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Housebound
Elizabeth Gentry’s debut, Housebound, is a novel like no other: a disquieting and interior fairy-tale adventure through one family’s secrets and lies. Maggie, the eldest daughter, is preparing to leave the house in which she’s lived, worked, and been educated her whole life: a life led seemingly without contact with the outside world, save in the form of weekly trips to the library for the stories that are the only escape for Maggie and her eight brothers and sisters. Maggie’s seeming estrangement from the most familiar details of her life give the novel an almost Kafkaesque feel, as if Kafka had been born an Appalachian woman.
- GenresFiction
160 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 15, 2013
56 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 8, 2015
Housebound tells the story of 19-year-old Maggie and her family, who live an isolated life in a large, oddly-shaped house. Maggie is the oldest of nine siblings, in a family that undermines the stereotype of large families as close-knit, their houses full of noise and chaos. This is a cautious, guarded family, with an emotionally-absent set of parents and a habit of watching each other carefully, making sure everyone follows the rules that, at this point, don’t have to be named. Everyone just knows what they are. The children are home-schooled, and their only social interaction, at least in recent years, is with neighbors they meet on the way to town to go to the library once a week. They spend their time doing their lessons, reading, and playing quiet games. They know that one of the rules is not to wander beyond the boundaries of their land; in particular, they are not supposed to visit their neighbors, who are few and far between.
It becomes clear soon enough that the family has been under some kind of spell, and that this spell is now showing signs of weakening. The novel opens with Maggie’s decision to leave: “Leaving home felt like tunneling out of a snow that had kept everyone housebound so long they had run out of things to talk about.” From there, the opening paragraph circles back to what it had been like when the spell descended:
"There were no more anecdotes, poetry recitations, ghost stories, contrived games, or late-night disclosures before the wood stove. Rather than building their knowledge of one another in successive cycles of irritation and love, memorizing each new layer as they aged and grew, the eleven members of the family had simply succumbed, once and for all, to a silence that turned them into strangers … They felt suspended, always waiting for someone else to make the first move — to take a turn with the bath, to return with fresh wood, to put the pot on to boil, to summon to supper, and most of all, to grow up and to leave."
But now, Maggie has decided she’s ready for a job and drives into the nearby city with her father to find one. The events of the novel take place during the days between getting the job and moving to the city to start it, a strange, suspended time when Maggie is still part of the family, but newly separated from it as well. She begins to venture out into forbidden spaces, to visit the neighbors she’s not supposed to visit.
The question of what Maggie will discover is what drives the plot forward, but along the way, there is so much to notice. The novel has a fairytale quality to it, with witch-like figures, frightening grandmothers, lost memories, suspended time, and the sense of a magic spell settling on the house. There is a definitive emphasis on the menacing, eerie aspects of fairy tales and the threatening sexuality that underlies many of them. Nature is menacing as well; rather than being a benign or a healing force, nature repulses and repels the characters. It’s forever threatening to invade their house — most importantly in the form of a rat that bites Maggie one night — and requires never-ending labor to contain. Even something as potentially pleasurable as reading takes on a dark cast in this novel: the characters are forever escaping into stories in ways that do not seem entirely healthy.
The novel is about isolation and loneliness, as Maggie does battle in a sense against these menacing forces all by herself. The focus isn’t entirely on her, however; the point of view shifts regularly into that of other characters, so that we learn, slowly, what the other siblings and the parents are experiencing. We even, briefly, get into the perspective of the rat. This gives the book a sense of richness as we come to understand the emotional and psychological complexity of everything going on in this very quiet, seemingly still, house.
It becomes clear soon enough that the family has been under some kind of spell, and that this spell is now showing signs of weakening. The novel opens with Maggie’s decision to leave: “Leaving home felt like tunneling out of a snow that had kept everyone housebound so long they had run out of things to talk about.” From there, the opening paragraph circles back to what it had been like when the spell descended:
"There were no more anecdotes, poetry recitations, ghost stories, contrived games, or late-night disclosures before the wood stove. Rather than building their knowledge of one another in successive cycles of irritation and love, memorizing each new layer as they aged and grew, the eleven members of the family had simply succumbed, once and for all, to a silence that turned them into strangers … They felt suspended, always waiting for someone else to make the first move — to take a turn with the bath, to return with fresh wood, to put the pot on to boil, to summon to supper, and most of all, to grow up and to leave."
But now, Maggie has decided she’s ready for a job and drives into the nearby city with her father to find one. The events of the novel take place during the days between getting the job and moving to the city to start it, a strange, suspended time when Maggie is still part of the family, but newly separated from it as well. She begins to venture out into forbidden spaces, to visit the neighbors she’s not supposed to visit.
The question of what Maggie will discover is what drives the plot forward, but along the way, there is so much to notice. The novel has a fairytale quality to it, with witch-like figures, frightening grandmothers, lost memories, suspended time, and the sense of a magic spell settling on the house. There is a definitive emphasis on the menacing, eerie aspects of fairy tales and the threatening sexuality that underlies many of them. Nature is menacing as well; rather than being a benign or a healing force, nature repulses and repels the characters. It’s forever threatening to invade their house — most importantly in the form of a rat that bites Maggie one night — and requires never-ending labor to contain. Even something as potentially pleasurable as reading takes on a dark cast in this novel: the characters are forever escaping into stories in ways that do not seem entirely healthy.
The novel is about isolation and loneliness, as Maggie does battle in a sense against these menacing forces all by herself. The focus isn’t entirely on her, however; the point of view shifts regularly into that of other characters, so that we learn, slowly, what the other siblings and the parents are experiencing. We even, briefly, get into the perspective of the rat. This gives the book a sense of richness as we come to understand the emotional and psychological complexity of everything going on in this very quiet, seemingly still, house.
December 15, 2013
Elizabeth is a friend, but I would have picked up this book anyway. Its blending of fairytale themes and elements with true character studies and vivid depictions of family life . . . wow. I'm giving this book as a gift to people for Christmas, and I cannot wait to read it again myself. Maggie and her family remind me of characters in Shirley Jackson's fiction, and as I have with Merricat Blackwood, I will visit them again and again.
January 22, 2014
Housebound is beautifully written, with an intriguing story line that takes you into the center of this isolated family. The book has the feel of a mystery as you try to unravel what is really going on. Taking place over only a few days, the detailed descriptions of their activities and interactions reminded me of a Virginia Woolf novel. Fascinating read!
January 6, 2016
This is an enthralling and slightly claustrophobic read. I felt compelled to keep reading, to see if our heroine, Maggie, was going to find her way out of the labyrinth of secrets and forgotten memories she was ensnared in. It's a dark, cautionary fairy tale, vague in time and place, but explicit in the ways families hurt each other and believe lies that both comfort and bind.
April 15, 2019
Excellent world-building in this. Although the environment Maggie inhabits is enclosed and claustrophobic, it is also filled with mystery and possibility. In addition, the psychic terrain of the family and the toxic secrets they keep is just as richly mapped and explored as the physical environment of their offbeat house and neighborhood. Genry's prose evokes a delicious fairytale quality that made this a compelling page-turner for me. A couple days after finishing it, I still find myself worrying over Maggie and what her future holds.
October 23, 2022
It seemed to continually hint at some great reveal/resolution. But it never came.
Even the idea that a family is finally forced to confront the truths in their lives is not fully realized. There's nothing to say they can't all go back to the easy and convenient delusions tomorrow.
Seems like a long story to resolve nothing.
Even the idea that a family is finally forced to confront the truths in their lives is not fully realized. There's nothing to say they can't all go back to the easy and convenient delusions tomorrow.
Seems like a long story to resolve nothing.
September 12, 2014
Here is an excerpt from my review at Necessary Fiction:
The exceptional accomplishment of Housebound, however, is how it takes the novel’s revelations and turns them into the seeds of the family’s healing. Not through some easy or cheap emotional trick—in fact the path opened up for the characters is quite daunting, quite horrible—but in the way Gentry investigates each character’s complicated reaction, how particular these reactions turn out to be, how delicate and horrible and real they all feel. And Gentry elevates these moments with a language that is somehow a little awkward but still quite beautiful and easily understandable.
You can read the entire review here: http://necessaryfiction.com/reviews/H...
The exceptional accomplishment of Housebound, however, is how it takes the novel’s revelations and turns them into the seeds of the family’s healing. Not through some easy or cheap emotional trick—in fact the path opened up for the characters is quite daunting, quite horrible—but in the way Gentry investigates each character’s complicated reaction, how particular these reactions turn out to be, how delicate and horrible and real they all feel. And Gentry elevates these moments with a language that is somehow a little awkward but still quite beautiful and easily understandable.
You can read the entire review here: http://necessaryfiction.com/reviews/H...
December 28, 2013
The author nails the tense, creepy atmosphere and complex emotions of a family living in shadows, and the frightening and triumphant power of storytelling.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews