The Inner Room - Robert Aickman

The Inner Room by Robert Aickman / ISBN 9780571351770 / small format 80 page paperback / Faber Stories series

A long-time fave.

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Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles.

In perhaps the most magnificent of what he called his 'strange stories', Robert Aickman blurs the lines between memory, premonition and the hallucinated life.

Lene, a woman now recovering from the losses of the Second World War, recalls a gothic dolls' house of her childhood and the way in which its uncanny inhabitants entered her dreams. Most chillingly, the geometries of the house didn't add up; there had to be a secret room inside it.

Years later, she comes across a life-size version in a wood not marked on any map . . .