accident, I’ve absorbed almost every incarnation of this story. I’ve read the book, seen the 2012 film, the 1989 TV movie (where, in an eerie coincidence, the guy who played Harry Potter’s dad played Arthur), seen the play, and seen that two-bit hack sequel they pumped out too. I’d say the play was the best incarnation. It was the most engaging and felt like a more personal story, because the entire play was performed by two male actors playing everyone and one female playing the titular spectre.
If you liked the 2012 film- by far the most popular incarnation - but thought that whole ‘reunited in death’ ending was a load of tacked-on, wishy-washy, Potter fangirl pleasing, audience placating, pre-watershed bullshit, then read this book. The ending is absolutely savage.
Enjoyed this piece? Then 'like' The Crusades of A Critic on Facebook. Sam also has a Tech Noir novel, 'An Inside Joke', which can currently be viewed here; his first novella 'Iron Country' is available to buy here; a horror short story, 'We Must Never Found Out', published here; and finally, another short horror story 'Eagal' available to buy here. Phew.
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