The Small Hand

This story of a rare-book dealer haunted by the manifestation of a child's hand gripping his own started well, developed with sufficient interplay between the mundane and ghostly to make it creepily atmospheric, and Hill's descriptions of locale all added to the building tension which the ending, unfortunately, didn't quite pay off for me. Still a low pick, and if you like the classic ghost stories of E. F. Benson and M. R. James, then you'll probably like this, too.

Before I even started to read this I was delighted by this beautiful little tactile volume. It all adds to the Vicorian feel of it. Hill writes glorious ghost stories. No matter what the era (and sometimes it's hard to put a finger on which era it is) her characters always somehow end up sounding other-worldly and out-of-time, but for me this is what really works for her.

In this novella, the protagonist, a book dealer, is grasped by a small hand of a boy who isn't there when he ventures into a deserted house, once famed for its beautiful gardens. A series of coincidences, twists and turns, and even a visit to a remote French monastry lead us to the final twist and the explanation of why the child ghost, at first benign starts leading show more Adam Snow ever closer to danger. As usual, a sublime read from an author who really understands the art of the ghost story. show less

This one isn't quite as scary as I was expecting given my experience with other books by Susan Hill. It's still spooky, though, and, like Hill's other books, makes the reader question whether mental illness might account for the seemingly supernatural occurrences, a bit of mental gymnastics that brings me joy.

The Small Hand by Susan Hill is a ghost story but rather than it being scary and mysterious, I found it to be eerie and chilling. The narrator is an antiquarian book dealer that takes a wrong turn while driving home to London one day and finds himself at a run-down and deserted house set amidst an overgrown garden. While wandering there he feels a small hand inserted into his but there is no one there.

Fully meaning to go back to this strange place, he gets side tracked by his life although from time to time he feels the child’s hand gripping his own. He also is overcome with feeling of fear and an urge to harm himself. Does this hand want to lead him into danger? On a business trip to visit an isolated monastery, he experiences an show more incident where he sees a young boy and fearing that his car may have hit him, he pulls over only to feel a force try to steer him over the edge of a steep precipice. Back in England, a train of ghostly events seems to be aimed at both the narrator and his brother.

The small Hand has a very traditional feel to it although it is set in the present. The author excels in creating an atmosphere and delivering a tightly constructed tale that definitely sent chills down my spine. This short book will appeal to lovers of horror fiction as things get more sinister as it goes along and feelings of impending doom are developed. show less

This short novel should be read in one sitting, preferably alone and late at night to enhance the fear factor. Reaching out to turn the lamp off afterwards, I anticipated the feel of the small hand in mine. Chilling but not her best work to date

It was a place which had been left to the air and the weather, the wind, the sun, the rabbits and the birds, left to fall gently, sadly into decay, for stones to crack and paths to be obscured and then to disappear, for windowpanes to let in the rain and birds to nest in the roof. Gradually, it would sink in on itself and then into the earth. How old was this house? A hundred years? In another hundred there would be nothing left of it.

I turned. I could barely see ahead now. Whatever the garden, now "closed," had been, nature had taken it back, covered it with blankets of ivy and trailing strands of creeper, thickened it over with weed, sucked the light and the air out of it so that only the toughest plants could grow and in growing show more invade and occupy.

I should go back.

But I wanted to know more.

I feel obligated to say up front that I am probably being unfair to this book. I am tempted to bump it up a star just because.

This is a much better plotted and neatly delivered little ghost story than [b:The Mist in the Mirror|678362|The Mist in the Mirror|Susan Hill|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1420351953s/678362.jpg|664356]. In this tale, she stays with exactly one source of supernatural tension, manifesting almost always in the same single way. The opening chapters made the hair stand up on my arms. The sensation of being lost on country roads, of finding a deserted place, of the small hand. And the book is filled with moments like that, moments I could easily reference real fears from my own experience and let them be drawn forward in the story. (Well, not the small hand. But she makes it seem like something I could experience, and that is the key to real suspense.)

And then the side trail intervenes and the plot is lost. And the side trail isn't just any side trail; it's a totally out of left field wholly unbelievable one. I appreciate the love for books that shines through in the lady's work, but this was just impossible for me. Seriously, I don't care how adverse to dealing with the financials those monks were. The instant they decided to sell a First Folio they would have had ahold of Sotheby's in two seconds flat. Monks aren't stupid. I put the book down for most of a week. The tension drained away. The story and the writing held up when I got back to it, but never recovered from that loss.

So, if Ms. Hill ever writes a book that stays on task, it will scare the jeepers out of me, I already know it. In the meantime, I will continue to wish that she would pare these things down. This one could have lost 50 pages and the whole trip to France and it would have been a very nearly perfect ghost story. If you are more patient than I am (or have fewer hang ups about Shakespeare), you may well enjoy this one quite a lot more.

(Note: read in [b:The Small Hand and Dolly|17288633|The Small Hand and Dolly|Susan Hill|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1369779573s/17288633.jpg|23909819] but I prefer to review the separately published works in omnibus editions unless there is something unique to the omnibus. No such difference here.) show less

This is a charming little book, well composed and touching. Susan Hill is a master at building the tension and this was very evident here.

I do agree, in some ways, with another reviewer who thought this could be the lead in a book of related short stories, but I am not that keen on short story books and I would probably never have read it in that format. It was certainly engaging and I read it in a couple of hours.

Everything within the book was well related. The central character Adam Snow is an antequarian book dealer and so deals with the past every day. Stumbling upon an old and derelict house, he has his first encounter with the child ghost. The chance of a first folio of Shakespeare's work sends him to a French monastery on behalf show more of a wealthy client... and again they are living under ancient and frugal doctrines. He is certain that the small boy is still there with him. Eventually, he comes to understand that the small hand which he feels holding his own is a ghost from the past and linked to him personally. I did see the end coming, but it was still very tragic and moving.

This is a book to read snuggled under the duvet.....it all seems more real that way! show less