The House Next Door

Review of The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons

There is an old Greek saying that if you don’t praise your own house, it will fall on you.  Indeed, good old Elphaba could tell us a lot about houses that fall and kill one’s siblings.  There are books about them, too, those nasty, vicious, sort of haunted houses, but the ghosts and malicious presence are the house itself.  Rose Red, Amityville Horror, The Haunting of Hill House, and so many more nasty abodes seem to have their own brand of deadly in hospitality.

Siddons has written a masterful suspense about a malicious house and its grounds worthy of real estate like The Castle of Otranto.  This brilliant, modern house, and its lush grounds and rhododendrons, prove deadly to all its owners.  Spoiler alert; the architect does not leave unscathed.  Also, if you like pets and animals, maybe you want not to read this book.

The praise heaped on the house next door soon turns into a curse.  Strange maladies, violence, and personal tragedies creep up on you.  The prologue skillfully foreshadows  events to come.

Colquitt and Walter Kennedy are the couple who witness and define the neighborhood, full of old money, but not ostentatious.   Their names conjure Camelot, which we all know wasn’t. Comfortable, New Englandy, a classier version of Peyton Place.  A talented architect creates a gorgeous modern house in  neighborhood of classic traditional homes.  Each part of the book introduces a new family that meets with all kinds of catastrophes once they move into their dream home. An interesting aside is the name “Colquitt” which is an old Anglo Saxon name meaning “from the coal pits.”

Be careful what y wish for; you might get it.  This house is pure, shining, daytime evil, where no one is safe.