The September House

Throughout this novel, Margaret insists on remaining in the house, no matter what. Why do you think this is? Do you think the reasons she provided are accurate, or is there a deeper reason she isn’t telling us?

Margaret is not always a reliable narrator, and her descriptions of events or characterizations of her past or her marriage, for example, do not always line up with reality and sometimes change over the course of the novel. At what stage in the story did you realize this? Why do you think the author wrote the book this way? What layers of nuance did an unreliable narrator add?

Margaret is a character intent on “making a heaven of any hell” in which she happens to find herself, putting up with quite a lot from the circumstances around her. However, throughout this book, something changes for her. What do you think drove this change?

How does Margaret’s relationship with Katherine grow over the course of the book? Did you find Katherine to be a sympathetic character?

Which of the twists in the book did you see coming and which took you by surprise?

How does this book compare to other haunted house novels you’ve read or movies you have seen? In what ways did the author pay homage to those pieces of art, and in what ways do you think she subverted them?

What happens next for Margaret? Katherine? The pranksters?