Genre Fiction
![Julia Fine - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B078RY3J45.jpg)
The Upstairs House: A Novel
Winner of the Chicago Review of Books Fiction Award
A Good Morning America Book of the Month Selection • A Popsugar Must-Read Book of the Month • A Buzzfeed Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A The Millions Most Anticipated Book of the Year
"Provocative…. [An] assured, beautifully written book." -Sarah Lyall, New York Times
In this provocative meditation on new motherhood-Shirley Jackson meets The Awakening-a postpartum woman's psychological unraveling becomes intertwined with the ghostly appearance of children's book writer Margaret Wise Brown.
There's a madwoman upstairs, and only Megan Weiler can see her.
Ravaged and sore from giving birth to her first child, Megan is mostly raising her newborn alone while her husband travels for work. Physically exhausted and mentally drained, she's also wracked with guilt over her unfinished dissertation-a thesis on mid-century children's literature.
Enter a new upstairs neighbor: the ghost of quixotic children's book writer Margaret Wise Brown-author of the beloved classic Goodnight Moon-whose existence no one else will acknowledge. It seems Margaret has unfinished business with her former lover, the once-famous socialite and actress Michael Strange, and is determined to draw Megan into the fray. As Michael joins the haunting, Megan finds herself caught in the wake of a supernatural power struggle-and until she can find a way to quiet these spirits, she and her newborn daughter are in terrible danger.
Using Megan's postpartum haunting as a powerful metaphor for a woman's fraught relationship with her body and mind, Julia Fine once again delivers an imaginative and "barely restrained, careful musing on female desire, loneliness, and hereditary inheritances" (Washington Post).
A Good Morning America Book of the Month Selection • A Popsugar Must-Read Book of the Month • A Buzzfeed Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A The Millions Most Anticipated Book of the Year
"Provocative…. [An] assured, beautifully written book." -Sarah Lyall, New York Times
In this provocative meditation on new motherhood-Shirley Jackson meets The Awakening-a postpartum woman's psychological unraveling becomes intertwined with the ghostly appearance of children's book writer Margaret Wise Brown.
There's a madwoman upstairs, and only Megan Weiler can see her.
Ravaged and sore from giving birth to her first child, Megan is mostly raising her newborn alone while her husband travels for work. Physically exhausted and mentally drained, she's also wracked with guilt over her unfinished dissertation-a thesis on mid-century children's literature.
Enter a new upstairs neighbor: the ghost of quixotic children's book writer Margaret Wise Brown-author of the beloved classic Goodnight Moon-whose existence no one else will acknowledge. It seems Margaret has unfinished business with her former lover, the once-famous socialite and actress Michael Strange, and is determined to draw Megan into the fray. As Michael joins the haunting, Megan finds herself caught in the wake of a supernatural power struggle-and until she can find a way to quiet these spirits, she and her newborn daughter are in terrible danger.
Using Megan's postpartum haunting as a powerful metaphor for a woman's fraught relationship with her body and mind, Julia Fine once again delivers an imaginative and "barely restrained, careful musing on female desire, loneliness, and hereditary inheritances" (Washington Post).
Editorial Reviews
"In this gripping and stylistically impressive novel, Fine illustrates how the rational and the mythic, the tangible and intangible, intertwine to fully tell a woman's story." - Abby Manzella, Boston Globe
"Macabre and funny, spooky and soulful, Julia Fine's The Upstairs House lets the reader inhabit a massively entertaining and slyly enlightening story nestled inside another story like a ghost within its host. Love and resentment, madness and clarity compete and comingle in this unforgettable tale of literature and legacy." - Kathleen Rooney, author of Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey and Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
"Deliciously unnerving… The Upstairs House is a masterpiece of juggling multiple genres and themes…. Fine's unapologetic presentation of female relationships and postpartum struggles makes The Upstairs House a novel you'll think about for weeks after turning the last page." - Sara Cutaia, Chicago Review of Books
"The Upstairs House is a haunting that truly haunts. Julia Fine's writing is sharp, dark, and delightfully twisty. A totally absorbing, fiercely feminist read that keenly dissects not just a psychological break, but the identities of and impossibilities for the women at its heart. This is a book that lingers." - Erika Swyler, author of The Book of Speculation and Light from Other Stars
"Like only truly good fiction can, Fine weaves the hilarity and horror, and in a truly original story she explores the ways that we lose ourselves in parenthood, academia, and unhealthy romantic relationships." - Rachel Mans McKenny, Electric Lit
"By turns funny, eerie, suspenseful, and wild, Julia Fine's The Upstairs House took me completely out of myself. Probing the sore spots of new motherhood and the power of language, Fine's Russian-doll narrative lives in the narrow space between childhood dreams and grown-up nightmares. Like Rebecca Makkai and Lydia Millet, Julia Fine is, first and foremost, a...
"Macabre and funny, spooky and soulful, Julia Fine's The Upstairs House lets the reader inhabit a massively entertaining and slyly enlightening story nestled inside another story like a ghost within its host. Love and resentment, madness and clarity compete and comingle in this unforgettable tale of literature and legacy." - Kathleen Rooney, author of Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey and Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
"Deliciously unnerving… The Upstairs House is a masterpiece of juggling multiple genres and themes…. Fine's unapologetic presentation of female relationships and postpartum struggles makes The Upstairs House a novel you'll think about for weeks after turning the last page." - Sara Cutaia, Chicago Review of Books
"The Upstairs House is a haunting that truly haunts. Julia Fine's writing is sharp, dark, and delightfully twisty. A totally absorbing, fiercely feminist read that keenly dissects not just a psychological break, but the identities of and impossibilities for the women at its heart. This is a book that lingers." - Erika Swyler, author of The Book of Speculation and Light from Other Stars
"Like only truly good fiction can, Fine weaves the hilarity and horror, and in a truly original story she explores the ways that we lose ourselves in parenthood, academia, and unhealthy romantic relationships." - Rachel Mans McKenny, Electric Lit
"By turns funny, eerie, suspenseful, and wild, Julia Fine's The Upstairs House took me completely out of myself. Probing the sore spots of new motherhood and the power of language, Fine's Russian-doll narrative lives in the narrow space between childhood dreams and grown-up nightmares. Like Rebecca Makkai and Lydia Millet, Julia Fine is, first and foremost, a...
Readers Top Reviews
ReaderWomanTon
This book is a masterpiece. I loved everything about it!
Andrew KnottScott
The Upstairs House by Julia Fine is an intensely gripping book that drew me in right from the start. The juxtaposition of the realism of the early motherhood experience with mystical and surreal elements make for a very unique and enthralling read. It is beautifully written from start to finish.
Kindle leaddogAn
As someone with three Margaret Wise Brown biographies and a portrait of her in my living room, I was ecstatic to learn about this book. Of COURSE I would love to read a novel about a woman being haunted by Margaret Wise Brown's ghost. SPOILER ALERT: I adored the entire book until the last thirty pages or so, when it's revealed that the narrator was psychotic and just imagined the entire thing. Not only is this such a tired trope, but it perpetuates incredibly harmful stigma that those with mental illness are unreliable sources and cannot be trusted. I understand that the author wants to encourage more conversations about women who suffer psychosis because of PPD, but this was not the way to approach the subject. Those of us with mental illness who regularly suffer psychotic episodes are tired of people just saying "Oh, you're crazy!" Please don't endorse a book that supports this stigma.
Penelope JacksLin
This book kept my attention and my sympathy, but ultimately I found it pretentious and unsatisfying. It poses motherhood against art, passion, and love in a false dichotomy. It suggests that mental illness and the real phenomenon of post natal depression are a function of the impossibility of making meaningful contributions to the outside world while loving our spouses or children. The etymological sections were trite, tiresome and pointlessly academic, and seemed solely to have the purpose of impressing the reader with the author's erudition. I do not recommend this book.
