The House Next Door
Anne Rivers Siddons
Ballantine Books (July 3, 2007)
279 pgs.
Reviewed by Carson Buckingham
The House Next Door made its debut in 1978, and though it’s an older book, 47 years have not dulled its creeping, psychological horror.
The story is set in an upscale suburb of Atlanta, peopled with the requisite upscale residents, who are not too crazy about the new house that is being built on the beautiful, wild lot right next door to Colquitt and Walter Kennedy, a thirty-ish couple who like their peace and quiet and the glorious view that is now being destroyed. Colquitt narrates the story.
The house, an ultra-contemporary, was designed by an odd little architect, whom the Kennedys befriended once they saw the house plans and realized what a breathtaking masterpiece the house would be.
However…
…once the house is occupied, Colquitt begins to realize that something is not quite right with the new showpiece of the neighborhood. But is the house malevolent, as Colquitt thinks, after three families move in, and the same three families leave as a result of tragedies that beset them while in the house? We, the readers, are left to decide if the tragedies are the result of severely flawed individuals to begin with, or if there really is a malignant presence in residence.
The more involved that Colquitt becomes in her theory, the more she brings rot and division to the previously idyllic life of the neighborhood. What once had been a lovely cocoon for the semi-wealthy soon morphed into something dark. It is interesting to watch the slow decay of a neighborhood peopled with fair-weather friends only, much like Rod Serling’s “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” You indeed find out who you can count on during times of trial.
And there is a marvelous twist at the end that I did not see coming.
Though she’s written many other books, It is with profound regret that I must report that this is the only horror novel that Anne Rivers Siddons wrote. She did it as a lark—a break from her usual Southern dramas.
Please do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. This will be one of the best novels of its kind that you will ever read.
All stars possible to give this book.
