Listen to Susan Hill reading from The Woman in Black

In a world full of gruesome, graphic and all too often sadistic literary violence, Susan Hill's old-fashioned ghost story is a welcome reminder of the more noble origins of the horror genre.

Like her earlier novel, The Woman in Black, it harks back to a time when terror was as much a product of the reader's imagination, expertly planted there by the author, as it was spelt out on the page. In cinematic terms, it is The Shining versus Saw III; Don't Look Now v I Know What You Did Last Summer; The Omen v Scream. It has class, it has style and it has pedigree.

In many respects The Man in the Picture owes a considerable debt to the father of the fireside chiller, M.R. James, probably best known for his 1925 collection A Warning to the Curious and Other Stories.

James was a master of understated horror and dramatic tension. The fear and foreboding in his stories is palpable, the doom-laden action no less exciting for being so darn obvious. That sense of inviting disaster which characterises some of the greatest Gothic horror — why must the hero venture into the cellar when he knows it contains a foul fiend; why does the heroine leave her window open when she knows a “vampyre” is on the loose? — is ever present in his work. Yet his protagonists, and the reader, are glued to a narrative that is devilishly, hypnotically elegant.

James had certain themes, and they are present in The Man in the Picture. Here is the eminent academic, nearing the end of his life, living out his days in comfortable penury. Here is the naive pupil, in awe of his mentor's intellect but unaware of the true depths of the dark secret that he harbours. Here is the bright promise of happiness, a romantic idyll, doomed to destruction.

At the centre of everything is a supernatural black hole, an object of extreme malevolence (in this case, a painting) that, while not necessarily intrinsically terrifying, is tenaciously successful in its evil purpose. And there is no happy ending, no redemption — the only escape for its unfortunate victims is the grave, or worse.

But The Man in the Picture is no mere carbon copy. It has real, defining qualities of its own. Hill brings her unique take to a somewhat careworn framework and produces a tale brimming with excitement, mystery and vitality.

Her language is crisp, concise and elegant, and, although she makes concessions to a more old-fashioned style, she does so knowingly and with verve. The story unfolds at a thriller's pace, and the setting is reassuringly contemporary.

Thanks to this, Hill can lure the modern reader in with a sense of the brightly familiar. Not until it is too late – both for the hero and for the hooked reader – does the realisation dawn that everything, even a plate of piping hot buttered crumpets, has been contaminated by an intangible, insatiable evil. In the capable hands of Hill, the Gothic novel, that venerable but undeniably pensionable genre, finds a new lease of life.

The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill
Profile, £9.99; 160pp

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