Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco

Simply one of the best possession novels, with chills on par with The Haunting and The Turn of the Screw.

Ben and Marion anticipate a hot summer in Queens, when their apartment will become uninhabitable, the city abrasive. She longs to take their 8-year-old son David away and finds the perfect ad: "Unique Summer home. Restful, secluded. Perfect for large family. Pool, private beach, dock. Very reasonable for the right people."

The gabled mansion on the Long Island estate looks grey and in need of repair, but it is filled with chandeliers, antiques, and silver, which a caring hand could restore. Exactly the type of challenge Marion loves. When they meet the elderly owners, jovial Roz and her disabled brother, they are approved, and the rent cannot be beat. Walker, the handyman, shows them around—the dirty greenhouse full of dead plants, the green pool with cracked pavement, and the drive covered in vines. Ben invites his vibrant Aunt Elizabeth to stay; even then, they will only use a few of the 30 rooms. The only stipulation is the owners' aged mother, who at eighty-five never leaves her room in a private wing of the home and only requires a tray three times a day. Marion dutifully places meals in the sitting room outside her door—amidst the velvet curtains and a table filled with framed photographs of unsmiling people—which never gets touched. After a near-fatal accident, the pool appears clean of debris, the cracks repaired, and the rails shining. Ben withdraws as Marion becomes obsessed with restoring the house. As her hair turns grey, the greenhouse becomes transformed and abundant with plants. When David is almost gassed to death, and Elizabeth grows frail, the house seems to be coming alive, bit by bit. Her hair totally white now, Marion claims she has visited with the old woman upstairs—after all, who has been eating the food tray?

The 1976 film starring Karen Black, Oliver Reed, and Bette Davis follows the novel closely, although the screenplay was by William F. Nolan (Logan's Run). For creeping dread and the summoning of an evil presence of black doom one hopes to conjure when reading a horror novel, this succeeds. For me, one of the best possession stories.

1973 / Hardcover / 246 pages