A House With Good Bones

A House with Good Bones (2023) by American author T. Kingfisher (pseudonym for Ursula Vernon) is a fantasy-horror novel in the Southern Gothic tradition. The story follows Sam Montgomery, a woman who returns to her family home to find her mother acting oddly and the malevolent spirit of her grandmother haunting the rose bushes. T. Kingfisher, known for her work in fantasy and horror, employs Southern Gothic and fairy tale tropes, along with wry humor and slow-building tension, to explore themes like family trauma and the conflict between science and magic.

A House with Good Bones received mostly positive reviews from prominent book critics. Though John Mauro states that the plot ties up too quickly and neatly in the end, he also calls it “a charming and highly entertaining read” (Mauro, John. “Review: A House with Good Bones.” Grimdark Magazine, 2023). While Lacy Baugher Milas states that though the plot twist is obvious, the “deft mix of whimsical elements alongside shocking violence and disturbing supernatural imagery helps this tale stand out from the pack” (Milas, Lacy Baugher. “A House with Good Bones: A Sly, Wry Southern Gothic Nightmare.” Paste Magazine, 2023).

This study guide uses the 2023 hardcover edition published by Nightfire.

Content Warning: This guide and source material include mentions of emotional abuse, mental illness, and anti-fat bias.

Plot Summary

Sam Montgomery returns to her family home in North Carolina where her mother, Edith, lives in the house once owned by Sam’s grandmother, Gran Mae. Sam and her brother are worried about Edith, who has lost weight and grown anxious. Sam’s worry grows when she learns that Edith has painted the once brightly colored house back to the beiges and pinks they were when Gran Mae was alive.

When she arrives, Sam sees a vulture watching the house, and Edith explains that a colony of vultures is living in her neighbor Gail’s trees. Sam recalls that Gran Mae hated Gail and called her a witch, but Edith insists that Gran Mae never said such a thing.

The next day, in the attic, Sam finds an old photograph of Elgar Mills, Gran Mae’s father, who had a reputation for eccentricity and died when Gran Mae was a teenager. Sam calls her brother, and they reminisce about the creepy stories of underground children with which Gran Mae used to frighten them. Later, Sam goes out to Gran Mae’s rose garden. She discovers that there are no insects in the yard, which should be impossible. She finds a single ladybug and says that there should be more. That night, ladybugs swarm Sam’s room. In the morning, Sam meets Edith’s handyman, Phil, and tells him about the ladybugs.

That evening, Edith and Sam attend a cookout at a neighbor’s house. Sam meets Gail, who tells stories about her one-winged vulture, Hermes. Sam falls asleep on the sofa and awakens to the feeling of claws combing through her hair, but she convinces herself she is dreaming. The next day, Sam visits Gail, who suggests that Edith’s odd behavior stems from the fact that “some things run in families” (96). Later, Sam looks at a photo of herself as a teenager, in which she is standing among the rose bushes. She notices a small white hand reaching out from the roots.

Sam finds notes that Edith left herself to assure her that she is not imagining things. This convinces Sam that her mother either has hallucinations or early onset dementia. She researches Elgar Mills and discovers he was an infamous sorcerer who claimed to have created a “magickal Childe” (141). Sam digs up a glass jar of human teeth in the rose garden and shows it to Edith. Edith says Gran Mae is haunting her. Sam says she does not believe in ghosts, but is uncertain. That night, she dreams of a figure walking in the garden among the roses as “something white” crawls in the dirt.

When Sam speaks with Gail again, Gail calls herself a witch and Gran Mae a sorcerer. Suddenly worried, Sam runs back to the house as vultures circle overhead. In the house, a puppet version of Gran Mae, made of roses, sits at the dinner table. Gran Mae explains that her father never taught her magic because he was too focused on his “other children,” who eventually killed him.

Phil enters and Gran Mae ties him to the table with rose vines. As Gran Mae berates Edith and Sam, Gail walks in and orders her to leave. Gran Mae agrees to leave but warns that she has been keeping everyone safe from the underground children and they will have to deal with the children by themselves now. The floor falls out beneath them, and everything goes dark.

The house becomes buried in dirt. Sam sees something white moving in the dirt and realizes it is the underground children. One of the children leaps in and bites Gail’s arm. They run up the stairs to climb out a window onto the roof. Gail, Edith, and Phil scramble up the roof, while Sam decides to try to use the roses like Gran Mae did.

She jumps from the roof and runs to the garden, where she shoves her hands into the rose thorns and makes the underground children burn. Hermes the vulture flies down with wings of fire, cutting through the darkness that surrounds the house, until the sky appears through a hole above them. Phil’s grandfather helps them climb out.

Afterward, the official story is that the house fell into a sinkhole. Edith agrees to return to Arizona with Sam. The day before they leave, Sam asks Gail if she thinks the underground children are gone. Gail hopes so, but fears some might have survived. She thinks it will be safer for everyone if Elgar’s descendants live far away.