The House of Stairs

by Barbara Vine

Lizzie hasn't seen her old friend, Bell, for some fourteen years, but when she spots her from a taxi in a London street she jumps out and pursues her despite 'all the terrible things' that passed between them. As Lizzie reveals those events, little by little, the women rekindle their friendship, with terrifying results ...

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Thriller, Suspense, Mystery Thriller, Gothic

282 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Pseudonym of Ruth Rendell.

Rendell created a third strand of writing with the publication of A Dark Adapted Eye under her pseudonym Barbara Vine in 1986. Books such as King Solomon's Carpet, A Fatal Inversion and Anna's Book (original UK title Asta's Book) inhabit the same territory as her psychological crime novels while they further develop themes of family misunderstandings and the side effects of secrets kept and crimes done. Rendell is famous for her elegant prose and sharp insights into the human mind, as well as her ability to create cogent plots and characters. Rendell has also injected the social changes of the last 40 years into her work, bringing awareness to such issues as domestic violence and the change in the status of women.

Reviews

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

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“There is no time in our lives when we are so conspicuously without mercy as in adolescence.”

I don't think I would ever picked up this 'obscure' and forgotten novel if it hadn't been for the 'crime fiction' module I took during my second year of uni. Thanks to that module, which was in every other respect a huge waste of time (lecturer on Tom Ripley: "he does bad things because he wants more stuff"...truly illuminating), I was able to 'discover' Barbara Vine's work.
Since then I've read a few other novels by Vine (which happens to Ruth Rendell's nom de plume) and while I can safely say that she is an excellent writer, The House of Stairs remains my favourite of hers. Perhaps it is because of its sapphic undertones, or maybe I'm just a sucker for unrequited love stories.

“It felt like a passion, it felt like being in love, it was being in love, it was the kind of thing you delude yourself that, if all goes well, will last a lifetime. Things, of course, didn't go well. When do they?”

The House of Stairs tells a dizzying tale of tale of psychological suspense. Like other novels by Vine it employ two timelines and explores the haunting effects of the past on the present. ‘The present’ features characters whose lives have been altered by an often unspecified accident and or crime. The second timeline, narrated from the retrospective, focuses on their past, and in particular on the events leading to that ‘one big event’. Vine does not limit herself to recounting past occurrences, instead she allows her characters to re-examine their own actions, as well as attempting to understand the motivations behind those of others. The past and present flow into each other, and throughout her narratives Vine traces both a crime’s roots and its subsequent ramifications.
Set in London The House of Stairs London opens in 1980s when Elizabeth—protagonist and narrator—glimpses Bell, a woman who has been recently released from prison. Seeing Bell is the catalyst that makes Elizabeth recount her story (transporting us to the late 60s and early 70s) but even if she knows the identity of Bell’s victim she does not share the details of this fateful event with the readers, preferring instead to play her cards close to her chest. This dual storyline creates an apparent juxtaposition of past and present. We can hazard guesses through brief glimpses of her present, her ambiguous remarks, such as ‘Bell’s motive for asking those questions was outside the bounds of my imagings’ and ‘[A]s they wished me to do, I was seeing everything inside-out’, and through her carefully paced recounting of those events.
By re-living that particular time of her life, Elizabeth—alongside the reader—acquires a better understanding of the circumstances that lead Bell to commit murder. Her narration is a far from passive relay of what happened for Elizabeth in the present seems actively involved in this scrutiny of past events.

“It is interesting how such reputations are built. They come about through confusing the two kinds of truth telling: the declaration of opinion and principle and the recounting of history.”

One of Vine’s motifs is in fact to include a house which is the locus of her story, functioning as a Gothic element within her storylines. In this novel the house (nicknamed—you guessed it—'the house of stairs') is purchased by Cosette—a relation of Elizabeth's—soon after the death of her husband, and becomes home to a group of bohemians, hippies, and outsiders of sorts. The house become an experimental ground: it is an escape from traditional social norms, a possibility for Cosette to make her own makeshift family.
The house creates an almost disquieting atmosphere: those who live there are exploiting Cosette, and tensions gradually emerge between its tenants. The house can be a place of secrecy—doors shut, people do not leave their rooms, stairs creak—and of jealousy, for Elizabeth comes to view the other guests as depriving her of Cosette’s affection.
Elizabeth, plagued by the possibility of having inherited a family disease, finds comfort in Bell, a beautiful and alluring woman. Elizabeth comes to idolize Bell (comparisons to the portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi abound), and finds herself increasingly obsessed by her. Bell's arrival into the house, however, will have violent consequences.
As Elizabeth is examining this time in her life, she, once again, finds herself falling under Bell's spell.

“I found her exciting in a disturbing way, a soul-shacking way, without knowing in the least what I wanted of her.”

Like many other Vine novels The House of Stairs is a deeply intertextual work. Henry James, in particular, plays a significant role in Elizabeth's narration.
Guilt, culpability, love, obsession, desire, greed, past tragedies, and family legacies are recurring themes in Elizabeth's story. Vine, however, doesn't offer an easy answer as she problematises notions of normalcy and evil.
There are many reasons why I love this novel so much: Vine's elegantly discerning prose, her examination of class and gender roles in the 1960s-70s, the way she renders Elizabeth's yearning for Bell...while I can see that some readers my age may find this novel to be a bit outdated, I would definitely recommend it to those who enjoy reading authors such as Donna Tartt, Sarah Waters, Kazuo Ishiguro, Tana French, James Baldwin (particularly, Giovanni's Room), and Magda Szabó.

re-re-read: weirdly enough i have come to think of this novel as a comfort read, i say weirdly because there is little comfort to be had in these pages. an atmosphere of unease permeates the narrative, and most of the dynamics at the heart of this story are characterised by a certain ambivalence. still, vine's writing is utterly enthralling. now, even if i do consider this book an my all-time-favourite, i recognise that certain phrases, observations, and or lines of dialogue are decidedly representative of both of the time in which the story is set in (60s/70s england, a lot of white middle-class or otherwise well-off characters) and the time in which it was written (80s). understandably some of these off-handed yet nevertheless offensive lines might alienate contemporary readers (whether our narrator is making a negative remark about certain neighbourhoods in london, or discussing her sexuality using outdated terms or in a dualistic way), so i recommend that if you do pick this book you prepare yourself to encounter content you might frown upon.

[Margitte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Combine foreshadowing and flashbacks with the art of deceit and betrayal and the results are this psychological suspense thriller.

The novel starts out with the murderer in full view. Then slowly unpacks the circumstances and back stories to where the victim emerges at the denouement of this highly suspenseful, entertaining tale.

Ruth Rendell, Lady Rendell of Babergh, also known as Barbara Vine, who passed away aged 85 in May 2015, was a literary phenomenon. Nobody has to tell the reader that. Her books do. Apart from completing a book just about every nine months, Ruth Rendell also scattered new possibilities over the murder/mystery genre like a double-barrel shotgun. From the traditional British mystery genre, she moved into psychological thrillers, and then, as Barbara Vine, added more dark, chilling possibilities by exploring the minds of criminals with disturbing results for the reader. Uhumm....sleepless nights, pondering the characters and their intentions...lying awake, shivering in hellish hot temperatures. (J.K.Rowling would do the same as Robert Galbraith after the monumental success of the Harry Potter phenomenon).

None of her stories have melodrama written all over it. It is always understated, laissez fair events, in which controversial topics are seamlessly woven into the narrative without fanfare or bells going haywire. To understand the impact, the reader must place her 52 books in the historical period it was written: from 1964 to just about 2015 (Dark Corners). The number excludes her 7 books of short stories and novellas.

The House of Stairs(first published in 1988) becomes the hedonistic, swinging Sixties, capturing men and women from all walks of life in a lifestyle devoid of form, order or moral code. The house is the metaphor for chaos, in which Ms. Vine explores the minds of psychopathic criminals to the extreme. The 104 steps lead to a dangerous top floor and slowly, but surely the interconnected dramas of the different characters are moving up the stairs. The higher the steps, the more intense and intriguing the characters become.

Normal life starts in the front room downstairs with innocent Auntie watching television, with Bell being her unlikely companion.

Three main characters, including the first person narrator, Elizabeth Vitch, battle loneliness, memories and an uncertain future. Elizabeth faces a genetic heritage of Huntington's chorea, while getting her career as novelist on track. Cosette Kingsley, the wealthy widow buys love and devotion from everyone in the house, dishing out funds like life blood to her leeches. Bell Sanger, the beautiful likeness of Lucrezia Pancriatichi by the Italian painter Bronzino, has her own demons to fight. Her moral compass becomes the novel Wings of the Dove by Henry James. The novel becomes the axle of this plot as well. The literary realism of both authors underscores The House of Stairs. The novel also highlights the relationships between women and the different interpretations of love - its devastating consequences when scorned.

The arrival of Markus changes all relationships in the house. This good-looking, out-of-work actor brings color to each character's black-outlined psyche when he slowly, and unobtrusively, forces each one of them to drop their layers of pretense and skilled deception. Markus is the moral compass entering the saga from an unwelcome angle...

All dynamics changes and the action moves up the stairs to the ultimate denouement in this extremely atmospheric tragedy of characters. However, in retrospect, it was also the end of the era for the inhabitants.

Ruth Rendell did not appreciate being called 'an excellent writer', 'a master storyteller' or the title 'Queen of Crime'. However, she bathed in the glory of being called a 'political animal'. Her political views flowed effortlessly through her novels. She was a postmodernist author, representing the Labour Party in the Britain's House of Lords, and championed the legislation to ban female mutilation from Britain's society.

In The House of Stairs, she confronts the reader with the clash between traditional marriage and the modern equivalents. Unlike feminist group-think, she paints her female characters as realistically flawed as their male counterparts. In fact, they are often just as unlikable, with no heroines falling in the stileto fatalis category of the chick lit genre(stileto fatalis is actually an agricultural flaw worm, but does not have the same meaning in this novel at all. More a tongue in cheek kind of reference). Ruth Rendell's readers are the independent, serious female readers who value good taste and intellect above all else in literature of all genres. She did not have to find them, they found her and made her the most successful female crime writer of all times by buying her books by the millions.

As a postmodern writer, Barbara Vine leaves the reader with a choice of endings. Yes, we are left to our own truths in figuring out what happened after the telephone started ringing. Now, talk about bells and whistles going haywire! One of the choices is to toss the book across the room and scream. Another is to calmly think about the consequences when Elizabeth answers...and yes...write the ending yourself. Fascinating! In the end the reader becomes part of the story with skillful manipulation by the author. The author's intent was not to make the reader comfortable. Not at all. Her intent was to make the reader think. And think twice. Then reread this masterful story. In fact, by rereading the first part of the book, the actual ending of the house(era) is displayed for everyone to see. But the uninformed first time reader does not realize the significance of the description of the old place. This is one of her best books, in my humble opinion, although the ending drove me up the walls, to be honest. But the message was an eye-opener, if the reader followed the clues carefully. It was not necessary for her to spell out the ending.

I deliberately left out the plot. It is so multilayered and intriguing, that any clues will blow the story. Other reviews provided too much information but nevertheless provide more meat to the bones for the incurable curious minds among us. So, forgive me for being so evasive :-) I sooo want you to read this book, I can just about burst open like the overripe seed-head of an onion. (Have you ever witnessed this spectacular explosion of seed into the atmosphere?)

Barbara Vine, aka Ruth Rendell, or the other way around, was Britain's most decorated crime writer of all times. She deserved all the accolades which were delivered in spades at her front door. Not only was she a pioneer for female authors, an excellent storyteller and an outstanding creative thinker, but also a literary master of words. A wordsmith par excellence. All her books were a cut above the rest and all became international best sellers as a result.


HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A psychological suspense novel. Christabel Sanger is a recently released murderess from prison who has a hold over the narrator of the story.

Elizabeth Vetch is a minor successful novelist with a fascination for people and their motives. She also possibly has a genetic debilitating disease which could happen at anytime up to the age of fifty. Through her friendship with Bell (Christabel) she becomes the catalyst for a murder. She narrates the story told in the present day and at the time of the murder.

Cosette is a distant relative of Elizabeth who becomes her surrogate daughter at “House of Stairs,” which is where the tragedy takes place. There are an array of characters living rent free in the house due to Cosette’s generosity. Auntie an elderly friend and companion for Cosette. Ivor Sitwell a conman and scrounges who becomes Cosette’s lover and treats her badly. Then there is Mark Henryson a complete contrast to Ivor and apparently the brother of Bell.

The beauty of the novel is we know Bell is a murderer. But who was murdered? Why, where, when and how? All characters in the book know but we have to decide as the crime is only revealed gradually, building up the suspense in a series of flashbacks.

Bells husband Silas death also appears suspicious and also what she tells people is far from the truth. My major criticism of this novel is why Elizabeth would want Bell in her life after everything that has happened. Any normal person would tell her to f*** off!

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Out of print. This is my favorite Barbara Vine novel. Incredible structure, with a perfect amount of foreshadowing. Narrator's voice is pitch perfect throughout. This book is worth reading more than once, as I just have, taking advantage of the fact that it is now available in ebook format.

I have placed this book on my shelf of "books-about-books" because Rendell (here under her pseudonym) borrows her main story line, events that are recalled, from "The Wings of the Dove" by Henry James. In fact, the narrator admits she has caused events to unfold because she tells another character the plot of the classic.

The narrator begins her story seeming surprising sane despite the burdens she bears, but somewhere in the last chunk of the book her vision, as it were, narrows as we understand she is either becoming ill or is suffering from a mental breakdown. What's interesting is that we'll never know what does happen to her because the book ends on a ringing phone, which creates a deep-seated fear in the reader. Or at least it did the first time I read it. Now, I see that the author does let us know many times before the end what the real "end of the story" will be.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

As ever with Barbara Vine, I’m struck by how unusual The House of Stairs is in contrast to what we now expect from the genre (the blurb for this edition describes it as ‘an unputdownable crime classic’). I found it extremely meandering but, yes, compelling. I read huge chunks despite finding the characters neither likeable nor interesting. It’s the same kind of anti-thriller as A Fatal Inversion – an ominous bit at the start, then 200 pages of family politics, fussy interiors and listless socialising before anyone even thinks about committing a crime. Yet somehow I was still turning the pages compulsively.

At the very beginning there is an irresistibly gripping scene. Narrator Elizabeth is shocked to spot Christabel (aka Bell), a former friend from another life, on the street – shocked because this means Bell has been released from prison – and follows her. For the rest of the book, nothing much actually happens. We flash back to the 1960s, where Cosette, Elizabeth’s wealthy, widowed, childless aunt, sets out to reinvent herself, in part by buying a tall mews house in Notting Hill (then a ‘slummy, shabby, dirty and dangerous area of London’). Nicknamed the House of Stairs, it becomes host to a revolving door of young people, a couple of whom Cosette has affairs with. It’s also where Elizabeth becomes better acquainted with Bell. The big revelation, Bell’s crime, comes very late.

Here is an older example of that plot device, so common in modern thrillers, where a narrator must conceal certain past events within their own thoughts and memories so the author can build up to a reveal. (Reading The House of Stairs I was often reminded of Erin Kelly’s The Poison Tree, for the use of this device as much as the bohemian London house and beguiling villain.) Unsurprisingly, Vine does it remarkably well, ushering us along by way of Elizabeth’s conversational voice, her habit of correcting herself and recognising when emotion is tripping her up.

It’s tempting to see this as an obvious antecedent of 2000’s Grasshopper, which also features a young woman living with a relative and taking up with a charismatic criminal – though for my money the later book is more developed; Clodagh is just a more successfully written protagonist. For all that Elizabeth is our storyteller and relates the events at the House so intimately, we don’t learn much about what makes her tick. Not my favourite Vine then but a pleasing read, thoroughly enjoyable in a non-typical way, a page-turner that doesn’t talk down to the reader.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected horror, maybe not excessively so, but some discreet creepiness to put a shiver down my spine, but there was none. It was all about relationships and who is sleeping with who in a flower power hippie commune. Lots of redundant sentences like “I was intrigued, oh I was so intrigued” which doesn’t add much to anything in my view. There was only a bit of the 60s feeling, most of all it felt outdated. I have a feeling it has to do with the 1st person narrator, who came across as bland and noncommittal even though she expressed an ardent love for one of the other characters, a woman, and it was as if the author expected the reader to be outraged. Well, I wasn’t.

[Josephine (Jo) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A most intriguing book. Beautifully written as I have come to expect by Ms Vine (aka Ruth Rendell).
I love her use of the English language, her grammar is perfect and she uses some lovely unusual words that you do not hear very often any more. I was fascinated by Bell; she was abrupt to the point of rudeness and a consummate liar, the reason for which we find out later in the book. Elizabeth is in my opinion a little gullible, she believes Bell and gets the blame for her wrong-doings. Cosette is a sad lady, she is very rich and very sweet natured but also dreadfully afraid of being left alone and lonely and she tries to buy friends. She fills her huge house with waifs and strays but most of them are just there for a hand out and not truly fond of Cosette. I was so impressed by the portrait of Bell that the author painted with words! I had built up a picture of what I thought Bell looked like and then when she was compared to the painting of Lucrezia by Bronzino I looked it up and I was so surprised that she was just as I had imagined her. I thought that I knew how the story would evolve and what would happen at the end; Elizabeth tells us right at the beginning about certain events but don't be put off as it is not a giveaway and there are other dramas and traumas that are totally unexpected.
I was pleased to find a book by this author that I had not read before. I think I have read most of Ruth Rendell's books, they are always a joy to read.

[Barb H · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am back to the same dilemma, choosing the appropriate rating.It seems to me that works of fine, literary merit should stand apart from those of a more untried worth. There is no debate in my estimation, that Barbara Vine is a skilled, even brilliant author; but this novel was dark, often plodding and very depressing. I liked it least of those I have read by Vine. So here I am with an internal dispute. Do I rate this book in the same class as someone who has slim talent and grinds out new popular books constantly? These abilities cannot compare with Vine's (Ruth Rendell)gifted prose, unusual imagination and superb, vivid character development. She even imparts clever devices with allusions to other novelists and artists, such as Henry James' Wings of the Dove, a constant reminder in this suspenseful psychological tale.

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This did not read at all like a thriller, or what is usually considered a "thriller".Character, and clever storytelling techniques were as much to be savoured as the plot.
And some people complain about the number of characters in a Russian novel!!!!
Here they are all tumbling out in the early chapters, names galore..."and who might you be ??" I was continually asking myself.

Not only Characters but Father Time...one is being constantly shunted backwards and forwards.And YES, we know so-and-so is a murderer...but who's the victim and just how many are there and when and where ??? Oh, so it's X is a victim, we are told...but X has never even featured yet and we're halfway through the novel.
But it's really a delight, because one knows that one is in the secure hands of a deft storyteller and it is safe to relish ALL her goodies to the last mouthful...and then some more.

It reminded me of the excellent writing of the TV series "Foyle's War" - all along the way unfinished business or loose ends that you had to acknowledge, tuck away in your Memory Box,and trust that the storyteller would explain, resolve or whatever at some point...and still, trusting as the last chapters or minutes were upon you, and then without any awkwardness they found their logical resolution, like shaking a box of loose chocolates and they all roll around and settle comfortably into the proper cavity!!!...except for one niggling piece that is stuck in an upper molar and which you will have to contend with for the remainder of your Reading Life. But not through author's negligence...sweets are to savour !!!

Savour this Great Read is my advice.

[Yellowoasis · Rating 5 out of 5]

2011: This was one of the first three Barbara Vine novels. I'd been an avid fan of Ruth Rendell since my early teens (even before she came to our school to chat to us in the sixth form common room - she was a friend of our form teacher). When I found out she'd written three novels under another name, I was incensed. Why hadn't anyone told me? I devoured all three books immediately, and loved them - the daily commute from Colchester to Liverpool Street had never been so enjoyable. The books have been in storage for over five years, and I've missed them. I'm enjoying reading them all over again. The storytelling is superb. She mentions things that you don't know yet and it's not until later that you think, oh right, I get it. Re-reading it, I've picked up things I missed first time round in my haste to find out what happened. Delicious.

2025: I read this book when it was first published and enjoyed it with a passion. I read it again in 2011 and gave it a glowing review. Having read it for a third time – for upcoming book club – I relished it all over again. I’d forgotten a lot of the complexity in the story, and it was lovely rediscovering it.

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

I adore Ruth Rendell. I really do. But...

This book took me forever to read. In this first person narrative, the main character recalls some years of her tragic life. The reader is told very early on that there is a murder and who the murderer is and strongly hints that it involves an open window at great height but leaves unanswered until the end just who and how.

And yet the tragedy is something quite other. The tragedy is the threat of Huntington's chorea.

This would have been a more compelling story if I could understand the motivation of the main character. Her actions, her continued support for another so clearly (even to her) unworthy, just seems so alien to me. Are there really people in the world like that?

And while I've given the story just three stars, I find myself still thinking about it. Still wondering.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vine/Rendell creates a creeping sense of dread as the narrative continues through its chronological complexities. The narrator, Elizabeth, is recalling events that occurred more than a decade and a half ago, and the question of her reliability is never wholly resolved. She certainly withholds information from the reader; some of it she eventually releases, some of it she doesn't. And she gets some key things wrong; again, she has become aware over time of some of her mistakes and misinterpretations but not of all. That ambiguity kept me successfully off-balance throughout the book.

[Jayne Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Distinctly average, I thought. I started well, with the narrator pursuing a mystery woman through the streets of London, but it all got rather tedious when we got started on reminiscing about the house of the book's title, lesbianism and the narrator's medical background. Yawn. I guessed the 'twist' too. I tend to dislike Vine's books about bohemian types, and this fits right into that category.

[Overbooked ✎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel isn’t a true mystery, as it is clear from the beginning that there’s murder afoot and who the perpetrator is, but it’s the story of three very different women. Cosette is a pathetic middle age rich woman, since she can’t buy back her youth, she tries to buy love and friendship instead. Bell is a cold-hearted liar with many secrets. Elizabeth, the protagonist, is so infatuated with Bell to be unbearably gullible.

I didn’t loved the story, which I found melancholic and sad, but I liked the way the author structured it, the insights into the psyche of her many characters and the underlying tension in the narration.
Despite not warming up to any of the characters I kept turning pages to know what happened next. Although I guessed some parts that Mark was Bell’s lover I was fooled into thinking that Bell in a jealousy rage killed Cosette and not Mark, I liked this twist, but not the open ending. In the end, I can’t but acknowledge Ruth Rendell (writing as Barbara Vine) superb style and storytelling skill. 2.5 stars rounded up.

Fav. Quote:

There is no time in our lives when we are so conspicuously without mercy as in adolescence.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even an average Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell book is better than most books. This is one of the best so it is very good indeed. Like most of the books Rendell has written under the Vine pen name, it is more concerned with the psychological aspects of a crime. There is no real whodunit here, the murderer is named at the outset, but the identity of the victim is not revealed until near the end. Rendell is not concerned with making you love her characters; she is more interested in motivations. Lizzie, the narrator, is a writer, and so observes the people around her in the House of Stairs. She does not always see them clearly though, and it is this which creates the suspense.

I do have a quibble with the story, however. I understand why Lizzie is driven to see Bell again and to try to get Bell to explain her behavior; but after the first encounter, why continue the relationship, given Bell's history? If Lizzie rejected Bell after the initial meeting, I guess we wouldn't have the entire story, but I belive a writer as clever as Rendell could have found a way to finish the narrative without this rather odd relationship.

Other than that, a smart read from Rendell.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Splendid psychological/suspense novel! in my Rendell/Vine Top 5. This book sent me to the web to look up Bronzino's portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi and to the bookstore for James' "Wings of the Dove." Vivid portrait of hedonistic mod 1960s London. Bell is one of many female sociopaths in Rendell's works, and I think one of the best. Is this Rendell's only novel featuring a lesbian relationship? ("No Night Too Long" and "Chimney-Sweeper's Boy" both feature gay/bi; I can't think of any other off top of my head.) I found the role of Huntington's Disease in the novel to be very original, plausible and fascinating.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm frustrated with this book. I enjoyed reading it, but the ending irritated me. Why does Elizabeth take Bell into her home (and her Will)? She is such an awful person with no redeeming qualities. Why take care of her after everything? Also, why does Elizabeth allow Cossette to go on thinking she was betrayed by everyone she loved? I think Elizabeth owes it to Cossette to explain that she was not the mastermind of the plot so Cossette knows at least one person in the world loved her just for who she was.

[Lynn Kearney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lest we forget, as the newer Ruth Rendell books disappoint, that she was a great writer, especially writing as Barbara Vine, and this may be the best of the lot. I first read it many years ago, but it does not lose its power after several decades. Bell and Cosette are both fine literary creations.

[Christine PNW · Rating 4 out of 5]

The banality of evil. Shocking.

[Martine Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The copy I read is part of a Ruth Rendell triple-decker, fronted by A Dark Adapted Eye and A Fatal Inversion. Though not quite of the masterly heights of those two novels, The House of Stairs is an incisive study of the late 1960s and its hedonism, moral shallowness and cult of youth. Cosette is a middle-aged innocent: plump, gentle, vain and good, whose fatal flaw is a desire to experience the pleasures of the young. When she is suddenly left rich and widowed, she buys a shabby Georgian house in Notting Hill and throws open the doors to all comers. Cosette’s plan is to surround herself with artistic, bohemian youth, to take a lover and be loved, blindly following the swinging platitudes of the day. One of the crowd attracted by free-flowing food, wine and rent-free rooms, is Bell, a striking beauty with the gravity of a Renaissance portrait and the sensibility of an aimless sociopath.
The pleasures of the novel are largely in Rendell’s acute observations of the much lauded sixties; revealing their crassness and freeloading moral emptiness. Clearly something awful will happen and it slowly and horribly does. However one problem for me was the clear signal that the plot was going to echo Henry James’ The Wings of the Dove, which had a spoiler effect for me. I also found Bell one of Rendell’s less successful creations, a leech entirely hollow of anything but self interest and also, draped in crumpled grey creations, quite hard to picture. The house itself is in many ways the star, the model for which was a large Georgian terrace I was fortunate enough to have pointed out to me on a recent walk in Notting Hill. Most powerfully of all, I found myself reappraising the end of the sixties and its self-delusions. As ever, I’d recommend the book to anyone with an interest in British social history as described by one of our very best writers.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who is the sad, reflective narrator and what mysterious illness does she suffer from? What is the strange hold that the tall, dark woman named Bell has over her, and whatever happened at the carefully described House of Stairs in London that sent Bell to prison? The answers are gradually revealed as the intricate knots of this mystery are untied.

The narrator of the story is a middle-aged novelist named Elizabeth Vetch who, ever since she learned of her grim heritage at age fourteen, has lived under the threat of inheriting the fatal disease known as Huntington's chorea, which she refers to as "the terror and the bore." Years before, during the late '60s and early '70s, she and Bell and several other vibrant people lived in the House of Stairs, owned by Elizabeth's recently widowed, newly Bohemian aunt Cosette. The story begins with Elizabeth's chance sighting of Bell; someone whom Elizabeth hasn't seen in fourteen years.

Remembering their past friendship, Elizabeth feels compelled to understand her own reawakened emotions, as well as the events that initiated her and Bell's parting and caused both Cosette and Elizabeth untold pain. Despite "all the terrible things" that passed between them, Elizabeth makes overtures to rekindle their friendship, with terrifying results...

I thoroughly enjoyed this book; although, the story being told entirely in flashbacks was slightly confusing to me. I was so eager to know what happened, that being pulled into a flashback scene was at times a little annoying. I still would give The House of Stairs by Barbara Vine - who is actually Ruth Rendell - an A+!

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite - and most frequently re-read - Vines. My last re-read was Summer 2006, and I'm feeling it 'call' to me. Rendell has called this her "Henry James novel."

7/04/11: I didn't re-read it when I made the above comment, probably two years ago, but I am re-reading it now.

7/07/11: This novel has a very leisurely pace, which works perfectly in its favor. One of Vine/Rendell's hallmarks as a writer is her extraordinary ability to to go back and forth in time within the space of a page or even a couple of paragraphs. The narrator, Elizabeth Vetch, who lives under the shadow of Huntington's Chorea (approaching forty, she's not quite out of the woods yet) looks back from the 1980s upon the swinging London of the late 1960s, in particular her friendship with her cousin-by-marriage, the generous and loving Cosette Kingsley, who opens her London house (known as 'the house of stairs' because a stairway of 106 stairs leads to its uppermost - and ultimately most dangerous - level) to a group of disparate hangers-on. And there is Bell, the enigmatic, mysterious young woman with a tragic past who fascinates Elizabeth, and who brings her brother, Mark, to the House of Stairs, thus setting in motion a series of events that ultimately will end in unexpected violent tragedy that will shatter these relationships.

7/08/11: This is always in my "Top Five Vines," and won't lose that ranking anytime soon. The hallmark of a great suspense novel is that it keeps you turning pages even on a re-read - this one does so in first-rate fashion.

[Ana Lopes Miura · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing is perfectly adequate, but how can this novel be a tale of psychological suspense for anyone who has read Henry James’ “The Wings of the Dove”, which is frequently referenced directly throughout the book?

I don’t mind that this is not a whodunit, or that, if you’re remotely familiar with James’ novel, there is absolutely no plot point that diverges from that work(ok, there’s one). What irritates me is that even the character’s personalities and motivations mirror James’ ones, making Rendell’s work feel less like an homage and more like an extremely derivative, unimaginative dud.

[Tena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whenever I don't know what to read but do not want to risk a bad read, I read a Vine novel. Her writing is superb, her plots intriguing and her finger was always firmly on the pulse of the times she was writing about. While her characters are never likable, they are always compelling and rich. The House of Stairs delivers on all of the Vine fronts.

[Dawn Marsanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Ruth Rendell and her Barbara Vine but this book was just so slow.
There are also a huge number of characters.
Very literary and descriptive, but page after page of sense text where the story failed to move on made me skim some of the middle chapters.
Very dark, depressing and dull.
Sorry, I didn't like it.

[Kafuna Masinde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too clever really...ice cold suspense,good plot....then there is the undertones of philosophical instruction...and who did not begin by loving bell and then quite decidedly disliking her in the end....i died on stilleto fatalis....ha!!!!

[Kaethe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite. I much prefer A Dark-Adapted Eye

Library copy

[Tracey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I usually love Barbara Vine, however this story was boring and meandering. By the end of the book (had to force myself to finish it!)I could have cared less about the characters and story!

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

What would you do if your aunt was making marriage she shouldn't be making? What would you do if you saw a murderer out of jail? Read this and find out!

[Harry Tomos · Rating 5 out of 5]

love Ruth Rendell and love Barbara Vine a darkened Ruth Rendell, story was good, couple of twists and it ends as life would rather than someone writing a story....if that makes sense....