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The Small Hand & Dolly: Two Novellas, by Susan Hill
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A HAUNTING PAIR OF GHOST STORIES FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE WOMAN IN BLACK
The Small Hand
Antiquarian bookseller Adam Snow is returning from a client visit when he takes a wrong turn and stumbles upon a derelict Edwardian house with a lush, overgrown garden. As he approaches the door, he is startled to feel the unmistakable sensation of a small, cold hand creeping into his own, almost as though a child has taken hold of it. Shaken, he returns home to find himself plagued by nightmares. But when he decides to investigate the house’s mysteries, he is troubled by increasingly sinister visitations.
Dolly
After being orphaned at a young age, Edward Cayley is sent to spend the summer with his forbidding Aunt Kestrel at Iyot house, her decaying estate on the damp, lonely fens in the west of England. With him is his spoiled, spiteful cousin Leonora. And when Leonora’s birthday wish for a beautiful doll is denied, she unleashes a furious rage which will haunt Edward through the years to come.
- Sales Rank: #817770 in eBooks
- Published on: 2013-09-24
- Released on: 2013-09-24
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Booklist
Versatile, prolific, and polished British writer Hill presents two elegantly constructed ghost stories. Each evokes vengeful spirits relentlessly haunting the bleak English countryside in the wake of impulsive childhood wickedness. Hill further accentuates the malevolent persistence of the past by creating protagonists who are connoisseurs of history. In “The Small Hand,” Adam, a self-possessed, urbane antiquarian bookseller, is on his way to see a client when he stops to explore an estate that has fallen into ruin. There a small hand takes hold of him, as though an invisible child has placed its hand in his. Even when his quest for a Shakespeare first folio leads him to a remote French monastery, the insistent, increasingly alarming small hand follows. In “Dolly,” Edward, an architectural conservationist, returns to the scene of a stormy boyhood summer spent with his willful, wildly unhappy cousin, Leonora. Slowly he discerns, to his horror, that her violent ingratitude may have appalling repercussions. Steeped in folklore, Hill’s supremely atmospheric and utterly unnerving tales of otherworldly retribution lead us deep into the dark labyrinth of the psyche. --Donna Seaman
Review
"A compact, elegantly structured ghost story . . . happens to be one of Hill's specialties. . . . Like all good British ghost-story writers, Hill believes in meticulous structure and very rough justice. . . . Maybe it's the uneasy feeling, or maybe it's the simple pleasure of confident British storytelling craftsmanship, but something pulls you through The Small Hand with relentless urgency. This writer's grip is vicious."
—The New York Times Book Review
"Thanks to Hill’s deceptively simple plots and straightforward prose, you won’t even notice the noose she’s slipping around your throat."
—The Seattle Times
"Subtle, intelligent, shocking. . . . Shatters nerves with a whisper, not a scream."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A ghost-story duo that may remind many readers of [Stephen] King at his absolute best. . . . Turn on the lights, readers. These tales are the definition of bone chilling."
—Suspense Magazine
"Masterfully done. . . . Subtle, elegant."
—The Times (London)
"Spine-tingling fiction."
—The Tattler (London)
"An assuredly chilling ghost story."
—The Guardian (London)
About the Author
Susan Hill has been a professional writer for over fifty years. Her books have won the Whitbread, the John Llewellyn Prize, and the W. Somerset Maugham Award, and have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her novels include Strange Meeting, I`m the King of the Castle and A Kind Man, and she has also published collections of short stories and two autobiographies. Her ghost story, The Woman in Black, has been running in London’s West End since 1988. Susan is married with two adult daughters and lives in North Norfolk.
Most helpful customer reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Two novellas, two disappointments...
By C. Williamson
I very much enjoyed Susan Hill's THE WOMAN IN BLACK, though I felt the stage version (*not* the two flawed films) was far eerier and made more sense. Still, it was an effective ghost novel. I'm sorry to say that THE SMALL HAND and DOLLY don't come close to replicating the chills of that earlier work.
Of the two new novellas, THE SMALL HAND is much the lesser work. An actual quotation from the book says it all: "For most of the way it was monotonous, rows of pines giving way to yet more." The story is padded immeasurably, and what might have been an effective short story goes on much too long and wears out its welcome. Hill is much more effective with atmosphere than with plot and character, but THE SMALL HAND is 95% atmosphere at the cost of everything else. There is no real *frisson* in the book, when *everything* seems to be directed toward achieving that end. And what atmosphere there is makes no attempt to merge the classic ghost story with the contemporary setting in which the story is based. We still have the same old abandoned Edwardian house and garden, the eerie older woman, the semi-malevolent spirit of a child, and so on. The plot is equally predictable providing few true surprises, but an awful lot of window dressing, and the ending comes as more of an expected relief than a shock.
DOLLY starts off poorly, with the narrator asking paragraph-ending question after question. As with THE SMALL HAND, all the Gothic elements are in place -- the remote estate, the old cemetery, the haunted attic, the demonic child -- and the verbal gothicisms are equally heavy-handed, of the "had I but known how this occurrence would shatter my world," variety. Even the writing is repetitive, in that too many faces are "white as paper," and it's paper, or the sound of it rustling, that provides the suggestive chills throughout, over and over again. The middle of the story starts to pick up, with some decent (if stereotypical) characterization, but the climax and denouement fall flat. Even ghost stories have to have an internal logic, as M. R. James was the first to admit, but the vengeance of "Dolly" seems too much to be believed, even in the context of a ghost story, and the coincidences stretch the reader's disbelief to the breaking point. I relish a certain amount of ambiguity in a ghost story, but there's barely a suggestion of the motive behind what happens to the characters here, and who or what is making it happen, let alone how. And, as with THE SMALL HAND, there is no real frisson, only a few moments of repugnance that are somewhat powerful if one can stop thinking about how and why they might have come to be.
So if it's atmosphere above all you're looking for, you'll find it here. If, on the other hand, you desire internal logic, characterization, and a view more contemporary than that of the Edwardian masters of the ghost story, seek elsewhere.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
I keep thinking about these stories.
By myotherself
I've read many of Susan Hill's stories, but not these two. These have previously been released as separate short novels, each being approximately 140 pages long in this volume. The works from Hill aren't scream-in-your-face frightening as is so often done by other authors. For me, her stories stay with me for a long, long time as I continue to think about them. I also tend to read her books more than once which is not something I do with many other authors from this genre. If you are looking for the print version of loud and over-done, you will most likely not be satisfied with these two because Hill uses quiet subtlety to build the drama and tension within her novels.
THE SMALL HAND: Adam Snow takes a wrong turning on his way to meet with a client and finds himself inexplicably drawn to a deserted and decrepit house with a ruined garden. The encounter he has there will continue to have more and more impact on his physical safety and his sanity as time goes on. But not just Adam is controlled by these events as he realizes when he sees a photograph of himself, his brother, and a third boy which he finds while investigating the house.
DOLLY: Edward Cayley meets his cousin Leonora for the first time when they are both sent to spend a summer vacation with their aunt in the fen country. No two children could possibly have been more different and the events of those few short weeks play out for the remainder of their lives.
The two stories have in common that the ghostly incidents began during the early childhood years of both Adam Snow and Edward Cayley. I thought for a while when I began to read DOLLY that they might be too similar, but it didn't take long for the differences to become starkly apparent. I've always had a kind of dislike for dolls anyway, but now I will never look at one the same way ever again. These stories don't contain exaggerated fearsome elements. I think that is probably why they appeal to me so much. They sneak up on my thoughts slowly and creep into my consciousness so that I find myself thinking about the story at odd times during the day. I really like that.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Reminiscent of her dreadful predecessors
By J from NY
Susan HIll's two small novellas, "The Small Hand" and "Dolly" remind me to a tee of a the work of Sheridan Le Fanu In A Glass Darkly (Oxford World's Classics) and at times of Ramsey Campbell.
se.
In the "Small Hand", book connoisseur Adam Snow takes a wrong turning on his way to meet with a potential buyer and is drawn to a deserted and decrepit house with a derelict backyard and ominous garden.
If you could picture a film hybrid of "The Ninth Gate" and "The Day of the Triffids", you'd have an idea of the ambience in this tale. Hill's gift is her subtlety, which creates ominous tomes in the mind that repeat themselves over and over without a clear explanation.
In Dolly, Edward Cayley encounters his relative Leonora for the first time when they are on summer vacation. All manner of nasty suggestions are made, and their relation is very, very strange indeed.
I wouldn't be surprised if LeFanu's classic tale, "Green Tea". had a huge influence on Hill. Her name will, in all probability, start appearing with some of the best supernatural writers out there.
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