I really enjoyed this.  It is a good, varied collection, which held my attention from beginning to end.  Thoroughly recommended.

I like this collection because I like classic authors from history but sometimes reading whole books from history can be daunting. The short stories are just right. I also think it's interesting to see what was considered horror in their times.

This is an absolute joy to read and with so many classic short stories found within its pages, this is a definite treasure trove.  The short stories included stories from esteemed authors as Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain and a host of others, each one is a fantastic winner on what the best of horror shorts are.

The stories are basically all ghostly or hauntings though Poe’s short is slightly out of this realm.  I am a big fan of Shirley Jackson and thought I have read everything she has written but I found Home in this collection which is a must for all Jackson fans and fans of ghostly visitations.  Charlotte Perkin’s The Yellow Wallpaper is one of those classic novels that one hears about but seldom reads and it does live up to its reputation.

Overall, this is an excellent collection and one that I would not mind having as a hard copy on my shelf.  Each and every story is pure gold and the different styles definitely complement each other. If one would like to really explore the masters who are at the top of their gain, this is a good place to start.  Fantastic read all around.

The love we have for macabre stories is never ending. The enjoyment we get when reading stories like the ones in American Midnight will always be never ending. As humans we tend to like them, but deep down in our small black heart and soul we enjoy them so much more. These tales are a great work of art that we seem to have forgotten along the way. I highly recommend these fantastic stories just like I would recommend anything also written by all the authors in this great book.

I cannot wait to stock this during Halloween and Christmas. A great collection of stories and an ideal gift for horror fans.

This collection of dark tales were written by some of America's literary giants, Poe, Hawthorne, Wharton. It is a good book to read if you want to put a chill down your spine but nothing that will keep you awake all night. I loved two of the stories...Home by Shirley Jackson and Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

I love the idea of this book, and love that it combines so many great short stories for me to enjoy in one place. 
I found though, like with many anthologies it was a bit hit and miss whether I enjoyed the stories. It also isn't something I can sit and read in one sitting, because of the nature of an anthology, and that's not something I love. 
I don't think this is a criticism of the book, its just personal preference that anthologies just aren't my favourite.

Thank you NetGallery and Pushkin Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I love horror, dark stories –either on films or books, once I hear “ghost story” I am signed up.

Therefore, American Midnight: Tales of the Dark, immediately drew my attention, not only because of the title but also for the authors that were selected for this anthology. I had heard some of the names –Poe, Hawthorne, Wharton, Jackson– but some others were entirely new, so I thought this was an excellent opportunity to revisit some known stories and discover new ones.

Though I enjoyed the book, I felt that 50% of it was great, while the other 50% was so, so.
Unfortunately, there were a couple of short stories that I did not enjoy and were even difficult to go through, as I did not find them creepy or scary at all. One could argue that as a modern reader, stories written on the 19th century might not have the same effect in someone that has seen quite gruesome content in the horror genre, mainly on film. However, the thing is, some of the stories included in this collection were dark indeed and outstanding to me, and were written in the same period.

For this, my enjoyment was torn in half, as part of this selection was great while the other was ok and not memorable.

The stories I enjoyed the most were:
- The Eyes by Edith Wharton. This story was superb –it is a ghost story, but it also explores our own personal ghosts. The build-up is extraordinary: one night, a group of friends is on a gathering and, after dinner, they recount their own ghost stories. The host of this gathering, an older man who never talks much, reveals that in his youth he was haunted twice, by a pair of angry eyes, when he decided on two things that could have changed his life and the life of others. It is up for the reader to decide if this apparition was indeed a ghost… or guilt.

- The Mask Robert Chambers. I had never heard of this author and I think this is the story I enjoyed the most, though it is not scary in the strict sense of the word. However, I found it beautifully written and I was transported to its setting –Paris, potentially end of the 19th century. Three close friends, two men and a women, artists, living in Europe without conventions and exploring art and life. I could literally hear Debussy playing on a warm afternoon, surrounded by sculptures and paintings, and experiencing the pain of an unrequited love. The loss, the dead, the loneliness… and then the uncertainty of finding love once more, but unsure of its form. And that can be indeed, one of the scariest parts.

This story was extraordinary and made me interested in Chambers’ works.

- Home by Shirley Jackson. I felt this one was the most traditional ‘ghost’ story of all the ones included in the book. A couple arrives in a new town, and is working on having their house ready. The woman, Ethel, is in charge of all the repairs needed and she tries to be chatty with locals. One rainy day, people warn her about not taking a certain road, and naturally, she ignores them, takes that road and sees a woman and a child standing, on the pouring rain. She offers to take them home. The woman tells Ethel her house… is where she currently lives. When she gets there, and she looks back, the passengers are gone…This was really scary! I guess this is one of the urban legends –in Mexico, the US or anywhere in the world- that though we hear time after time, does not stop giving the chills. Jackson’s narrative is direct and therefore, results in a great impact for the reader.

- The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I had been wanting to read this story for ages, and this collection gave me this opportunity. The plot might be familiar –a young woman is suffering from depression, but in the 19th century, this was simply labeled as female hysteria. Her husband decided the best cure is isolation, and he takes her to a lonely house, for the summer, where she spends her days alone. There, she is starts developing an obsession with the old, rotten, colorless wallpaper of her bedroom, where she begins seeing figures and making up stories. As many have put it, the story explores a woman’s descend into madness –which implies fighting one’s own ghosts –but that ending. Though it obviously it is a consequence of mental health issues, it was also extremely scary… that fainting and that creeping.

The stories that were ok for me were The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe; the Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne; and, A Ghost Story, Mark Twain. And I know, these are one of the greatest names of U.S. and English literature, and I feel a bit guilty for not liking them but, honestly, their stories just did not work for me. This might be a very unpopular opinion but Poe is not my favorite, and has never been. But I get it –I think his work will be part of any collection of scary or ghost stories around the world. However, the stories selected form Hawthorne and Twain were just… a bit boring to me. I think there is an irony on both and one can read between the lines but I did not find the plots creepy or interesting enough.

And finally, the stories that I definitely disliked were Spunk by Zora Neale Hurston and An Itinerant House by Emma Frances Dawson. I have no idea what ‘Spunk’ was about and could not understand half of it (I am not a native English speaker, but this was written with a bit of slang? So it was hard for me to follow through). However, there was nothing interesting on the plot for me –a love revenge maybe and an awful death caused by supernatural forces? As said, maybe it was just the fact that the style was difficult for me to go through, but I did not get it. In the case of Emma Frances Dawson, she is another author I’d never heard of, but the story was a bit… boring? The premise was good –it explores curses, the energy places maintain and the negative vibes that affect people, all things I believe can happen. But the execution was just all over the place –more than a ghost story it felt like an essay on art, opera, literature, the importance of artists, and sort of showing the author’s knowledge on all of the above and I found myself bored. This was the story that for me was the most difficult to push through and, unfortunately, it is the last one from the collection.

Though some of the stories did not work, fortunately there were a couple of them that I will definitely keep checking out when fall approaches and enjoy revisiting on a chilly October night.

“A chilling collection of classic weird and supernatural tales from the dark heart of American literature.”

As soon as I saw the description for American Midnight: Tales of the Dark, I knew I had to read it. This collection of short stories is edited by Laird Hunt, and contains eerie stories all by American authors. Some were classic titles I instantly recognized, and others were new to me, but all of them gave me chills and kept me up at night.

Finding the energy to focus on reading has been difficult lately (thanks, COVID), and I typically only have the energy to read 20 pages or so before my attention starts to drift. At first I thought, “Wow, I’m never going to be able to finish a book at this rate!” But then I remembered that short stories exist, and reading became enjoyable again.

I’ve always been a fan of horror stories, so this collection was an automatic must-read for me.

American Midnight contains the following:

“The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allen Poe
“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Eyes” by Edith Wharton
“The Mask” by Robert W. Chambers
“Home” by Shirley Jackson
“A Ghost Story” by Mark Twain
“Spunk” by Zora Neale Hurston
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“An Itinerant House” by Emma Frances Dawson
I appreciated the diversity in authors, and enjoyed the mix of sub-genres. Throughout the book we see ghosts, witches, haunted houses, plagues, and more. It was a great mix, and some stories definitely stood out to me more than others.

The most chilling for me was Edith Wharton’s “The Eyes.” I’d never read this story before, and think it’s fine if I never read it again. After finishing it, I fought the urge to check the end of my bed for paranormal apparitions, but was torn between wanting to make sure nothing was there, and the sheer horror of what I would feel if something did appear.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” was also exceptional. I’ve read this story before—once in high school, and again for an undergrad class—but it had been almost eight years since I’d last read it. Reading it again as an almost 30 year old woman was a totally different experience, and I found myself relating to the narrator in a whole new way.

I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed “A Ghost Story” by Mark Twain. Usually, I am utterly terrified of ghost stories, but this one made me sad. By the end of it, all I wanted to do was give the ghost a hug. It showed me that not all ghosts are necessarily scary or evil, and you shouldn’t always be afraid of them.

There were a couple stories that I didn’t particularly enjoy, but overall, this collection was fantastic. The forward was also wonderful to read, wherein the editor shared his own personal ghostly encounter.

If you’re a fan of spooky stories, short stories, or American literature, you’ll want to add this collection to your list.

Thank you to the publisher (Pushkin Press) for an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley. American Midnight: Tales of the Dark will be available on August 25, 2020 (in Canada), and can be pre-ordered or purchased wherever books are sold.

American Midnight is a collection of well and lesser known spooky stories by an impressive array of American authors to include Poe's Masque of the Red Death, Hawthorne's  Young Goodman Brown, Wharton's The Eyes, The Mask by Robert Chambers, Home by Shirley Jackson and many others.  None of which happen to be my personal favorites but might come under the heading of "Spooky Stories for $100, Alex." American Midnight includes an introduction by the collector of the tales, Laird Hunt and which may well be the high point of the entire book.

I loved all of the classic stories included in this anthology!  There were several I had never read before, like The Yellow Wallpaper and I really enjoyed!  Definitely a creepy and well put together collection of stories!

This review was posted on Goodreads.
🔹 Overall thoughts and feelings: 
〰 This anthology is absolutely great. I highly recommend it since I genuinely believe that everyone will enjoy it. The stories in here are all so different that you’re bound to find at least one to your liking. Each story explores different themes and topics and although I didn’t love all of them, I highly enjoyed most of them. My absolute favorite would have to be “The Yellow Wallpaper” because I just found the story to be amazing and exceedingly well written. That being said, all stories in here were enjoyable and you’ll be able to see which ones were my favorites down below since I gave an individual rating to each one.

The masque of the red death by Edgard Allen Poe 
〰 I think out of all of them I was most excited to read this one for some reason. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I love Poe and the premise sounded interesting but I was disappointed. The writing is beautiful but the story itself wasn’t that gripping. 
Rating: 3 stars

“No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal— the redness and the horror of blood” 
——————————-
Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne 
〰 This was an entertaining story. The writing was good and the premise was interesting but it wasn’t anything amazing by any means. 
Rating: 3 stars

“There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown.” 
———————————
The eyes by Edith Wharton 
〰 Hands down one of my favorites in this anthology. The writing is amazing, the premise is unique and the story is riveting. And just to encourage you to read this even more, I’m sharing two quotes instead of one (just go read this).
Rating: 5 stars

“We had been put in the mood for ghosts, that evening,”
“The effect of the eyes seemed to be cumulative, and the thought of seeing them again grew intolerable.” 
———————————
The mask by Robert W. Chambers 
〰 Veryy entertaining and intriguing story. At first I didn’t think I was going to like it much but then it took a different turn than what I was expecting which surprised me and made me more invested in the story than ever. Another one of my favorites in this anthology for sure.
Rating: 5 stars

“Never in word or deed or thought while with them had I betrayed my sorrow even to myself.” 
———————————
Home by Shirley Jackson 
〰 Another great one! Very eery and atmospheric. The writing makes it very easy to get into the story and once I started reading this, I couldn’t put my phone down until I finished it. The only reason I’m not giving it a full five stars is because the story itself is not the most original (but it still fits perfectly with the whole theme going on in this anthology). 
Rating: 4 stars

“Ethel Sloane could hear only the child’s horrible laughter as the car turned and skidded toward the high waters of the creek.” 
———————————
A ghost story by Mark Twain 
〰 I think if I had to use one word to describe this story it would be “entertaining”. It’s one of the shorter ones in this anthology and it’s a bit lighter (in the horror aspect I mean). Still, I didn’t find it amazing but it was definitely worth the read.
Rating: 3 stars

“In the ashes on the hearth, side by side with my own bare footprint, was another, so vast that in comparison mine was but an infant’s”. 
———————————
Spunk by Zora Neale Hurston 
〰 Interesting story. It had a lot of potential but I think it fell flat at the end since the execution lacked a little something. So although this definitely could have been better, it also could have been worse. 
Rating: 3 stars

“One could actually see the pain he was suffering, his eyes, his face, his hands and even the dejected slump of his shoulders.” 
———————————
Yellow wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 
〰 Oh.My.God. 
I most certainly did NOT expect to love this as much as I did. It's definitely my favorite one in this whole anthology. It was absolutely amazing. It’s an epistolary short story following a woman who is very obviously going through depression (most likely postpartum depression), and who becomes fascinated with this yellow wallpaper in her room. The portrayal of mental health is amazing in here (especially for something that was written in 1892), and it was so heartbreaking seeing how such illnesses were misunderstood and never taken seriously at the time. The author handles it very well and does a fantastic job of helping you understand what the narrator is going through. I’m not going to go into much detail but I HIGHLY recommend you read this short story (whether you buy this anthology or not). SO GOOD.
Rating: 5 stars.

“Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able—to dress and entertain and order things” 
———————————
An itinerant house by Emma Frances Dawson 
〰 Another absolutely great one. The concept is very interesting and the story itself was well executed. Amazing writing style as well. So, in all, this was very enjoyable and very weird (in a good way!). I did find myself a bit confused at times which is why I’m taking off a star here but nonetheless, this was great. 
Rating: 4 stars

“These very walls shall remember—here, where I have been so tortured no one shall have peace!” 
———————————
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

“Ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now ye are undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness.” Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne was by far my favorite story. The main character sets off at night, leaving his young wife, to run a mysterious, nefarious errand. He meets what seems to be the devil on his way through the woods and they come across several “upstanding” citizens of the town who all seem to be going to the same dark meeting. Fun to read, with a dark foreboding setting. 
American Midnight by Pushkin Press is a collection of dark short tales written by classic American authors. A few are the giants in the literary world, Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Shirley Jackson, and Mark Twain. 
It is a good collection giving a basis for modern tales to build on, but overall I was underwhelmed and was lost during a few of the stories. 
Thank you to Pushkin Press, Hanover Publishers Services, and NetGalley for a copy of the ebook in exchange for an honest review.

I'm torn because I love all of these stories -- this is a great slice of American spooky fiction, on a story-by-story level... but also, it's 2020. And there's one story here by a person of color. 
Look, to some small extent, I can understand the argument that it's a historical collection (despite having a Shirley Jackson story) and also that I should at least be glad that the table of contents has more women than men and that ~is~ something... but, I don't know, I just wish this was a more diverse collection is all. The stories are great, they're spooky as hell and classically so -- but there's so much more to American Midnights than what Laird Barron collected here.

I really enjoyed this - an eclectic anthology of mostly canonical short horror stories, all in their way fundamentally American. Obvious heayweights like Poe, Hawthorne and Jackson are represented, along with some less often thought of as horror writers like Zora Neale Hurston. The last story (An Itinerant House) was, especially, a delight and previously unfamiliar to me. The Pushkin Press edition looks like it will be be handsome in person, too. Recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book. A lot of great spooky stories to enjoy. I loved every one of them. Great shorta story collection.

American Midnight is a beautiful collection of classic "horror" stories.  I had previously read almost all of these stories in middle/ high school.  They are all very solid stories.  They are not all scary, but horror has evolved greatly from when many of these stories were written and it takes a lot more in the year 2020 to be seen as spooky than it did back when these stories were first written.  Poe's short stories introduced me to horror when I was about 10 years old, so his works will always hold a very special place in my heart.  Is there anything new for the hard core horror lover like myself, probably not; however, it is a solid collection to add to the bookshelves.  The cover is gorgeous and you can never go wrong with the classics!

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read the book.  I found the different stories in the book to be well written but didn't certainly didn't hit the horror mark for me.  The book was lacking in both the horror and suspense and as such felt disappointed after completing the book.  If you like your horror gritty and hard hitting this book isn't for you.

‘’We have been put in the mood for ghosts, that evening.’’
                                  The Eyes, Edith Wharton

As this year’s summer approaches with remarkable hesitation, a different time for ghost stories begins. Ghost stories that don’t require the comfort of a fireplace while the snow is falling softly outside. The ghost stories of the summer are told around a lively campfire in Midsummer’s Eve, they need to be narrated while we’re sitting on our porch, as the blue of the summer sky slowly darkens and the stars start their late twinkling, as the wine freezes and the trees are painted purple by the early evening light.

It is the time of the American Midnight…

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe: A prince finds refuge in his abbey as the Red Death, the horrifying plague, is destroying his land. His frenetic masquerade ball has an unexpected (or maybe not…) outcome after the arrival of a strange, uninvited guest.

Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne: An outstanding story by the master of the Gothic tale, a fable as atmospheric as it is enigmatic and frightening. Set in Salem during the 17th century, this is the story of a young man who witnesses the forbidden and his life is changed forever.

The Eyes by Edith Wharton: In a marvelous tale-within-the tale story, a man recounts his strange experience of being haunted by a pair of eyes burning in the darkness. But as it always happens with the great Edith Wharton, this is so much more than a ghost story…

The Mask by Robert W. Chambers: A story that still fascinates us with all the questions it raises, the mystery that lies within the city of Carcosa and the enigmatic figure of the King In Yellow. P.S.True Detective lovers unite.

‘’They were strangers in the house.’’

Home by Shirley Jackson: Even though Ethel is sooo irritating (yes, with three ‘’o’’’), this is a straightforward but extremely atmospheric story of two cursed souls and a tragedy.

‘’[...] thinking of bygone times; recalling old scenes, and summoning half-forgotten faces out of the mists of the past; listening, in fancy, to voices that long ago grew silent for all time, and to once familiar songs that nobody sings now.’’

A Ghost Story by Mark Twain: Narrating a strange visit from the past, this tale is written in the unique, humorous style of the great American writer.

Spunk by Zora Neale Hurston: A story about a love affair with dubious connotations. I didn’t like this one at all, and I fail to see the reason why it had to be included in this collection.
‘’There comes John, and I must put this away - he hates to have me write a word.’’

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The ultimate story of male cruelty, tyranny and madness. The haunting tale of a young woman, imprisoned by her husband, who finds herself face to face with the monstrous creations of her weakened mind, destroyed by endless oppression.

An Itinerant House by Emma Frances Dawson: A cursed house that moves may have been interesting but this story seemed to me a poor attempt to mimic Mary Shelley’s masterpiece. No.

‘’And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.’’

Many thanks to Pushkin Press, NetGalley and Edelweiss for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sunny afternoons in May might not be the most obvious time to read ghost stories, but Pushkin Press's new collection of eerie American tales are enough to send a chill up the spine no matter what the time of year. Selected and edited by Laird Hunt, these classic stories span the 19th and 20th centuries, and their settings include barricaded castles; modest lodging houses; wooded roads; aesthetic Parisian apartments; forest glades; and supposedly comfortable country houses. The general trend is to unsettle rather than terrify, for which I was grateful, because my overactive imagination really doesn't need any encouragement in the dark reaches of the night. Including works by Edgar Alan Poe, Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, Shirley Jackson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, this is likely to include a couple of tales you're already familiar with, but will introduce you to at least a few new friends, ready to raise the goosebumps on your arms...

The best way to do this, I think, is to say a few lines about each of the nine stories included in this collection. That way you can see which stories are included - and make sure you're not duplicating too many things you already own - and, since each of the stories has its own distinct flavour, it does away with the need for awkward generalisations. Note the pleasing fact that five of the nine stories are by women.

The Masque of the Red Death (1842): Edgar Allan Poe

This is the big one, the story that everyone knows even if they haven't read it. When the world is stricken by a terrifying blood plague, Prince Prospero decides to thumb his nose at death: 'The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think'. Gathering one thousand friends, he retreats to a magnificent castle and closes the doors, embarking on a dizzying sequence of parties and banquets. It's the ultimate lockdown experience. But can you truly cheat death? One night, in the midst of a splendid masquerade ball, Prince Prospero is to meet his match. A story that gains new levels when read in the light of the present Covid-19 crisis, as we try to barricade ourselves within our homes and to keep the virus out. Unexpectedly timely and relevant.

Young Goodman Brown (1835): Nathaniel Hawthorne

I hadn't read this story before - in fact, I haven't read much Hawthorne at all, with the exception of The Marble Faun (which I loved) and The Seven Gables (which I didn't like quite so much). In this short story he whisks us back to 17th-century Salem, where the titular young man is heading off on a mysterious journey on an unspecified but dangerous night (Halloween, surely?). His young wife Faith begs him not to go, but Brown is determined to meet his destiny. However, when a sinister meeting in the woods leads him to question all that he has ever believed, his confidence falters. Faced with a stark choice between faith and belonging, what will he choose? And, having chosen, how will he ever trust his fellow man again? A curious story, with a remarkably civilised Devil, which obviously reminded me strongly of The Crucible; but I wonder whether all is truly as it seems. Are all the people whom the devil shows to Goodman Brown really there, or are they just phantoms, intended to undermine his faith in his honest neighbours? Thoughts in the comments please.

The Eyes (1910): Edith Wharton

This was one of my two favourite stories in the collection. It takes the form of a story told by firelight to the narrator by his friend Culwin, an elderly gentleman with a hint of misanthropy ('his study of the human race seemed to have resulted in the conclusion that all men were superfluous, and women necessary only because someone had to do the cooking'). Culwin recounts the extraordinary story of a pair of red-rimmed, demonic eyes that appear floating at the bottom of his bed on certain occasions. The first time he sees this apparition, he flees to Europe, but soon he will find that there is no escape. But is this truly a haunting? Wharton pulls off a clever ending to the story, which reminds us that of all our phantoms, sometimes it's hardest to escape ourselves.

The Mask (1895): Robert W. Chambers

Along with The Eyes, this was my other favourite story. It comes from a collection of Chambers's stories which centred around an eerie (fictional) play titled The King in Yellow, although here the link is a loose one (the character flicks through the play, and a quote from it provides the epigraph). Set in the artistic community in Paris, it follows the narrator's friendship with the sculptor Boris and his beautiful wife Genevieve, for whom our narrator has long felt a tendresse. Chambers writes rich prose, the kind in which you can lose yourself: luxurious descriptive passages conjure up the decorative wealth of Boris's elegant home, which centres on an Islamic-style bathing room with a sunken bath. This becomes significant, as one day Boris confesses to our narrator that he has made an extraordinary discovery: a solution that immediately petrifies living objects. Our narrator is tantalised, then horrified, realising the ghoulish potential of this discovery; and, when tragedy strikes, he fears that he will be haunted by Boris's rash deeds forever. But Chambers's story is a rarity: a not-exactly ghost story that allows for the possibility of a new beginning at its end. Unusual, haunting, and lovely.

Home (1965): Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson was bound to be included here. I've only read a couple of her stories so far, most notably We Have Always Lived In The Castle, which I thought was wonderful. Here we follow the Sloanes, a young couple settling into their new home on the outskirts of a small town: a far cry from their old life in the city. Ethel Sloane is determined to fit in, so she makes an effort to chat to the townsfolk, stocks up at their shops, and smiles at their superstitious worries about the road that winds up through the woods to her house. What's the matter with the road? It's narrow, but don't they trust her driving? Driving, it turns out, is to be the least of her worries when Ethel encounters a mysterious old woman with a shivering child at the side of the road. Definitely unsettling, and Jackson never quite tells us how the thing is resolved - if it ever is? 

A Ghost Story (1870): Mark Twain

This story starts in the time-honoured fashion: a dark lodging house; an isolated room; strange noises in the night. Our narrator is clearly plagued by some kind of visitation, but you swiftly realise that Twain is deliberately laying it on thick for comic effect. When the narrator finally confronts the ghost that's causing all the trouble, it takes a most unexpected form. To make matters more embarrassing from the ghost's point of view, it turns out that it's haunting entirely the wrong place (and might, indeed, be even more misguided than that). Not only a delicious parody of ghost stories, but a witty satire on the Cardiff Giant, a supposedly petrified ten-foot-tall man, whose body had been unearthed on a farm in Cardiff, New York state in 1869. Drawing enormous crowds, the Giant was swiftly revealed as a complete hoax (if you take a look at photos, it's hard to understand why anyone was ever taken in: it's a statue of decidedly mediocre workmanship). Twain takes up the story and runs with gusto, in a tale that would have been sharply relevant at the time, and remains comic even without the context.

Spunk (1925): Zora Neale Hurston

A short but eerie story based around the oldest plot of all: hubris, and a fall. Spunk Banks is a swaggering god of a man, apparently irresistible to any woman on whom he sets his eye. At the moment it's Lena, the wife of meek, mild-mannered Joe Kanty, who barely has the courage to look his mocking neighbours in the eye ('his Adam's apple was galloping up and down his neck like a racehorse. Ah bet he's wore out half a dozen Adam's apples since Spunk's been on the job with Lena'). When Joe finally has the courage to stand up to Spunk, a tragic exchange leaves one man dead. But can envy and hatred last longer than life? The locals certainly think so, as a sinister series of events closes in on the members of this ill-fated love triangle. It was great to finally read something by Hurston (I have Their Eyes Were Watching God and Barracoon on my Kindle, but haven't yet started either of them). I initially found the rendition of accent and dialect rather difficult, but as I adjusted to it, it added rich atmosphere to this hot-house tale of sexual jealousy.

The Yellow Wallpaper (1892): Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I've written about this story before, but it's always a pleasure to reread this tale of frustration and isolation. Like The Masque of the Red Death, it gains a certain je ne sais quoi in the light of lockdown, when so many of us are spending more time with our wallpaper than we ever thought possible. A gifted writer, laid low with what must be post-natal depression, is spirited away by her physician husband for a country retreat. He rubbishes her psychological symptoms, insisting that she is physically well and that everything else is within her power to command; her mental health is a matter of will. Confined and babied, our narrator finds her frustrated creativity breaking out in disturbing ways as she studies the strangely patterned yellow wallpaper in their adopted bedroom: 'I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere'. And it becomes worse, as the patterns begin to take on new forms which reflect her own lack of fulfilment: 'it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern ... The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out'. On one hand, a classic spine-tingling story. On another, a feminist classic in which the infantilisation and confinement of women leads to psychological collapse.

An Itinerant House (1897): Emma Frances Dawson

The final story of this collection tells of an act of cruelty followed by an act of misguided kindness. The residents of a San Francisco lodging house are shocked when their landlord announces that he's bringing his wife across the country to live with them. No one is more shocked than Felipa, the Mexican woman who believed that she was his wife in all but name. Felled by grief, and brought to the point of death, she is resurrected by the well-meaning lodgers using electrical currents. However, Filipa is not grateful for her restoration to life, and she latches on a muttered comment half-overheard during her stupor, that she is 'better dead than alive'. A living ghost, her evil influence lingers over the young men who tried so foolishly to alter the course of nature. As they disperse, they find their lives being haunted by strange events and tragic deaths. And everything seems to draw them back to San Francisco where, again and again, they hear tales of a house in which a room drives all within it to misery, suicide and death. 

I confess that I was initially confused by the story. How could a house possibly move? Was that part of the story's eeriness? Not so, as it turned out. As so often happens, truth is stranger than fiction. Dawson refers to the custom of actually physically moving houses from one place to another, which was facilitated by the use of pre-fab iron structures. The moving of sturdier houses was documented in 1970s San Francisco by the photographer Dave Glass. He took photos of the extraordinary practice, which you can see here. And houses aren't all that have been moved. Telephone exchanges, presidential palaces, theatres and Marble Arch have all been shifted in mind-boggling feats of engineering savoir-faire.

This is a well-balanced collection, with stories from different periods, and in a variety of moods, with a good blend of old-fashioned ghost stories and more inventive paranormal tales. These are the kind of stories to prickle pleasingly under the collar in a Gothic way, rather than leaving the reader terrified to turn off the light at night, and they make for a wonderful introduction to the field of dark American fiction. 

This review will be published on my blog on Tuesday 12 May 2020 at the following link:
https://theidlewoman.net/2020/05/12/american-midnight-2019-laird-hunt