Although Erin has ably covered scary stories, I’ll chime in with another—David Mitchell’s disquieting but mesmerizing Slade House, which is as exquisitely packaged as it is unsettling to read late at night, alone, in what the older of my two sons calls a house with a lot of squeaky, freaky noises. I’m not so easily spooked, but I did find myself listening harder than usual. For what, I’m not sure…spectral footfalls, soul-sucking shades, my kids waking up and interrupting a delicious stolen moment of actual pleasure reading?

Slade House is a delightfully dark fairy tale, one that riffs off the world Mitchell built in The Bone Clocks but does not demand prior knowledge of it. There’s a stylish book trailer here. Its Edward Gorey-ish vibe makes me like it even more than the litany of praise it was designed to showcase. And indeed, no Halloween would be complete without a dose or several of Gorey. My sons and I just finished reading John Bellairs’ The House With the Clock in Its Walls; Gorey’s illustrations were the perfect complement to the tale of an evil wizard who concealed a doomsday clock in his squeaky, freaky home. Perhaps I was listening for ticking…

Generally speaking, I like a subtle, atmospheric brand of scary, the sort that steals over you, rather than overt horror, the sort that jumps out at you with chainsaw in hand. I may be the only child of the 80s who managed to avoid the Friday the 13th, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises, and the allure of the slasher flick eludes me still. This animation of Gorey’s cryptic but compelling “The Object Lesson” by Matt McGee is more my speed: https://vimeo.com/23504205.

Happy Halloween!