The Room Upstairs

by Monica Dickens

Ever since they built the road through her family's farm, separating the big yellow house from the pastures of Sybil's youth, nothing has been the same. At least the house remains, full of her memories, which wander through the rooms like ghosts. When Jess moves to America to marry Laurie in a whirlwind romance, she soon learns that his Grandmother and her creaky old house come with him. Stubborn, ailing and no longer able to look after herself, Sybil must rely on this British girl who has come to steal her beloved grandson from her. The echoing spectres of dead loved ones follow Sybil as she travels farther along the road to senility, but will those same echoes drive Jess towards madness? In Sybil, Monica Dickens has produced a character rich in determination, dark humour, and resilience. First published in 1966, The Room Upstairs is a portrait of a woman's fight with time, who refuses to be forgotten, and who refuses to forget.

Genres: Fiction

400 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

From the publisher: MONICA DICKENS, born in 1915, was brought up in London and was the great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens. Her mother's German origins and her Catholicism gave her the detached eye of an outsider; at St Paul's Girls' School she was under occupied and rebellious. After drama school she was a debutante before working as a cook. One Pair of Hands (1939), her first book, described life in the kitchens of Kensington. It was the first of a group of semi autobiographies of which Mariana (1940), technically a novel, was one. 'My aim is to entertain rather than instruct,' she wrote. 'I want readers to recognise life in my books.' In 1951 Monica Dickens married a US naval officer, Roy Stratton, moved to America and adopted two daughters. An extremely popular writer, she involved herself in, and wrote about, good causes such as the Samaritans. After her husband died she lived in a cottage in rural Berkshire, dying there in 1992.
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Reviews

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books) · Rating 2 out of 5]

What pisses me off the most is there was a bit of great writing scattered throughout. And parts of the story were pretty darn interesting. But what an awful novel. Monica of the oh-so-famous last name phoned this one in, no doubt in hopes of a film deal. Ineptly dark.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I encourage you to *not* read what this book is about. All you need to know is: old lady in old house near the Cape, grandson and his English wife visit her often in her old age.

And then some unexpected, fascinating, creepy things happen.

I would have given this more than a three but there were times where I got bored. But overall I'm glad I stuck it out to see what happened.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel started out wonderfully with the character in the very sympathetic plight of having her family farm divided by a freeway. But it got weird. First in an enjoyably uncanny way. By the end things stretched credibility too far. Or maybe it seemed the characters got offered up to wit. I have a hard time pointing out what exactly didn't work about the ugh ending.

[Beverley Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've long been a fan of Monica Dickens from my childhood/YAhood. I was excited to read this one for the first time. It started off well and continued to hold my attention throughout the first three quarters. Then? What on earth happened? It just turned into a rambling pile of nonsense. Like most of the other reviewers here I was appalled by the last quarter of the book. Incoherent, confusing, contradictory, pointlessly vague and detailed at turns. I ended up skimming it for the sake of finishing it. Could have been a really good book without the nonsensical ghost bits and annoying narrative.

[Gemma collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book in the street in San Francisco along with a pile of other books, I picked up this one because the cover was just amazing. I felt like reading a sort of trashy creepy book that I thought would probably be quite formulaic in style and I could read before bed. This turned out to be a very strange book. I surprised myself by being actually quite interested until the end. I just found it entertaining, some of the descriptive prose was hilarious in its awkwardness and then some parts surprised me. I actually liked the idea of it and I was thinking it would make quote a good tv show or film perhaps. With a strong lead male, a fantastic and creepy house, suspense, intrigue, glamour, horror. By the end though I was just losing the plot entirely and feeling a bit disgusted with it.
I'd say I'd recommend it as a study for writing and for some strange and trashy reading.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Room Upstairs" is a discomforting story of an 80 year old widow named Sybil living alone in an old New England house and what happens to her after an accident.

[Kit · Rating 1 out of 5]

My first bad book of the year, that's pretty good. But what a horrible book!
It started out alright, Sybil is an eighty year old woman who is struggling to stay in her own home, and her favourite grandson is getting married.
But the tone of the book is confusing and a little disturbing even at first, as it is mostly told from the point of view of a old mind that can't grasp things very well anymore. As a result of this it becomes a horror melodrama that never really has any good reason for anything that happens, and I don't like horror or
melodrama.
I actually skipped a lot after reading the other reviews and just read enough to find out what happens. If anyone else is in a similar position and wants to find out what happens without having to read it, here you go. Sybil becomes convinced that Dorothy is going to murder her, Dorothy gets sick, and has run out of the herbal pills she makes, so Sybil offers to make them to make Dorothy pleased. However she of course mixes the wrong things and Dorothy dies. Jess is pregnant and worried so begins hallucinating images of herself. Jess finds out the Sybil killed Dorothy but no one will believe her. And Sybil drifts in and out of knowing that she killed Dorothy and the book ends with her running into the road, confused and scared, and being hit by a car so yeah, just a yuk book.
I'm not sure if Dorothy was as horrid or if that was just Sybil's confused old mind mostly.
Anyway, I hope this review might save someone else from reading this book.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the descriptions of people made me smile or laugh out loud. The story was okay.

[Stephen Fodor · Rating 1 out of 5]

very slow, dragged on in many places. Nothing happened until the end, even then it wasn't exciting, just blah.
So just don't waste your time reading it like I did.

[Igenlode Wordsmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is undoubtedly a very well written and evocative book; it's also uncomfortable and unsettling, with an ominous tone that is consciously set up from the very first pages: "None of the family want to live in [the house] any longer. Even Laurie. Too much has happened." It is always ambiguous just how much of the supernatural is real and how much is insanity or feared insanity, or whether or not it may be benign or evil. Ultimately it is very much a book about fear, haunted by various levels of paranoia, and about losing one's mind: to senility, to manipulation, to the dark.

And all this makes it hard to appreciate the moments of great beauty and content that are also in the writing, with all the characters so vividly and sympathetically delineated; even doddering Uncle Ted, perceived through his own eyes, gets to be the hero when dealing with the terrors of the telephone and the traffic. In her power to evoke both horror and joy and vivid natural description, Monica Dickens reminds me of Elizabeth Goudge. Only Miss Goudge's work always holds a redemption of some kind after the suffering, and here there isn't really one.

So, a good book, maybe even a brilliant book, but not one I'm sure I'd wish to reread.