Sometimes you finish reading a book and you think, “that story couldn’t have taken place anywhere else.” Another way of putting it is that the setting itself is as much a character as the humans inhabiting that space. Here are four outstanding examples.
I’d love to live in the many-years-old house described in “Unsheltered” by Barbara Kingsolver–except that it’s falling apart. The book chronicles two families shaped by one house. Although published in 2018, before all the financial problems brought on by the pandemic, her characters suffer a similar fate. The main character, Willa Knox, repeatedly asks herself, “How could two hardworking people do everything right in life and end up destitute?” And of course the answer is — just like in 2020 — some things are just not under our control. The house itself is the common factor in Willa’s story and one that takes place over 100 years earlier, when a young teacher and scientist called Thatcher Greenwood and his new bride move into it. Greenwood embraces all the new scientific discoveries and theories of his age, and his plan to teach Darwin’s theory to his students causes him to come under fire from a hidebound school administration. He finds only one kindred spirit in town, a woman who is herself an amateur scientist and naturalist. The narrative alternates between these 19th century and 21st century problems. There are common factors between the two stories, the chief of which is how the foundations of the past can fail to prepare us for the future. This is one of Kingsolver’s best works.
“Blackbird House” by Alice Hoffman is a tiny book that covers 200 years in the life of one Cape Cod house and the people who lived there. Among these inhabitants are: a colonial wife and mother who refuses to believe that her fisherman husband and sons were lost at sea; a lonely girl whose only friends are her six milk cows; a young man who trades his own fate for the life of an orphaned baby; a girl with a deformed face who is willing to do anything for romance; a mathematician/soldier who falls in love with an escapee from the death camps; and a woman who enlists her neighbors’ help concealing a murder. There are links connecting each generation, and also just a hint of the supernatural (or is it?) Alice Hoffman’s stories are known for what they don’t tell as much as for what they tell.
From my favorite Irish author, Tana French, comes “The Witch Elm.” Toby is an upper-middle-class young man living a seemingly charmed life in Dublin, working in public relations for an art gallery, until a terrible mugging leaves him broken in body and spirit. He goes to recuperate at Ivy House, the family’s ancestral home, and becomes reacquainted with his Uncle Hugo, who is slowly dying of a brain tumor. Ivy House and its overgrown garden have a terrible ten-year-old secret that will soon come to light. A murder, the concealment of it, and the resulting cover-up have an awful impact on Toby, his uncle, and his two cousins. This is one of those psychological mysteries where from page to page you change your mind about what really happened. It’ll keep you guessing until the last chapter.
A marvelous writer of historical fiction, Kate Morton, gives us an intricate story narrated by several characters that are 150 years apart. “The Clockmaker’s Daughter” begins in 1862, when a group of artists led by Edward Radcliffe decide to spend a summer together at the majestic Birchwood Manor. But their summer of painting and photography takes a back seat to tragedy when one of them is shot and another is presumed to have run away with a priceless piece of jewelry. In the present time, a young archivist named Elodie Winslow finds a drawing of Birchwood Manor and a photograph of a beautiful victorian woman in a satchel that she eventually traces back to Radcliffe. She makes it her mission to find out who the woman is and what happened to the various artists who were part of that summer adventure. But the satchel and the mansion do not give up their secrets easily. This is a moody mystery for sure.
Try any of these house-centered stories when you’re in the mood for atmospheric fiction. Happy reading!
Kaye West recently retired from the Henry County Library System. She enjoys reading, taking daily walks, and spending time with friends. She lives in McDonough with her husband.
