The September House

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 7

Chapters 8-14

Chapters 15-20

Chapters 21-26

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Victorian House

Content warning: This section of the guide discusses addiction, domestic violence, and torture.

The Victorian house that Margaret and Hal purchase symbolizes their family’s abuse and trauma. As such, it represents The Cycle of Domestic Abuse. The house is haunted by a wide cast of “pranksters” as well as more malevolent spirits and one helpful, ghostly housekeeper. The house was the site of multiple mysterious deaths and was also, as Margaret later finds out, inhabited by a family whose relationships were violent and abusive. The worst of the house’s past events occurred in September, which is why the hauntings increase dramatically each year during September. The nightly moans and screams, the bleeding walls, and the presence of so many ghosts create an eerie atmosphere for Margaret and Hal, but they are also one of the primary ways that this novel uses horror tropes and imagery to discuss psychological distress and trauma.

Much of what Margaret sees is ultimately revealed as part of her complex emotional response to trauma, violence, and domestic abuse. The screams and blood that the house produces represent Margaret’s own many nights of physical mistreatment at Hal’s hands. The ghosts, too, have a key symbolic function: Master Vale, the most malevolent of the spirits who lives in the basement and tortures children, can be read as the embodiment of the worst of Margaret’s fears about Hal: that he will one day move on from targeting her to physically abusing their daughter Katherine. The prankster children speak further to Margaret’s fears about the safety of her daughter. Fredricka, who is kindly and helpful, illustrate Margaret’s deep loneliness and desire for friendship: Hal has isolated her, preventing her from having a normal social life and even moving about freely outside of the home. Fredricka becomes one of Margaret’s sole sources of comfort and is meant to paint a portrait of a woman so isolated that she has to invent the supportive girlfriends she so desperately needs. Additionally, Margaret’s insistence that she and Hal remain in the house speaks to the difficulty that so many survivors of domestic abuse recount in leaving their abusive relationships. Home, although also a site of danger, represents the security of the known and Margaret is unwilling to leave it (or Hal) even though safety might be on the other side of its door.

Whiskey Bottles

Whiskey bottles, both full and empty, appear over and over within this text and become one of its key motifs. They also represent The Cycle of Domestic Abuse and additionally help the author to explore the idea of complex, inherited trauma. Hal’s addiction is at the core of this family’s struggles. Both Margaret and Katherine understand that his behavior is more erratic when he is drinking, and they do their best to give him a wide berth when he has alcohol on his breath. Hal does undergo treatment for his addiction and enjoys several years of sobriety, but ultimately, he returns to clandestine drinking and his violence once again increases. Hal’s struggles with addiction are rooted in his own family’s history of disfunction, and his drinking, although it spurs him to acts of abuse, can be understood, at least in part, as self-medication. Katherine, like so many other survivors of generational trauma, also uses alcohol to self-medicate and also struggles to channel her anger and frustration into appropriate behaviors. Like her father, she is prone to fits of rage. She finds Hal’s hidden stash of whiskey bottles after arriving at her parents’ home and becomes angry at her father, but she also does begin drinking the alcohol. She is part of a complex, multi-generational cycle of addiction and violence that she struggles to break free from. The author’s research delves deeply into the impact of such cycles on families (and children in particular) and this novel is in many ways her attempt to grapple with the impact that addiction (but also abuse) has on family dynamics and family identity.

St. Dymphna’s Catholic Church

St. Dymphna’s Catholic Church is another important symbol. St. Dymphna, in both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, is the patron saint of people with mental health conditions. Believed to have lived during the 7th century, Dymphna was born in Ireland. She was martyred at the hands of her father and became associated with mental and emotional health due to her father’s complex struggles with mental health. She is typically invoked by those experiencing psychological crisis or individuals with mental health conditions. That Margaret’s local Catholic church is named St. Dymphna’s is meant to be a subtle nod to Margaret’s own mental health struggle and is one of the novel’s clues about the complex psychology that is at the heart of its thematic project. By the time the author names St. Dymphna’s church, it is becoming apparent that the narrative is psychological horror and that there is more at work in the story than haunting. The connection between St. Dymphna and her father additionally highlights the novel’s interest in the complex nature of abusive father figures and adds a layer of nuance to the symbol. (Hal, his own father, and George Vale are all deeply troubled fathers in the novel.) The author does not, however, stigmatize mental health conditions. St. Dymphna is a benevolent figure seen as a protector by those of the Catholic and Orthodox faiths. Praying to St. Dymphna is not looked down upon and is viewed as a legitimate recourse for those in need. The use of her name in the novel gestures towards the idea that mental health conditions are as real as physical ailments and those struggling with them should be viewed with empathy and humanity.