This year I took part in the Ladies of Horror Fiction anniversary mini-readathon, and one of the titles I read may be the best book I’ve read in… well, ages and ages: the Shirley Jackson Award-winning novella Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand (2015). A key word there is novella; if you’re looking for a wonderfully chilling read for the season that won’t take days to digest, there’s still time to devour this atmospheric, Gothic, folk-horror beauty. (My 2021 plans now include reading lots and lots of books by Elizabeth Hand!) 

Here is the official description: “When the young members of a British acid-folk band are compelled by their manager to record their unique music, they hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient country house with dark secrets. There they create the album that will make their reputation, but at a terrifying cost: Julian Blake, the group’s lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen or heard from again. Now, years later, the surviving musicians, along with their friends and lovers—including a psychic, a photographer, and the band’s manager—meet with a young documentary filmmaker to tell their own versions of what happened that summer. But whose story is true? And what really happened to Julian Blake? ”

And here is a brief excerpt, to give you a sense of the atmosphere. 

Lesley

I have no clue what went on between Julian and Nancy, but something did. I know that. He was different after that weekend, not just different towards me but … changed, somehow. Back then you’d meet people who got involved with cults. Jesus freaks or swami so-and-so. Julian never joined a cult that I knew of, but he had that same glittery look in the eye, like he’d seen something amazing but was going to keep it secret because, you know, the rest of us weren’t worthy.   

Nancy wasn’t exactly like that, but she was a self-professed witch. And she does have a gift. She sees things others can’t. I don’t think she’s making it up, either. She may be slightly deluded, but she’s not lying. That weekend she stayed with us, I think she inadvertently encouraged Julian in whatever fixation he’d developed.    

Wylding Hall didn’t help, either. The whole time we were there, it was like being in a dream. Everything conspired to keep us from waking up. The weather and drugs and alcohol, the occult talk and crazy books and sexual tensions.    

And that house — you could just get lost in it. Whenever I explored the old Tudor wing by myself, I’d find locked doors that wouldn’t open; then the next time, they would. No one had a key. One of the rooms had been a ballroom — shredded tapestries on the walls, floor covered with dust. Overlooking it was a minstrel gallery with an amazing oak screen, carved with all kinds of strange things. Birds with human faces. People with wings like dragonflies or wasps.    

I used to stare up at the minstrel gallery, but no matter how hard I looked, I could never find the way in. No stairs, no ladder. There must’ve been a secret passage somewhere, but I never found it.  

- from Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand (2015) 

I discuss this novella in my recent Halloween-themed “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast, October 2020′s Episode 645, which you can listen to here.

View the full post.