The House as Character
Author Jennifer Sklias-Gahan discusses her process of writing the house as character in her novel, The House in the Middle of the Street.
Welcome to The House in the Middle of the Street, my dark, cautionary tale about inherited trauma, the dangers of unchecked hospitality, and the importance of being selective about who you allow into your life.
You meet my house as the story opens, its shiny white gate and grey path lead you to its front door. This house has been passed down through generations, beginning with Minerva Atreus. It becomes the focal point for two malevolent, bird-like creatures—Happy and Virgil—who feed on the shame, fear, and broken promises of those who live there.
The creatures are drawn to the house on New Year's Eve, feeding on the "sorrows, betrayals, and deceptions" collected in the special sealed jars left by its original owner Minerva. Minerva’s descendants, including Rebecca and eventually her daughter, Ellie, struggle with the legacy this house holds for whomever take ownership of it.
Rebecca, despite warnings, welcomes the creatures in, believing they are simply hungry children. Her inability to set boundaries and her desperate desire to be kind lead to the destruction of her family and the loss of her husband.
Years later, Ellie returns to the house as an adult. Unlike her mother, she is prepared. She uses Minerva’s instructions to face the creatures, refusing to harbor the shame and regrets they feed upon. By being "clear" and refusing to let them feed off her, she removes their power, possibly breaking the curse that has permeated this family’s lineage for centuries.
The House in the Middle of the Street is not simply a landscape for the story; it is the tale’s central character: a living instrument of inheritance, and appetite. It’s personality is conveyed at the very beginning with the walk down the path leading to its front door. The rhythm of its walls speak through the winter winds moving through the wooden panels with music rising from an untouched piano on certain days and nights of the year. This house keeps a kind of moral weather as the story unfolds. The house is a structure with moods, rules, and a long memory that it shares with those in its reach. It has the power to put its owners and their lineage under a decadent spell that might not allow you to remember how to leave.
Places breathe. Places watch. In this tale, the house is built like a body, it breathes and watches its inhabitants. It is the ultimate host that entertains and encourages the horrors we hide from ourselves and others. The house sits patiently to see what choices its inhabitants will make. It gives clues in its falling books and its unopened letters, its creaking window sills and moaning corridors. It is a presence that keeps track of time, specifically awakening on the very last day and night of the year. It is as though its duty is to keep a ledger in the grains of its wood.
My house is defined by thresholds; the front door, the entryway with Minerva’s looming family portrait giving warning to the family if they would only stop and look. The house is inherited by Rebecca with only one request, to read the letter of instructions for the keeper of the house. A set of behavioral conditions are requested in exchange for receiving this beautiful home. Rebecca looks over this agreement allowing the history of this house to unfold once again onto Rebecca and her family, allowing the curse to bleed into their lives. The house, once an ideal and remarkable gift becomes a predator: It doesn’t need to chase anyone. It only needs you to walk in and disregard the clearly stated “instructions for the keeper of the house.” Your choice, your consequence.
Rebecca believes she can choose kindness without consequence, but the house turns hospitality into a trap. The “inviting” becomes the hunger of this family cruise and the decadent colonial bones of the house become their labyrinth.
My tale allows the character of the house to store shame and regret. The sealed jars in my narrative are the family’s guilt archived: not processed, not released, but preserved in the house and within the family rituals.
So the house becomes a kind of demented alchemist, transforming human emotion into something edible for the creatures. My house is a character that understands what humans try to forget. And on the last day and night of the year, it speaks to the family inside and the neighbors on the street forewarning that on this specific night, the creatures of more will come and they will ask to be invited in. And, will you?
Check out Jennifer Sklias-Gahan's The House in the Middle of the Street here:
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