Kipps is agitated as his family’s stories grow grislier and more ridiculous. More spooky stories by the fire, fewer fat men and elves! Bonus: By beginning her tale on Christmas Eve, Hill tips her hat to the fine English tradition of telling ghost stories on that most-anticipated evening of the year. Certainly, every culture in every time and place has spoken of ghosts, but “the best” ghost story can only be set in England. Here we have already satisfied one criterion of a ghost story: It must be set in England. Arthur Kipps’ second wife and his step-children sit around the fire, telling one another ghost stories. The Woman in Black begins, appropriately enough, on a Christmas Eve sometime in the early decades of the twentieth century. I’m reminded of the words of a comic book writer, who advised teenagers aspiring to his role, “If you only read comic books, you might write the best comic book ever written, but you’ll never write anything different.” (The hubris of youth!) Having read Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black, I’m forced to concede that perhaps there is more to a ghost story than spooks, moors, and crisp English diction. What’s a reader to do when a ghost story is the embodiment of “The Ghost Story”? If it ticks off every requirement–old, isolated house sullen villagers gloomy weather–does that make it “the best” ghost story? I might once have insisted that, yes, a ghost story that meets all of the criteria (whatever the list might be) is in fact the best of its genre.
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