Carmen Maria Machado wrote in "The Atlantic" about her experience discovering "The Haunting of Hill House". She was at a writer's retreat while working on her short story "The Resident," and was told her story reminded readers of Shirley Jackson. Having read little of Jackson, Machado decided to read "Hill House": "When I went back home to Philly, I picked up a copy. And I just devoured it. I read it in one sitting. I started reading one night, and when my girlfriend (now wife) went to bed I just kept reading. It scared the shit out of me. Even though the events that appear to be supernatural activity are few and far between, those scenes are so chillingly written—as if Jackson was describing a phenomenon she’d seen before and really understood. The book’s particular brand of surreality felt, to me, like that experience of walking home from a party a little bit drunk, when the world somehow seems sharper and clearer and weirder."