House of the Seven Gables
Two centuries of guilt live in the walls of a rotting Salem mansion. Hawthorne's 1851 masterwork follows the Pyncheon family, whose ancestor seized land during the witch trials through false testimony, then watched the wronged man die cursing his line. Now the family crumbles under that ancient sin: Hepzibah, the unmarried sister, opens a shop in her own house to stave off starvation, while her brother Clifford returns after thirty years in prison, his mind fractured by confinement and grief. Their cousin Judge Jaffrey, a man of gleaming reputation and buried secrets, moves in for the kill. Into this gloom comes young Phoebe, the cousin who might yet break the curse. This is American Gothic at its darkest: a story about what we inherit from our ancestors and whether any of us can escape the judgments of the dead.
X-Ray
