When Clare was a kid in Sumner’s Mills, New York, she and her friends came across the story of the Octagon House. Lori was the one who knew the story, since the house was on land that abutted her family’s land. There was a house in the woods, in the shape of an octagon, where a man killed his wife and two kids. He shot them in the basement, and no one has lived in the house since.
Clare wasn’t sure if she believed the story. But she was 14, not really a child anymore but not an adult either, mere months away from starting high school, and still easily moved by the silly ideas of her friends.
They were four friends, Clare and Abby and Lori and Monica. Monica was the most sophisticated, ready to take on the adult world and unafraid of what others thought of her. Lori was also strong and self-assured, so she and Monica naturally took the lead. Abby was the youngest, having skipped a grade of elementary school, and Clare was that mix of mature and vulnerable that comes from losing your mother early on in life.
They set off through the woods to the house, no one wanting to be the one to chicken out, so they all head in when they get there. The lower floor is two big rooms, a kitchen and a drawing room, with the bedrooms upstairs. The house was built of wood, all except the door to the basement. It was a big metal door that looked and felt out of place. While Lori and Monica ran off upstairs to look through the bedrooms, Clare tried to open that strange basement door, but she couldn’t get it to budge. And then, as if on its own, the door slid open.
That door opening changed everything. Abby went downstairs, and Clare closed the door behind her, and when Clare was able to get that door back open again, Abby was not the same.
Clare is no longer a kid. Now she’s an adult, and she’s lost her teaching job. Her marriage has just ended. And the nightmares of that creepy Octagon House are back. And after many years without hearing from Abby, she started getting emails. Out of the blue, Abby starting contacting Clare again, and before Clare could figure out how to respond, she gets an email from Abby’s mother. Abby tried to end her life, taking an overdose of pills. She had been found in the basement of the Octagon House.
After years of living in Chicago, Clare packs up her car and drives back to Sumner’s Mills, because Abby told her that she would have to go back to the beginning in order to finish it. And after blowing up her life in Chicago, Clare doesn’t have any chance except to go back to that house and finish it.
But is Clare strong enough to face whatever it is that’s in that basement, or will the house try to take her too?
Beneath the Stairs is an extraordinary ghost story, about the things that haunt us and the ways we punish ourselves for the bad choices we made back before we even understood that we were making choices. Author Jennifer Fawcett takes her mastery of playwriting and converts it to this debut novel with deft language, taut plotting, and a deep understanding of human nature. There are layers to this story, some reaching into the past of the house, and some that focus on the consequences that individuals are facing in the present day, and those layers come together for an extraordinary novel.
Beneath the Stairs is exactly the twisty, creepy thriller that I wanted it to be. It’s smart, filled with secrets and lies and ghosts and twists that all come together to make a beautiful, composed story. For me, there was just enough of that supernatural goose-pimple feeling without that taking over, and the relationships added the perfect balance of reality to bring me back to earth. If you like a good ghost story, then you’re not going to want to let this one pass you by!
Egalleys for Beneath the Stairs were provided by Atria Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.
