THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #60: A review of "The House" by Fredric Brown

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This is probably the shortest of the entire anthology, but that’s no surprise, considering the writer. Brown is most popular for his short-shorts and once even wrote the shortest horror story ever. Better known for his SF and mystery work, he is nonetheless pretty effective in this genre, too.



An unnamed protagonist approaches a house, and once he’s inside, he turns to find that the door has vanished, that it is now a solid wall. He wanders around, discovering odd things that make no sense, like an auditorium that faces a blank wall, a Playbill with no material in it except for a couple of ads, and the mysterious word, GARFINKLE. Later, he encounters a chanting sound that somehow involves the word RAGNAROK.


There is no other word to describe this story: it’s phantasmagorical. The reader feels like it’s a dream, and maybe it is. Perhaps this is one of Brown’s dreams that he put to paper. If so, his head must be a claustrophobic place to be. All in all, this is a very strange tale to publish in 1960. Dreamlike sequences would become more common when writers started taking drugs stronger than weed (think LSD, not opium). In 1960, it could only have been a mindfuck of a read.


SPOILER ALERT: The protagonist eventually comes to a room that reminds him of his mother’s room from when he was a child with a magazine and enough candles to last for 20 hours, maybe a little more. The door, of course, locks forever, never to open again, and he finds that he’s going to be stuck in this room for eternity. What’s going to happen when the candles run out? And how long can a magazine last as entertainment? It doesn’t take him long to flip out and start beating at the door with his fists. Of course, that gets him nowhere. END OF SPOILERS.


Brown explains nothing, which is a hell of a strength here. The reader is left to figure everything out . . . or not. Give it a read, and see what you make of it.


[I'll be completely fucked in half if I can figure out where this story first appeared.  The internet is full of misleading information on this one.  It might have been in an issue of THRILLING, but I won't commit to that.  It can't be read online at this time.]

[EDIT:  It took me some time, but I finally found the answer:  this story first appeared in FANTASTIC SCIENCE FICTION STORIES.  I just discovered the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, which is going to be a lifesaver for the rest of these posts.]