The Sundial

Before there was Hill House, there was the Halloran mansion of Jackson’s stunningly creepy fourth novel, The Sundial. When the Halloran clan gathers at the family home for a funeral, no one is surprised when the somewhat peculiar Aunt Fanny wanders off into the secret garden. But then she returns to report an astonishing vision of an apocalypse from which only the Hallorans and their hangers-on will be spared, and the family finds itself engulfed in growing madness, fear, and violence as they prepare for a terrible new world.

Shirley Jackson (1916?1965) received wide critical acclaim for her short story ?The Lottery,” which was first published in the New Yorker in 1948. Her works available from Penguin Classics include We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Haunting of Hill House, and Come Along with Me and Life Among the Savages available from Penguin.

Victor LaValle is the author of the short story collection Slapboxing with Jesus, the novel Big Machine, and several other works of fiction. The recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the PEN/Open Book Award, he lives in Queens, New York.