The house next door

Horror · Gothic

First published: 1978
Print length: 346 pagesSimon and Schuster, 1978

Description

Colquitt Kennedy narrates life with her husband, Walter, in an affluent Atlanta neighborhood. Their quiet routine changes when a contemporary house is built on the lot next door. Strange accidents and inexplicable events begin to unsettle the neighborhood’s relaxed gatherings. Although Colquitt considers herself rational and remains skeptical of hauntings, she comes to suspect that a terrible force inhabits the house. It seems to exploit each resident’s weaknesses, pushing people toward disgrace, madness, and death. As Colquitt and Walter try to warn the public about the danger, they place both their reputations and careers at risk.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Atmospheric · Conversational · Descriptive

Pace

Measured

Tone

Dark · Eerie · Tense · Unsettling

Structure

Linear

Focus

Atmosphere · Character

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 2 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

CommunityKnowledge and truthMental healthMoralityWork

About Anne Rivers Siddons

Anne Rivers Siddons (1936–2019) was an American novelist whose fiction centered on the southern United States, particularly Atlanta. After working in advertising, she turned to journalism and joined Atlanta magazine in 1963, eventually becoming a senior editor. She published her first novel, Heartbreak Hotel, in 1976 and went on to write both social fiction and gothic horror. The bestselling Peachtree Road takes Atlanta as its setting, while The House Next Door locates horror within an affluent Atlanta neighborhood, where a new house exposes its residents’ weaknesses and threatens their reputations. Stephen King later named The House Next Door one of the twentieth century’s finest horror novels. Siddons’s work repeatedly treated place and community as forces shaping private lives.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Language: English
ISBN: 9780671240189

Keep your books and notes in Collected for iPhone.

Apple Books is a service mark of Apple Inc. iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.