TW for description and discussion of violence, including domestic violence, alcoholism, fear, emotional and physical harm to children, death of children and birds.

My goodness, I have a LOT to say about The September House, a haunted house story that is emphatically not a romance. This book tackles mental illness, domestic violence, alcoholism, messy parenting, and the logistical difficulties of getting gasoline fumes out of antique upholstery. I didn’t so much read it as eat it in one big gulp, and, having gulped, am not sure how to digest this book, which starts with a kind of dry humor and slides inexorably and effortlessly into pure horror.

Margaret never had a home of her own, so when she and her abusive husband Hal find a gorgeous Victorian for sale, they are thrilled. It’s true that every September blood pours down the walls, and the house becomes filled with screaming ghosts, one of which bites, but every house has problems. While Hal wants to leave, Margaret digs in — and when Hal does leave, and Margaret’s daughter Katherine comes home to investigate, the boundaries between real and not real get more and more blurry. Still, Margaret insists that everything is survivable, as long as you follow the rules.

I fell in love with this book from its opening chapter:

As for the bleeding, it always started at the top floor of the house – the master bedroom. If I wasn’t mistaken, it seemed to start above our very bed itself. There was something disconcerting about opening your eyes first thing in the morning and seeing a thick trail of red oozing down your nice wallpaper, pointing straight at your head. It really set a mood for the rest of the day. Then you walked out into the hallway and there was more of it dripping from in between the cracks in the wallpaper, leaking honey-slow to the floor. It was a lot to take in before breakfast.

Margaret is pleased to find that the mess magically clears itself up on the first of October, and her approach to challenges in life is summed up thusly:

Eventually, one has to give up asking questions, just accept that things are the way they are, and act accordingly. So when I woke up to a wall dripping with blood and a foggy head from not-quite sleeping through hours of moaning, I simply nodded and got on with my morning.

I love a practical woman, and this made me laugh. However, as the book progresses, it quickly becomes apparent that Margaret’s refusal to leave the house is less a practice of wry humor and more a practice of passivity that parallels her refusal to leave an abusive marriage. The central question of the book is not “Are the ghosts real?” or “Where is Hal?” The question is “Why does Margaret stay in horrible situations even when she has opportunities to leave?”

This book excels at describing the house and its inhabitants, as well as Margaret’s coping strategies and her relationships with the various ghosts and manifestations, not to mention her daughter, who she will go to great lengths to protect. It also excels at showing how adrenaline can affect the body. Like me, Margaret tends to respond to fear by going into freeze mode, experiencing time slowing, and dissociating (dissociating is, of course, common among trauma victims). An extreme moment of terror is described like this:

I suddenly felt as if my legs had been taken from me, my guts sliced open. My chest didn’t feel like it had exploded so much as it felt like a boat rapidly filling with water and descending into the depths faster than I could bail it out…

…I was underwater. The world around me was black, the sky barely visible from my depths, I struggled, my limbs pushing and heaving as they pulled me towards the surface, seemingly miles away.

I’ve never read such a deeply felt, spot on description of this kind of fear reaction, and I was both terrified and here for it.

Getting back to central questions, there’s no question that the book is well written, tightly plotted, and scary as fuck. Different things scare different people, but I was variously frightened, amused, touched, immersed in dread, grossed out, and super-duper terrified. As far as the real question, why Margaret chooses to stay with Hal, and in the house, again and again, I think the book does a good job of showing how Margaret’s psychological state affects her decisions to stay. Margaret takes pride in her ability to endure, to survive. Repeatedly various characters tell Margaret, “no one deserves to live like this,” referring to both domestic violence and to the haunted house, to which Margaret offers a variety or responses – she deserves it because she chooses to stay, she doesn’t deserve it but you can’t change reality, “Needs must when the Devil drives.” Again and again she falls back on her mantra, “Everything is survivable. There are rules.”

In the end, a lot of things are left up in the air. The fates of Margaret and Katherine are left unresolved in practical, if not emotional, terms. Yet there’s also a deep feeling of resolution, because Margaret finally finds the ability to change her circumstance, answering the statement “No one deserves to live like this” with…

In the course of my life I’ve known two women who dreamed specifically of large houses and of being able to present a picture of a happy family and a happy home. For a time these particular women were able to enjoy a facade of wealth and security, presenting a picture of a perfect family, one in which all the ugliness, all of the toxicity and abuse, was hidden from public view as neatly as the trash cans tucked under the sink. These two women found the strength to leave these dreams behind when the mental and emotional costs of maintaining them became too high. They are my heroes.

For Margaret, for most of the book, the desire to have a facade of stability, normality, and domestic happiness is more important than health, safety, or freedom. Her liberation is thrilling to witness. I finished this book and immediately wanted to re-read it, since upon the first reading I spent most of my energy trying to understand what the heck was going on. I am a little frustrated by the lack of practical resolution at the end…what will happen to Margaret and Katherine? Who is going to clean all this up? Will Margaret ever get some of these smells out of the upholstery? However, I realize that these are not the important issues. The important issues of character and of relationships, especially that between Margaret and Katherine, are resolved beautifully if also messily. This book is one for the keeper shelf, to read under the covers with a flashlight every September.