The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

It’s traditional to read a scary book on Christmas Eve and I would like to say for the purposes of the opening sentence of this review, that, on the 24^th December I snuggled up in front of my Christmas tree and read the opening line of Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black: “It was nine-thirty on Christmas Eve”.

However, I didn’t want to tempt the ghosts of Christmas past this year.

There is something about this story, I feel, that I will always find uncomfortable. So much so I won’t dedicate too much time describing the figure that haunts the unfortunate Arthur Kipps in the lonely house that sits among the marshes.

I had watched the 2012 film before seeing the play at the West End, and after seeing the play I slept all night with the bedside lamp on. So when I came to the book I was sufficiently freaked out enough to decide I would not read it at home on my own. When I did start reading, however, I noticed a theme that had been brushed over in the film and was developed in the play. This was the theme, most obvious given the title, of women.

The story of the woman in black, Kipps explains, is “not particularly unfamiliar”. A woman, unmarried, gives birth to a baby to the shame of her family and she is later pressurised to give him up for adoption. The book was published in 1983 and is described as a traditional English ghost story - quite possibly set in the Edwardian period, with flashbacks to the Victorian era. Sadly, stories of forced adoption span right across these time spans. In Victorian England unmarried mothers were forced to give up their children to foundling hospitals, while Hill was writing her horror novella in the wake of the adoptions of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, as orchestrated by the Catholic Church.

Once the theme of women and motherhood is established, this frighteningly little tale takes on a new form. Arthur Kipps reads by candlelight, alone in the creaky Eel Marsh House, Walter Scott’s The Heart of Midlothian, a classic novel that deals with infanticide and the pressures the state place on young females. The ghost tales of Crythin Gifford are dismissed as “women’s tales” and the gender of Arthur Kipps canine companion takes on a little more significance.

It seems just, almost, that the people who suffer under the vengeance of the fearful phantom are Kipps and Jerome, both men who practise the law - the same framework which takes away the moral rights of a young mother.

While this feminist undercurrent helped to distract me from some disturbing passages, it didn’t mean I decided against reading this book in the company of others at all times, in clear view of what was behind me, or that I spent more than 5 seconds looking at the front cover. I would say if you are looking for a true horror story look no further than this one.