I went into this anthology with an awareness of the work and reputation of some of the authors and the editor, Ellen Datlow. I had little knowledge of Shirley Jackson’s work aside from The Haunting of Hill House, and as such, I had the vaguest of ideas of what to expect from a collection of stories inspired by her work.

What I found was a superb collection of sometimes humorous, and always horrific tales. Many of these stories could have easily taken place in places that I know and involving people that I have known as well. These are stories in which the greatest fear is of the people living around us, or the people living in our own homes, and sometimes, the person living in our own mind.

All of these are quality stories, but a few that really shined for me were:

In The Deep Woods, The Light Is Different There by Seanan McGuire
Take Me, I Am Free by Joyce Carol Oates
Pear of Anguish by Gemma Files
Skinder’s Veil by Kelly Link

The beauty of this collection is that it not only introduced me to the style of Shirley Jackson, but it also introduced me to a multitude of writers that I had never met, but which I look forward to knowing through their work.

This is an outstanding collection truly deserving of the attention that it has garnered. Highly recommended.