J.D. Barker’s Something I Keep Upstairs is a gothic-horror marvel dressed in the skin of a coming-of-age tale, where innocence unravels, trust dissolves, and something unspeakable lurks just out of sight—waiting. Set against the fog-laced backdrop of a lonely New Hampshire island, this story expertly fuses teenage nostalgia with ancient, vengeful forces that refuse to stay buried.
Barker, known for bestsellers like The Fourth Monkey, Dracul, and The Sixth Wicked Child, has long explored the terrain where the psychological meets the supernatural. In this latest novel, he narrows his lens on a group of teenagers spending one fateful summer on a cursed island—unearthing secrets best left in the dirt and awakening something that hungers for more than just fear.
The Premise: No Parents. No Police. No Peace.
The novel follows 17-year-old Billy Hasler, who joins his best friend David Spivey on an island retreat after David inherits a strange Victorian house from his grandmother, Geraldine Rote. Their plan is simple: a summer of freedom before college, filled with parties, beach bonfires, and zero adult supervision.
But the house has rules.
- Do not lock the doors.
- Do not answer the phone.
- Do not leave after dark.
- And most chillingly, please feed Emerson.
From the outset, the rules feel more absurd than ominous. But once broken, they unleash a slow, creeping nightmare that stretches its fingers into the boys’ pasts and futures, as the house begins revealing pieces of its sinister legacy.
Literary Analysis: A Haunted House Story That Breathes
Unlike conventional horror, Barker doesn’t rely on spectacle or gore. His horror is internal—a quiet scream, a memory that won’t sit still, a creaking stair when no one should be walking. The house is a living archive, built to contain more than just walls and windows. As the teenagers reconstruct Geraldine’s life and her strange obsession with cataloging “haunted items,” they unwittingly become the next chapter in a story older than they are.
Thematic Underpinnings
Something I Keep Upstairs is rich with allegorical subtext:
- The House as Inheritance: The home on the island doesn’t just pass down ownership. It passes down guilt, unresolved trauma, and the echo of generational fear.
- The Loss of Innocence: Each of the teens carries emotional baggage, but it’s David—the brilliant and terminally ill one—whose internal darkness feels eerily in sync with the island’s curse.
- Unseen Wounds: Barker draws a line between physical illness and psychological hauntings, showing how pain—when not confronted—mutates into something monstrous.
What makes the horror land so effectively is that it’s grounded in real human emotions: grief, guilt, alienation, and betrayal. These kids don’t just fight ghosts; they fight the versions of themselves they can no longer recognize.
Character Examination: More Than Just Teens in Trouble
Barker handles teenage psychology with astonishing nuance. His cast, while occasionally large, feels intimate. The internal logic of their friendships—complex, shifting, sometimes cruel—is spot-on.
- Billy Hasler is our unreliable narrator. His recounting of that summer is soaked in nostalgia, regret, and unspoken truths. He isn’t a hero. He’s a witness—and maybe even a coward.
- David Spivey, an outcast genius dying of leukemia, is both sympathetic and dangerous. His need to control the house, and later his friends, adds a volatile layer of tension.
- Kira, Billy’s girlfriend, brings emotional steadiness and is the first to sense that their summer escape is slowly becoming a trap.
- Chloe (aka Thursday) is the outsider with insider knowledge. Her connection to the occult gives the haunting credibility, but also introduces ambiguity: Is this truly supernatural, or a grand delusion?
- Geraldine Rote, though dead, presides over the narrative. Her compulsive rituals—burying cursed objects in the basement—set everything in motion.
Even minor characters feel fleshed out enough to add emotional stakes. By the final chapters, you’re not just afraid of who might die—you’re afraid of who might be left.
Structure & Pacing: A Diary of Decay
The novel’s structure reads like a fevered memory—a single breath of reflection stretching over nearly 400 pages. It begins with adolescent mischief and ends in sorrowful recollection. Barker lulls the reader into a sense of ease before punctuating it with sharp spikes of horror.
There’s a delicate balance between the mundane (teens arguing over chores or playing drinking games) and the uncanny (phantom footsteps, doors that won’t close, rooms that appear then vanish). The blending of tones is seamless, and the emotional highs never feel cheap or manipulative.
However, the midsection of the novel does suffer a slight lag. The group’s efforts to build “Project Poltergeist”—a collection of items meant to fake a haunting—occupies several chapters. Though integral to the plot, it risks repetition. That said, it eventually circles back with emotional payoff, as the “faked” hauntings awaken real ones.
Atmosphere & World-Building: When Setting Becomes Sentient
The house on the island is a marvel of literary design. Like the titular Room 237 in The Shining or the Red Room in The Haunting of Hill House, the Rote home becomes a character of its own. Its silence is menacing. Its rules are sacred. Its memories are unwelcome guests.
The island surrounding it is no less effective—often fog-draped, wind-battered, and unreachable. Once night falls, even the beach feels like a cage. Barker understands isolation, not just as a setting, but as an emotional state.
Sensory imagery plays a huge role here:
- The persistent creak of the stairwell.
- The rot beneath the floorboards.
- The shadows that grow thicker even when the light stays on.
The title Something I Keep Upstairs suggests a mental compartment—perhaps denial, memory, or madness. But it’s also literal. Something is kept upstairs. And it’s hungry.
Strengths: What Barker Does Brilliantly
- Psychological complexity: Characters are given depth and trauma without veering into melodrama.
- Slow-building horror: The fear is cumulative, not episodic. It lingers and compounds.
- Dialogue that rings true: Especially among teens. Sarcastic, fast-paced, but layered with subtext.
- Original twist on the haunted house trope: This isn’t a possession story. It’s about construction—the literal making of hauntings.
- Bittersweet nostalgia: The book captures that liminal space between youth and adulthood where choices begin to count.
Weaknesses: Where the Shadows Could Have Been Sharper
- Underdeveloped stakes for minor characters: As the body count rises, some losses lack emotional weight.
- Vague supernatural rules: The mechanics of the house’s “power” remain elusive. Is it malevolent? Responsive? Sentient? Some readers may crave more clarity.
- One too many cryptic clues: While suspenseful, certain riddles—particularly around Emerson—feel like red herrings or remain unresolved.
These aren’t dealbreakers. Rather, they point to Barker’s trust in his readers to sit with ambiguity and wrestle with meaning—something that ultimately deepens the impact.
Comparison & Context: A Horror Legacy Continues
If you’re a fan of horror that privileges dread over gore, this is your book. Something I Keep Upstairs joins a literary lineage that includes:
- Pet Sematary by Stephen King
- The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (in tone)
- The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
- The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich
What sets it apart is its refusal to fully define its monster. Barker gives us enough detail to tremble but never enough to escape. The story lingers like the sound of breathing in an empty room.
Final Thoughts: A Masterclass in Quiet Horror
Something I Keep Upstairs is not designed to terrify you in the moment—it’s designed to follow you. Days later, you’ll still think about Billy’s voice, about what really happened that summer, and about the objects we bury—inside houses and inside ourselves—hoping they never rise again.
It’s a novel about friendship, loss, and the shadows that grow darker the longer we ignore them. Barker has once again proven why he remains one of the most versatile and emotionally resonant voices in contemporary horror.
Emotionally powerful, thematically rich, and consistently unsettling.
Ideal For:
- Readers who prefer eerie, character-driven horror
- Fans of ghost stories that question memory and morality
- Anyone who loves slow-burn mysteries with tragic undertones
- Teen and adult readers alike looking for atmospheric storytelling
Read If You Liked:
- House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
- And the Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich
- Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
- Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky
Something I Keep Upstairs doesn’t shout—it whispers. And in those whispers, it hides something terrible. Something unforgettable.