THE HAUNTING (Shirley Jackson) - January 1, 2011

Oh god. What an awful, horrible little book. Shirley Jackson is as incompetent a writer as I've had the misfortune to come across, and it just blows my mind that this story is even remotely well known. Jackson offers up a selection of laughably phony characters and has them spout dialogue that doesn't even sound authentic accidentally. She has this weird writing style that renders entire stretches of the book unintelligible, and I still have absolutely no idea what happened in the house. It's just incoherent and unreadable. What a waste (and a frequently infuriating ordeal). 1/2* out of ****