The Legacy of Shirley Jackson, The Allure of the Gothic, and The Reasons Why Ashes of August Manor Exists

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

Shirley Jackson-The Haunting of Hill House

Pet Semetery was the first book that scared me.

The Haunting of Hill House was the first book that unnerved me.

I remember reading the opening paragraph, universally praised as one of the single greatest opening paragraphs in the history of literature, and marveling at the sheer beauty and horrific implication of it. For the first time, I was reading a book where the setting felt truly alive.

Don't get me wrong, settings such as small towns and haunted houses have always had their place right beside the characters of their story. IT wouldn't be the same without the town of Derry and all its carnage. Salems' Lot wouldn't work without the titular town and the Marsten House's looming presence. Hell, what would Silent Hill be without...well, Silent Hill?

But this was different. This was the first time the setting had ever really felt alive. As though it possessed some kind of malicious agency over the rest of the story and the poor souls trapped within it. I remember my skin crawling as I read, my blood running cold over my bones.

And as iconic as that opening is, it only sets the stage for the rest of the story, which includes the single most haunting line in horror literature history in my humble opinion.

"Whose hand was I holding?"

Of course, Shirley Jackson's legacy extended beyond Hill House. Her work We've Always Lived in the Castle is another example of her mastery, and I think I might still be suffering from the whiplash that she subjected me to at the conclusion of "The Lottery", but Hill House stands tall (pun intended) as a titan of the industry.

When Mike Flanagan released The Haunting of Hill House for Netflix and modernized the story, I got to witness the same DNA in a whole new light, and while there were many liberties and diversions from Jackson's classic, the central soul remained the same. A soul that reiterated something important.

The story was unnerving as hell.

But why? Why did it hold such a sacred place in the scripture of horror literature. What made it work? What made it so deeply unsettling. It shouldn't have been, right? It was so melancholic. So...quiet.

That's right. It was quiet. So quiet, that whenever it decided to actually speak, God how its voice boomed.

When I started studying literature and learned that gothic meant something besides the kids at school who wore black everything and studded wristbands, I remember my mind instantly going back to Hill House. To Jackson's quiet guidance through a story deeply rooted in the darkest corners of the human psyche. As we learned about Shelley, Stoker, De Maurier, Poe, Radcliffe, etc., I remember being absolutely fascinated with that intricate and poetic blend of the macabre and the melancholic. It spoke to me in a way that so many other genres just simply couldn't. It was the creaking of an old floorboard that so many feet had walked on prior, some with horrid intent to their steps. It was the long walk down the hallway towards a corner, the shadow of what awaited lingering only in the dim glow of candlelight. The sprawling manor that seemed as deep and dark as the human hearts residing within.

I told myself I would write a gothic story one day. It felt necessary. Absolutely necessary to slip into those waters.

Then I wrote a folk horror novel. Then a southern gothic (aka folk horror in the South). Then a lovecraftian horror.

But despite their distance from the genre I'd fallen so in love with, I kept seeing a word pop up when describing the atmosphere of those books.

Gothic-esque.

See, I don't think it ever really left me. Even with the conscious effort of writing something that dealt with an animism cult in the Yukon, witchcraft int he bayou, or haunted memories and sea monsters on a doomed fishing vessel, the gothic was always there. Lingering just below the surface, waiting for me to let it out in all its glory.

So, I did.

Ashes of August Manor arose from a simple concept. I wanted to write a haunted house story that got under the skin the same way Hill House did. One that did not rip and claw and feast on the bones of the reader, but one that consumed slowly. Quietly. Little by little until the inevitable was apparent and yet unavoidable.

The book's original title was actually, funny enough, Quiet.

I wanted to lean into the concept of death, the questions of what waits beyond its borders and the stress of those burdened by its constant pressure. I wanted to write a classic gothic heroine who fits the mold established by so many great writers and yet marches to the beat of her own drum. I wanted a story that I could lose myself in the beating heart that pumped its black blood from page to page.

But above all else, I wanted August Manor to be alive. I wanted it to feel the way that Hill House felt. I wanted the old and weary bones of the house to creak with each and every breath it took.

As I wrote, an element of folk horror slithered its way into the story and what resulted became a true love letter to both Shirley Jackson and Adam Nevill. I like to think the voice is something very much my own, and that perhaps this amalgamation is what my writing journey has been leading to this entire time. This union of the quiet and the ritualistic.

The story that came from these ideas is one that I am incredibly proud of. I love the characters within and love that old, worn manor deep in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. Because in so many ways that truly represent the culmination of a long journey that has spanned nearly twenty years. A journey to find a voice all my own, a voice that truly exudes those very things that enthralled and unnerved me all those years ago, and continue to to do so today.

And so, I will leave you with this dear reader. When I wrote the opening lines to Ashes of August Manor, I wanted to pay homage to the legacy of Shirley Jackson and really lean into the allure of the gothic. So, here it is.

"Beneath the dark gaze of night, the settling bones of August Manor sent creaking echoes through the still veins of its ancestral body. The place rested deep in the Oregon pines, surrounded for miles upon miles by fog-covered wilderness. Atop the creaking house was the soft touch of a steady shower. The rain hit the outside of the manor tenderly, as though nature itself were afraid to subject the frail old home to too much force. Beside a large lake and waterfall, it stood alone in the fog, the remnant !esh of history. And yet, within its dark and creaking halls was the faint heat of life. Three lives—the heat from one of them fading quickly"

Hope I did ok. And I hope you all enjoy Ashes of August Manor.