Real Estate Agency

This house, which seemed somehow to have formed itself…reared its great head back against the sky without concession to humanity. It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for love or for hope.

-Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Living in California wine country helped me understand why I’m burned out on haunted houses.

In the past, tourists visiting Sonoma and Napa were content with dropping by a tasting room and sampling wine. Now, it is all about “the experience”. Tourists are no longer content with just drinking good wine. They want walks through the vineyards, gourmet picnic lunches, and horseback rides.

 I feel the same way about haunted houses. When I was younger, the mere prospect of ghosts was enough to scare me. These days, I feel more pity than fear for these resident spirits. As Gina Wisker observed, most ghosts are “stuck in an obsessive-compulsive loop”. They are doomed to wander the halls where they spent their last traumatic moments (and in some cases, endlessly replay those last traumatic moments). The entities in haunted houses “possess limited ability to interact with humans…and often cannot take much direct action themselves.”

I wanted more from a haunted house.

I wanted agency from my real estate.

Enter the sentient house.

I only came across the term sentient house recently, but I realize I’ve been devouring stories about them for decades. A sentient house, according to scholar Christiana Pugliese, is any dwelling that “has some kind of will of its own” and “displays a capacity to react to events and act according to an agenda of its own.”

Shirley Jackson’s Hill House

Think Shirley Jackson’s Hill House.

Think Stephen King’s Overlook Hotel in The Shining.

These houses are not haunted in the traditional sense. Sure, there are spirits present, but there’s something else that occupies the place, a cold intelligence that is not quite human. The houses themselves can make bad things happen. They can physically manipulate people and things. They can even react to external threats.

In The Shining, when Jack Torrance met the previous caretaker Grady, Grady admitted to killing his daughters after they tried to burn down the Overlook Hotel.

 “I ‘corrected’ them sir,” he told Jack, “And when my wife tried to prevent me from doing my duty, I ‘corrected’ her.”

 A garden variety haunted house doesn’t have that kind of sway, folks.

To better understand sentient houses, I fell back on my old habits as a former academic. I hit the books and reviewed the most recent (and classic) titles in the genre. Here they are, grouped by theme. (And if you’re interested in any of them, click on the images for an Amazon link.)

The Shining by Stephen King and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

These two titles are the cornerstones of the sentient house genre. Both feature sensitive (i.e. psychic) main characters who immediately pick up on the strange “energies” swirling around a house (or in the case of The Shining, a hotel).

Rereading these works was a revelation. I had forgotten what a terrific writer Shirley Jackson was. Her descriptions of the house and the way it turns the ghost-hunting team against each other was truly chilling. And The Shining? I read this classic in my teenage years and was so enchanted by the ghosts, I didn’t pick up on how much of the book was about the perils of addiction. Watching Jack Torrance slide back into his alcoholism (aided and abetted by the Overlook) gave me an entirely new appreciation of the work.

The Spite House by Johnny Compton, The Crows by C.M. Rosens and Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Sometimes, it’s not just the house. It’s the community around it that’s a dark influence. These three books feature characters forced by economic circumstances (and other darker reasons) to move into a sentient house. There, they find sentient houses at war with neighbors who threaten to destroy them. I loved these books because they used the genre to make social commentaries about race, class, and gender inequality, as well as the secrets that haunt tight-knit communities.

Episode Thirteen by Craig DeLouie

There are so many ghost hunting shows out there they have quickly become cliché. Craig DeLouie takes his fictional ghost hunting team (with all their ‘scientific’ equipment) to Foundation House, the Mount Everest of sentient houses. Despite a ton of previous experience, they are NOT prepared for what they are about to encounter. Presented in a semi-found footage format (along with diary entries from cast members and shooting schedules for the show, Fade To Black), readers have a ring-side seat as a sentient house fights those who try to crack its mysteries. A thrilling ride and a timely satire of the “industry” of ghost hunting.

I’m not sure how many aspects of sentient houses I will wind up using for Shadow Zone. But I feel like a painter who has just discovered a new palette of colors.

Now, bring on the canvas!

FUN FACT: A sentient house even made an appearance on The Simpsons. Here is a brief clip from the very first Treehouse Of Horrors, which featured The Bad Dream House.