5 novels for fans of “Grey Gardens”
Derelict mansions, secrets and strange families abound in these books.
Back when I worked the circulation desk at my college library, people dropped off and checked out the DVD of Grey Gardens so often that it seemed like I was scanning its barcode every few days. I had no idea, then, why it was so popular, and didn’t watch it myself until many years later. Derelict mansions with strange people living in them are right up my alley, though, and many of the books I read have a Grey Gardens vibe. If you’re a fan of the 1975 cult classic, I am confident you’ll enjoy these novels.
The Knife Drawer, by Padrika Tarrant
A mother and her twin girls live in a crumbling, trash-filled Victorian home, where one of the rooms is completely sealed off and mice have taken it over. The mice get their own storyline, which shows them living in a dried-out Christmas tree and forming their own civilization, complete with the rise of a Christ-like figure. Meanwhile, the mother keeps her fraternal twin girls apart, allowing one to live in the house while relegating the other to a dugout in the backyard. The knives in the house are sentient and slither across the floor; bodies have mysteriously gone missing in the house. You’ll have to read the book to find out why one twin is in the yard, why the dining room is sealed off and why the knives have minds of their own.
Little Egypt, by Leslie Glaister
Released by the same British publisher as The Knife Drawer, Little Egypt features 90-year-old twins, Isis and Osiris, living in a decrepit country house where a disused ballroom is filled with “spudgies,” a cross between sparrows and budgerigars (that’s parakeets to us Yanks). The novel alternates between the present day’s decay and the 1920s, when the twins are in the care of a housekeeper, waiting for their parents to return from their search for a lost Egyptian tomb. Eventually, their uncle, who suffers from war trauma, takes the twins to Egypt to reunite with their parents, a journey that can only be described as the most miserable family vacation ever. Their parents never make it back from Egypt, and eventually, Osiris dies and Isis has to decide whether to move on from the old house. As someone who is usually strongly in favor of historic preservation, the fact that I wasn’t sad about the final fate of the house in this novel is a testament to Glaister’s writing.
Unsettled Ground, by Claire Fuller
Another British novel featuring twins*, this time in their 50s, living in a thatched-roof cottage, Unsettled Ground highlights the struggles of rural poverty in England. The novel opens with the death of Julius and Jeanie’s mother, Dot, whose secrets become known to the twins as the novel unfolds. Julius and Jeanie believe that the farmer who owns their cottage and the land it sits on lets them live in it rent-free out of guilt for killing their father when they were preteens. After the farmer’s wife forcibly evicts them, resulting in the twins having to move into a rotting RV in the woods, they discover the truth about their mother and the tragedy that killed their father.
Bitter Orange, by Claire Fuller
Frances moves into the attic of a dilapidated English country mansion to research its architecture and its grounds. Some Goodreads reviewers disliked Fuller’s description of architectural details. To them, I say: phooey. I love architectural details. Anyway, after Frances moves into the attic, a young couple moves into the rooms on the floor below, and she spies on them through a hole in the floor. Cara and Peter are glamorous, and Frances embarks on a decadent friendship with them until things slowly take a darker turn, culminating in a terrible crime. One of my favorite details is a parlor hung with peacock wallpaper, where someone had gone to the trouble of gouging out all the peacocks’ eyes. In the obsessive, repetitive nature of this bizarre act, The Shining meets Better Homes and Gardens.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson
The lone American novel on this list, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is considered by many to be Jackson’s best work. I have to agree. Of all the Jackson novels I’ve read, this one tops the list. Merricat Blackwood is an angry 18-year-old who comes from a wealthy family and lives on a farm with her sister and uncle on the outskirts of town. Merricat’s parents and several other members of the household are dead after eating arsenic-laced sugar. Merricat’s sister was acquitted of the crime, causing the townspeople to turn against the Blackwood family. Meanwhile, a distant cousin arrives and embarks on an indefinite stay in the house, slowly turning Merricat’s sister against her. I won’t give away too much of what comes next, but note that in the end, Merricat and her sister end up living quite similarly to Big Edie and Little Edie in Grey Gardens: isolated in a half-destroyed country mansion. The novel closes on a note that echoes Grimm’s Fairy Tales. My one quibble with the book is that Merricat seems like she should be 12, which would make her six at the time of the arsenic incident, making the book’s reveal all the more fascinating.
*I don’t know whether weird twins in a crumbling house is a trend in British literature or I just happened to select three books that struck a similar chord. I do know that if you order the first two books on this list directly from their publisher, Salt, they’ll include a handwritten postcard. Salt is located in the adorable English seaside town of Cromer and I’ve enjoyed every book I’ve ordered from them, so if you read one of the two books I’ve written about, consider ordering a few more! And no, they’re not paying me to say that. I just like their stuff.