{"product_id":"the-upstairs-house-a-novel-isbn-9780062975829","title":"The Upstairs House: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the Chicago Review of Books Fiction Award\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA \u003cem\u003eGood Morning America\u003c\/em\u003e Book of the Month Selection • A \u003cem\u003ePopsugar \u003c\/em\u003eMust-Read Book of the Month • A \u003cem\u003eBuzzfeed \u003c\/em\u003eMost Anticipated Book of the Year • A \u003cem\u003eThe Millions \u003c\/em\u003eMost Anticipated Book of the Year\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e“Provocative…. [An] assured, beautifully written book.” —Sarah Lyall, \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn this provocative meditation on new motherhood—Shirley Jackson meets \u003cem\u003eThe Awakening\u003c\/em\u003e—a postpartum woman’s psychological unraveling becomes intertwined with the ghostly appearance of children’s book writer Margaret Wise Brown. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThere’s a madwoman upstairs, and only Megan Weiler can see her.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRavaged 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEnter a new upstairs neighbor: the ghost of quixotic children’s book writer Margaret Wise Brown—author of the beloved classic \u003cem\u003eGoodnight Moon\u003c\/em\u003e—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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUsing 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” (\u003cem\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/em\u003e). \u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“A smashing success [and] stupefying page-turner.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRumpus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The novel’s lineage [traces] back to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s \u003cem\u003eFrankenstein\u003c\/em\u003e, not least because of the way reading Fine’s novel [is] an embodied experience.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePloughshares\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Fine examines a new mother’s unraveling in her eerie sophomore outing…Fine keeps the high concept under control as the book hurtles toward a disturbing conclusion. This white-knuckle depiction of the essential scariness of new motherhood will captivate readers.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"By turns funny, eerie, suspenseful, and wild, Julia Fine's \u003cem\u003eThe Upstairs House \u003c\/em\u003etook 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 unique and ultra-talented voice with something urgent to say. I'll be reading everything she writes from now on.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAmy Gentry, author of Good as Gone and Bad Habits\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAbby Manzella, Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“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.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRachel Mans McKenny, Electric Lit\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Deliciously unnerving… \u003cem\u003eThe Upstairs House\u003c\/em\u003e is a masterpiece of juggling multiple genres and themes…. Fine’s unapologetic presentation of female relationships and postpartum struggles makes \u003cem\u003eThe Upstairs House\u003c\/em\u003e a novel you’ll think about for weeks after turning the last page.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSara Cutaia, Chicago Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Chills. I found this book about a haunting to be haunting — unsettling, nerve-racking, worrisome, strange. I fretted over the characters when I wasn’t reading it and ached for them when I was. Loved it so very much.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJulia Phillips, author of Disappearing Earth\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Macabre and funny, spooky and soulful, Julia Fine's \u003cem\u003eThe Upstairs House\u003c\/em\u003e 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.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKathleen Rooney, author of Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey and Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eThe Upstairs House\u003c\/em\u003e 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.\"  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eErika Swyler, author of The Book of Speculation and Light from Other Stars\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eThe Upstairs House\u003c\/em\u003e is a terrifying jolt of a book. Here are all the openings-up of motherhood, and all the strains of its competing demands, taken brilliantly to their richest, most frightening extremes. I was riveted by every twist and turn of this story about the hauntedness of having a child.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eClare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson and We Show What We Have Learned \u0026amp; Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A little bit Shirley Jackson, Samantha Hunt, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, but also completely itself,\u003cem\u003e The Upstairs House \u003c\/em\u003emanages to turn the banal terrors of early motherhood, of womanhood, and daughterhood, and the ghosts that inevitably accompany them all, into a riveting page turner about trying to love in spite of the traumas that loving has wrought in the past.\"  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLynn Steger Strong, author of Want\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eThe Upstairs House\u003c\/em\u003e is an inventive, surreal, feminist examination of the postpartum experience. Is new mom Megan Weiler haunted by the ghosts of Margaret Wise Brown and her lover Michael Strange, or is she experiencing a deep postpartum depression? \u003cem\u003eThe Upstairs House\u003c\/em\u003e reveals the isolating, world-changing, full-bodied experience that is new motherhood while unfurling a fascinating tale about one of our most beloved children’s book authors. I love Julia Fine’s brain and the radical stories she creates. Full of rage and resentment and deep love, \u003cem\u003eThe Upstairs House\u003c\/em\u003e is a must-read.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eCrystal Hana Kim, author of If You Leave Me\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In this inventive, visceral novel, Fine creates a dark fairy tale about a woman whose career plans are sidelined by pregnancy and the birth of her daughter.…  Fine depicts the devastation of postpartum depression, all too often shrouded in shame and blame, and offers hope.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44889407258853,"sku":"NP9780062975829","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780062975829.jpg?v=1730231187","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-upstairs-house-a-novel-isbn-9780062975829","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}