Novels with a house as a central character?

[licity-lieu]

Does anyone know of novels that use this? I'm sure it's been done a million times but I just can't seem to rustle up a list. For example we have a picture book in Australia called My place. It traces the story of a house and it's inhabitants through 200 or so years of history. Is there a novel out there that does the same?

[blacbird]

The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson) comes to mind. I'm not sure the word "character" exactly fits, but the house so thoroughly dominates the setting and the action that it kind of becomes one. Any number of cozy mysteries also make heavy use of a house in a similar way. Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries are thoroughly dependent on his semi-agoraphobic personality, and his New York brownstone with its gourmet kitchen and conservatory of orchids. In E. M. Forster's Howards End, the great house of the title comes to symbolize the destructive decay of the British class system. Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables uses a residence in a similar way.
caw

[rugcat]

The theme of a house as, if not exactly a character, at least the central unifying theme, is pretty common in supernatural/horror fiction. The Haunting Of Hill House, Shirley Jackson, comes to mind. And of course, The Shining.

[valeenc]

Okay. It's official. I have the world's smartest ornery old lady mama.

She remembered a "strange little book" she read innumerable decades ago by (of all people!) A. A. Milne called The Red House Mystery (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=39545). Project Gutenberg has it for download or to read online.

[underthecity]

Other than Haunting of Hill House, I think 666 (http://www.amazon.com/666-Jay-Anson/dp/0671831267/) might qualify. In this case, this novel, by Jay Anson of Amityville Horror fame, is about a house that manages to get itself moved around the country; in each new location its address is always 666 Whatever Street. Each time someone rents or buys the house, a double murder takes place. After the murder, the house gets moved again. The story centers around the people who have currently bought the house, and someone else who is researching its history. Try to guess what happens to the tenants at the end of the story.

It's not bad at all. I read it about ten or fifteen years ago. Looks like you can get it from amazon for a penny, so that's not too bad.

allen

[Pomegranate]

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski is a good example. It was a challenging and slightly creepy read.

[CaroGirl]

In House of Sand and Fog the house is an important centre of conflict. I wouldn't call it a character, per se, but it's what the story is centred around.

[blacbird]

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski is a good example. It was a challenging and slightly creepy read.

You could read it? I like being challenged by the ideas and themes presented in a book, but I'm not real fond of being challenged by the very work of reading it.

caw

[Pomegranate]

I won't say I grokked all the nuances in House of Leaves, but yeah, I read the whole thing. I read it over a long rainy weekend when the husband was out of town and the creaking of my old house could help freak me out. It was not a linear book by any means, but once I dug into it, it wasn't as difficult as I expected. There are only 2 main narrative threads to follow.

[KTC]

I was going to say the best example is The Haunting of Hill House, but I guess others are thinking the same thing.

[batgirl]

The Green Knowe series by Lucy Boston, for young readers, has the house Green Knowe as a character - it's based on her own home, Hemingford Grey (http://www.greenknowe.co.uk/). She wrote several books, both for children and adults, where Hemingford Grey is a major element, under different names.
Anne Rivers Siddons wrote The House Next Door, a horror novel with the house as a sort of character.
Someone In the House, by Barbara Michaels, has a house that's an active character, not just a setting.
Bless This House, by Norah Lofts, follows Merravoy House through several generations and centuries.

Family sagas and horror are probably the most fruitful genres for architectural characterisation. And Gothic Romance, once summed up as 'girl gets house' being the happy ending.
-Barbara

[JeanneTGC]

In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, the Unseen University is not only a character, but it's shown to have a mind, if you will. In his earlier Discworld books it's more of a supporting character than in his later ones, but it IS a character. (At least, to me. :D )

[Medievalist]

Wuthering Heights

[JeanneTGC]

Oh, and in the YA novel series from quite a few decades back, The Four-Story Mistake, the house is very central to everything.

[Magdalen]

"The Fall of the House of Usher"

My memory's a little hazy, but wasn't there a double entendre on the word "house" meaning a structure but alos a family lineage?

[SpookyWriter]

I'd add Bleak House, but the house wasn't really central to the story. Or was it?

[JamieFord]

This may be more literal than you were thinking, but There Will Come Soft Rains (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_%28short_story%29) by Ray Bradbury comes to mind.

It's the story of a "smart house" after a nuclear holocaust. The house keeps up its duties even though the inhabitants are long gone. Only their silhouettes remain, burned into the outer walls.

[licity-lieu]

I'd add Bleak House, but the house wasn't really central to the story. Or was it?

I think it counts. Nice avatar :D so spooooooky

This may be more literal than you were thinking, but There Will Come Soft Rains (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_(short_story)) by Ray Bradbury comes to mind.

It's the story of a "smart house" after a nuclear holocaust. The house keeps up its duties even though the inhabitants are long gone. Only their silhouettes remain, burned into the outer walls.

This one looks facinating. Wacky Bradbury!

[beezle]

To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf.

[Lyra Jean]

JamieFord your link is not working. It took me to wikipedia post about hypertext transfer protocol. Bradbury is my favorite author could you check the link I'd really like to read the story.

Magdalen you took my suggestion. :)

[Penguin Queen]

In a manner of speaking, Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. It really is all about the house, Manderley (indeed, it's in the first sentence); and about Menabilly, du Maurier's real-life house at the time which which she had, in her own words, fallen in love. I think she wrote the story for as much as about Menabilly.

Another one of her books is also set there but I forget the title -- it features somebody being walled up....

[Manderley]

It traces the story of a house and it's inhabitants through 200 or so years of history. Is there a novel out there that does the same?


Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman does the same. It's not a novel though, but a collection of stories all set around the house.

[The_Grand_Duchess]

This may be more literal than you were thinking, but There Will Come Soft Rains (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_%28short_story%29) by Ray Bradbury comes to mind.

It's the story of a "smart house" after a nuclear holocaust. The house keeps up its duties even though the inhabitants are long gone. Only their silhouettes remain, burned into the outer walls.

I read this story in jr. high for an english class. It has haunted me ever since.

[apmom]

Not sure that this is what you're looking for, but Anita Shreve has a couple of books that use the same house in different time periods. Beach Glass is one, can't remember the name of the other one. :)

[Dancre]

Rats!! That's what I get for coming to the party late. YOu all hit the same ones I was going to post. The only other one I can think of is the TV series Rose Red by Stephen King. But that's not a book.

kim

[James D. Macdonald]

Darned near any Gothic romance: Girl gets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets house.

[SpookyWriter]

Or modern divorce. And yet, sometimes getting the house isn't always what it's cracked up to be...especially if the house comes with its own set of miseries.

[JamieFord]

I fixed the link to the write-up of There Will Come Soft Rains. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_%28short_story%29) Sorry 'bout that.

[squalid]

Life, A User's Manual by Georges Perec is solely about an apartment building in Paris. and it's chapters are broken down as individual rooms in individual apartments. The characters are supporting characters and peripheral to the apartment building.

[licity-lieu]

I fixed the link to the write-up of There Will Come Soft Rains. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_%28short_story%29) Sorry 'bout that.

Thank you. Facinating! I'm off to the library to get this one.

Life, A User's Manual by Georges Perec is solely about an apartment building in Paris. and it's chapters are broken down as individual rooms in individual apartments. The characters are supporting characters and peripheral to the apartment building.

Jackpot! This is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind. Is this a movie too? It sounds familiar. hmmmm

P.S Spooky, your suggestion reminds me of the movie--'The War of the Roses'. Love it!

[Lyra Jean]

Oh I have "The Martian Chronicles" been awhile since I read it though. I'll have to reread it again soon.

[WordGypsy]

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski is a good example. It was a challenging and slightly creepy read. Slightly??! That thing gave me nightmares. Did you know that it was written by Poe (the singer not the writer)'s brother? If you listen to her cd Haunted you'll catch all the references with songs like Dear Johnny, 5 and a half minute hallways, and (duh) House of Leaves. WEIRD book! And the first I thought of when I clicked on this thread. :)

[Soccer Mom]

I have a children's book, The Little House. The whole story is told from the house's point of view of a fifty year span.

[Tirjasdyn]

Wow no one's mentioned Charles de Lint's Moonheart and Spiritwalk....the house is not only a character but the story.

[shakeysix]

someone mentioned "to the lighthouse". i think the middle part of that work is totally devoted to the house and what is happening to it during the war years. i remember having to read it for an end of term paper and long, tedious pages about wallpaper peeling off the walls keeping me inside. very frustrating because all my friends were outside sunbathing and boating. it was so depressing that i damn near drowned myself in a river--the mississippi not the ouse.
"the haunting of hill house" has been named too--it is a classic because it is so studiously "unscary". the movies went in for "overkill" and ruined the subtle undercurrent of the novel. was nell nuckin' futz or was the house haunted?
jackson wrote at least one more "house centered" book: "we have always lived in the castle". at the end of that one it is almost like the house is still an entity although destroyed.

here is my question--it seems to me that she wrote another house book. this one is not creepy, at least not at first glance. i think it might be called life among the savages." it might not be. i read it maybe forty years ago and, regrettably, engaged in a lot of cell destroying activity between then and now. it was one of those sweet, domestic saga things from the fifties--very black and white, sitcommish. there is a twist. the house is haunted--maybe. it seems to warn them of a dangerous situation--some kind of poisonous gas in the kitchen-- and it will not let them in. does anyone else know this one? was it jackson? have i mixed it up with "please don't eat the daisies" ?--s6

[NeuroFizz]

Spoiler alert!

The central vacuum unit did it.