Home Before Dark

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-20

Chapters 21-28

Chapters 29-32

Chapters 33-40

Chapter 41-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

The Value and Burden of Family

When Ewan and Jessica Holt buy Baneberry Hall, what they have in mind is how idyllic the setting will be for their family. However, they quickly realize that the bonds of family are what the house will test the most. Hibbs describes the sinister nature of the house, and its effects on families, when he tells Ewan:

My advice? Be as happy as you can in that house. Hug your daughter. Kiss your wife. From what I’ve heard, that house hasn’t witnessed a lot of love. It remembers that pain. What you need to do is make it forget (131).

Anyone who views Baneberry Hall as a sentient entity would have to assume that it preys on the pain that families—and the loss of family members—can cause each other.

Not only is Ewan unable to bring a new period of peace and love into the house, but he also contributes to its macabre legacy when he hides Petra’s body to protect Maggie. Even though he profits from the book, it costs him his marriage and distorts Maggie’s identity, for which she never forgives him until she learns the truth. Maggie does her best to put her trauma behind her, but she experiences frequent jolts of emotion that make her feel her losses again:

Grief is tricky like that. It can lie low for hours, long enough for magical thinking to take hold. Then, when you’re good and vulnerable, it will leap out at you like a fun-house skeleton, and all the pain you thought was gone comes roaring back (16).

The events at Baneberry Hall cause Maggie to lose the close relationship she had with her parents. She becomes estranged from Jessica, whom she views as unserious and obstinate. The distance between Maggie and Ewan results from her view of his deception.

However, the Holts aren’t the only family whose bonds are stressed or destroyed by Baneberry Hall. Regardless of how she died, William Holt lost his daughter, Indigo, in the house. It’s where Marta lost Katie and where Elsa lost Petra. Family can be a burden, but its value outweighs that because the loss of family bonds creates an even greater burden and can even lead to tragic consequences.

House of Horrors and Maggie’s Search for an Identity

Maggie resents her father’s book for most of her life, although her reasons change. When she’s a child, the book makes her more of a curiosity to other children. She’s the girl who has seen ghosts, or the girl from the Book. It later complicates her dating life as well. Maggie arrives in a situation where she can’t trust anyone’s motives for wanting to get to know her. Her interactions often prove one-sided and transactional because people who are ostensibly interested in her are often just interested in details about the house. She describes her romantic life as a series of events that “ended at a cemetery with me being asked if I saw any ghosts among the graves [so] I can’t help but doubt people’s intentions” (15).

Because Maggie’s memories of Baneberry Hall are almost completely absent, she has only her father’s memoir with which to recreate the childhood version of herself that she can’t remember. The most celebrated record of her life is an invention, and because she doesn’t trust the story her father tells, she also doubts and dislikes his characterization of her as “[s]hy and awkward” (116) and a “weirdo loner” (116). She has never seen herself exactly like that and doesn’t know how to feel about her father choosing such alienating language to describe her. However, Maggie isn’t adept at describing herself. When she breaks down and cries, she thinks:

I cry for all the versions of myself that have existed through the years. Confused five-year-old. Sullen child of divorce. Furious nine-year-old. Inquisitive me. Defiant me. Dutiful me. So many incarnations, each one seeking answers, leading me to right here, to right now, to a potential truth I have no idea how to handle (198).

Little cohesion exists between the multiple versions of herself that she sees, and therefore, she lacks a foundation of identity to weigh her decisions against. Ironically, Ewan’s deception forced an identity on Maggie that she didn’t like, but it turns out that what he thought was the truth would also have been a lie.

Thankfully, Ewan leaves Maggie a letter at the novel’s conclusion that gives her a firmer foundation for the rest of her life. He writes:

I thought there was nothing you could do that would make me love you less. But I worried that knowing the details of what happened had the potential to change that thinking. And I didn’t want to see you as a monster, which is what everyone would have thought if word got out that you had killed Petra (363).

Although Ewan’s method of protecting Maggie caused her much emotional stress, he never allowed people to see her as a monster, as someone who caused the death of a teenage girl.

The Corrosive Effects of Secrets and Guilt

At the novel’s conclusion, and at the beginning of what might become a new version of the Book, Maggie writes, “Every house has a story to tell and a secret to share” (384). Maggie viewed her work as that of someone revealing the hidden values and stories of the houses she renovated. Her time at Baneberry Hall renovated her self-image and gave her a new trajectory for her future—one that she hopes will have fewer secrets. Home Before Dark is largely a story about the consequences of secrets. As Hibbs says, “Sometimes it’s best not knowing” (130).

However, the novel’s characters are all driven by a need to either find the truth or actively conceal it. Ewan and Jessica know, for decades, what Maggie only suspects: They invented the story about Baneberry Hall being haunted to protect Maggie from the consequences of Petra’s death, even though they were mistaken in their conclusions. Their deception occurs on a grand scale that financially enriches them, creating a constant reminder of how they benefited from hiding Petra’s death. Their secret leads to other complications in Maggie’s life: the Book makes her resent her parents, and Ewan in particular. It costs her friendships, romantic partners, and a clear perspective of who she is or might become.

Indigo and Callum try to keep their relationship a secret from William Garson, which may have resulted in Indigo’s death. Dane conceals his criminal record so that he can live without fear of judgment from potential friends, lovers, and employers. Hannah actively conceals her role in the alleged haunting when Maggie returns, sneaking into the house to frighten Maggie away and steal whatever she can sell online. However, the most consequential secrets all focus on the loss, or potential loss, of daughters. Jessica and Ewan Holt don’t lose Maggie. However, because Marta lost her own daughter, Katie, she acts out her elaborate fantasies of revenge and lost motherhood when Maggie returns to Bartleby. This allows Elsa to finally exact her own revenge on Petra’s killer: She learns the secret of her daughter’s death and pushes Marta down the stairs.

Overall, one of the lessons from Home Before Dark is that a life filled with secrets is more likely to be a life filled with shame, psychic anguish, or both. Harboring secrets robs the characters of the ability to act freely and according to their temperaments and desires. Ewan and Jessica act as if the Book were true, and this comes at a great cost to their family, particularly given that Maggie wasn’t actually to blame for Petra’s death.