The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (1983)

Going to do my best with this post because I read the book over a year ago in May 2025! Thank goodness I left some random notes for myself in the draft so that I have something to go off of.

The premise of the novel is a flashback recollection/ghost story of the narrator's own experience with Eel Marsh House and the woman in black that haunts the place. Arthur is relaxing on Christmas break with his family and the kids want him to tell them a ghost story, so he recounts his own and vows to write it down after re-telling it to them.

As the story progresses through Arthur's psychological state while being at Eel Marsh House, the reader is made to feel as uneasy about the place as the narrator himself. There is mystery wrapped up in the locked nursery door, and many questions to be answered about what happened to the family that lived there. The past is unraveled for Arthur by the wary and suspicious villagers in the nearby town as well as by the letters and papers he finds in the house; the task he is there to perform in the first place.

There is a supernatural element to the haunting of the house by the woman in black, and it is never really resolved as actually supernatural or a just a shared psychological state. Even so, the connection of the deaths of the children in the town is more or less written off as coincidences that the townsfolk attribute to the haunting of the house. It is never explicitly confirmed that there is actually a ghost (from what I can remember). Arthur, and others, say they see her, but a bunch of that can be chalked up to the mental state of a lot of the people in the vicinity because of what has been happening. Again, it is very unclear.

The biggest thing that got me about this novel is that it sets you up to think everything is fine and there will be a happy ending - - - but not today! There is a reason he is a widower for 12 years before a second marriage and the recollection of his story. I will leave this part spoiler free! However, I will leave it off with two pieces of information/questions:

• First, the significance of the pony cart was not clear until the very end of the novel. So that was not an early connection that I was able to make or foresee. (Trying to remain spoiler free here.)
  
  
• Second, an unclear plot resolution that left me guessing is the motivations of the ghost: Is the ghost mad that Arthur saved the dog Spider and that the child was not saved before? (I have to leave this vague in case it gives too much away.)

Overall, this book was not bad, and a pretty short read. Horror fiction (if you can call this book that? I don't know.) is not really my thing, but I try to branch out of my comfort zone sometimes.

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To be honest, the whole point of reading the book was to watch the 2012 film with Dan Rad (Daniel Radcliffe) - - - because aDaPtAtIoNs are my thing.

But . . . 

I do have some THOUGHTS about this adaptation from least egregious to more severe offences.

Yes, okay, some of the events of the novel are out of order in the film, but that is alright because it doesn't really take away from the way the story works or plays out. And, okay, the film leans much more into the actual horror genre with the ghost and creepy scenes and jump scares rather than the psychological horror I was getting from the novel. That is fine too. It just means there was a more stylistic choice on the presentation of the narrative that way.

However, the novel's recollection timeline of the Eel Marsh House experience is THE main timeline of the film. This completely alters the character of Arthur because in the film he already has a son, and his wife died in childbirth. The stakes are VERY different and this change in the state of Arthur's family during the film has a massive effect on the ending of the film.

Which brings me to the ENDING. It is so different and takes away from the story that the novel laid out in the first place. I am now going to spoil the end of the movie, but not the end of the book (because the book's was better.) Foremost, there is no Stella in the film. Which means Arthur doesn't get a second chance at a family like in the novel to tell this story too. Next: at the end of the film Arthur and his son are - hit by a train, and die - what the actual?! That is absolutely SO different from the novel and totally takes away from his psychological struggle in the recollection of his experience at Eel Marsh House that the novel is all about. 

I have nothing left to say after that ridiculous bombshell.

The ending completely ruined it for me. That, and the film's too far leaning into the outright scary horror take on the whole story. Nope. Not for me.