Another year, another Hallowe’en, another Susan Hill collection.
Last year I was lucky enough to read The Woman in Black and Other Ghost Stories: The Collected Ghost Stories of Susan Hill which combined award-winning Susan’s famous novel The Woman in Black with a number of novellas. It was a great read, showing all of Susan’s strengths whilst writing supernatural stories*: old-worlde charm, reminiscent of M. R. James, combined with tension, and an unremitting and unceasing sense of dread. To me they are the epitome of supernatural story-telling, the type to be read whilst sitting in one’s own library next to an open fire with a deep armchair, a cup of tea and whilst wearing a smoking jacket – something of course I always do (!)
This year’s book is made up of four novellas that are newly collected. They are good but not entirely without their disappointments.
The book begins with the titular story. Ghost stories are traditionally about grief and loss, and The Travelling Bag is one of those. As I hoped, it is a story set in traditional setting – a Victorian setting, where men in a gentleman’s club share stories. It is a tale of misdeeds and revenge, of murder and the consequences of such actions. It also introduces the reader to Gilbert, a ‘psychic private investigator’ that reminded me of William Hope Hodgson’s Carnaki the Ghost Hunter, though Gilbert’s actions are deliberately much less exciting. I liked the tone of the tale, and the story takes the unusual step of writing as if about the murderer and the detective, though in the end it felt a little flat.
As well as grief, Ghost stories are often about isolation and loneliness, and the absence of ‘something’. The second story, Boy Twenty One, deals with such a situation and the effect of a friendship that a young lonely boy makes with another boy whilst at boarding school – a relationship that has a rather creepy and chilling revelation and resolution. This one I enjoyed much more than the first story, although the framing tale is a little contrived. When at its best, the writing evokes introversion and the mood created by loneliness or isolation.
The third story, Alice Baker, was a surprisingly much more contemporary story set within the urban decay of a city and a crumbling office block. A quiet new member to an office work pool may not be who she seems. This one shows that ghost stories can work in a modern environment, amongst tea breaks and mobile phones. The tale builds inexorably towards a very scary ending. I think this one worked best of all for me.
The final story, The Front Room, finishes the collection off with a tale about a family who, in a moment of charity, take in an elderly stepmother to look after, to then find that she is not what we think it is. It is another story set in a modern setting, a typically suburban house, and as a result the strange goings-on are quite disconcerting. The ending is shown without embellishment and consequently quite shocking. The whole story clearly plays on an increasingly common societal situation, that increasingly more and more adults will have to look after elderly relatives in the future. It is well done, with even a touch of farce at the beginning, but to me the story was tempered by having something happen midway in the tale which is a little too convenient. Nevertheless the denoument improves this by playing major events in an understated manner, a trick that worked well for me.
Ultimately, The Travelling Bag and other stories is a worthwhile read, if not as entirely satisfying as last year’s collection. There was a nice range of stories and they were all noticeably different from each other. Despite my niggles, I found it lovely to dip into Susan’s low-key worlds of the supernaturally mundane again, though it left me wanting more. A curate’s egg that is worthy of a Hallowe’en read, nevertheless.
The Travelling Bag and Other Ghostly Stories by Susan Hill
Published by Profile Books, September 2016
192 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1781256190
*She also writes contemporary crime novels.
Can I buy this in the US? I have not been able to find it. Thanks
Sorry, Kathy. I’m in the UK, but haven’t seen anywhere in the US that’s selling this, other than through the big international sellers like
Amazon. My usual advice is to suggest The Book Depository (www.bookdepository.com) who sell it with free worldwide postage. Best of luck with your search!