This is the chilling tale of a painting so terrifying, its secrets will haunt those who see it...It is a ghost story by the author of "The Woman in Black". A mysterious depiction of masked revellers at the Venice carnival hangs in the college rooms of Oliver's old professor in Cambridge. On this cold winter's night, i eerie secret is revealed by the ageing don. The dark art of the Venetian scene, instead of imitating life, has the power to entrap it. To stare into the painting is to play dangerously with the unseen demons it hides, and become the victim of its macabre beauty...
The Man in the Picture
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Hill (The Woman in Black) crafts an old-school spooker in this atmospheric tale of a sinister painting imbued with the vengeful spirit of a former owner. The painting, owned by retired Cambridge don Theo Parmitter, catches the eye of a visiting former student who's intrigued by its depiction of an 18th-century Venetian carnival scene and a figure in the foreground who looks anachronistically modern. The student's questions extract from Theo the strange story of how he won it at auction and the even stranger tale of the bidder he beat: the elderly Lady Hawdon, who claims that the man in the picture is her husband, imprisoned in the painting through the designs of a jilted lover who gave it to them as a wedding present. Hill manipulates the gothic darkness of her story with great dexterity and subtlety, faltering only at its awkwardly executed finish. Regardless, her tale is a commendable exercise in the tradition of the antiquarian ghost story. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
"'A tale brimming with excitement, mystery and vitality... The story unfolds at a thriller's pace' (The Times) 'Hill is a writer with the courage of her convictions who knows that there are few things more enjoyable than the inexplicable and eerie, conveyed within an accomplished and solidly reassuring framework' (Independent) 'Like all the classic ghost stories, Susan Hill's begins in traditional spooky style with the winter wind howling off the fens and bursts of hailstones rattling against the windows... This is a Hill Hallowe'en special. No mistake' (Daily Mail)"
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ghost story of an antiquary,
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This review is from: The Man in the Picture (Hardcover)
Susan Hill's latest novella recalls the famous Edwardian ghost stories of M. R. James and the Benson brothers as much as her famous previous short novel THE WOMAN IN BLACK recalled the Victorian ghost stories of Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Henry James and John Meade Falkner. We have here many of the more familiar tropes of M. R. James's ghost stories--tales within tales, multiple narrators, bachelor antiquarians in rooms at Oxbridge, and a woman possessed by a burning revenge--and in terms of atmosphere Hill is pretty faultless. But the novella leaves too much unclear in its telling. Although you want a certain amount of mystery preserved at the end of a ghost story, there's just too much muddled at the end of this to really get the effects Hill strives for--so while most of the story is quite a page turner, the final narrative section leaves you a bit unsatisfied.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Read in a thunderstorm and not scared,
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This review is from: The Man in the Picture (Hardcover)
This is a well-written (until the end) little trifle, but that's all it is. I like the style, but it isn't nearly as scary as the jacket would have you believe. In fact, I read it in a thunderstorm last night -- yes, it's a very quick read -- and, upon finishing it, went down to my dark, stone basement to do the laundry. I agree with the other reviewers: It plays like that old TV episode with Roddy MacDowell and the changing picture (Was that on Dark Shadows?), but the TV version was far scarier. Still, a quick, fun read.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What a strange little book!,
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This review is from: The Man in the Picture (Hardcover)
I enjoyed this novella, but I really wish that the idea had been expanded upon... it just seemed like there could have been so much more to this story. It did seem like a very classic type of ghost story - the sort to be further condensed and shared at sleepovers and camp fires. All in all, it was intriguing and enjoyable. I would definitely read something else by this author. Her writing really had a sort of timeless quality to it and the premise was interesting.
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