By LINDY RYAN
No trope is more ubiquitous in horror literature than the haunted house. But just as every haunting is unique, so is every haunted house story. In THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT DOOR, author Katrina Monroe delivers an emotional tale of the sometimes-fragile bonds of sisterhood and deeply rooted generational trauma.
The Finch sisters once spent their summers exploring the abandoned properties littering their dying town – until they found an impossible home with an endless hall of doors… and three keys waiting for them. Fearless, each sister stepped inside their chosen rooms to experience horrors they never dared speak of again. Years later, the youngest sister, Claire, is discovered dead in that old house. Haunted by their sister’s suicide and the memories of a past they’ve struggled to forget, the remaining siblings find themselves at bitter odds. As Meg and Esther navigate the tensions of their brittle relationship, they draw unsettling parallels between Claire’s death, their own haunted memories, and a long-ago loss no one in their family can face. With the house once again calling them home, Meg and Esther must find the connection between their sister’s death and the shadow that has chased them across the years – before the darkness claims them, too.
RUE MORGUE recently had the opportunity to sit down with Katrina and chat about THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT DOOR, the final installment in her “Triangle of Trauma,” now available from Poisoned Pen Press wherever books are sold.
THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT DOOR is a supernatural thriller about three sisters who step into an abandoned house, and the darkness that follows them out. What inspired you to write this book?
I think the Haunting of Hill House inspiration is pretty obvious, but when I started writing this book, I didn’t initially have Shirley Jackson in mind. All I knew was that I wanted to write a haunted house book and that I wanted some sort of sibling dynamic in it. I am a massive fan of Mike Flanagan’s interpretation of Jackson’s story, and while the scares are fantastic, it’s the interpersonal relationships that he really nails for me. I wanted to do something like that. I’m very close to my sisters now, but there was a time when we weren’t. I missed them, and it’s that spirit that finally brought me to Meg, Esther and Claire.
Keys feature prominently throughout the book. Can you talk more about the symbolism here, and how you incorporated that into the plot?
Katrina Monroe, author of “THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT DOOR”
I grew up on portal fantasy. The Chronicles of Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan… Being the eldest of six kids, I constantly daydreamed about finding some door – away from everyone and everything – to some magical place where I didn’t have to be a secondary parent. Being a mom of teens now, the urge is even stronger.
[The] point is I’m always thinking of keys.
So, when Meg, Esther and Claire first find these keys, they’re thinking the way I did when I was a kid – escape from their parents, from their dying town, from a traumatic secret no one can talk about. After that first visit to the house, though, the keys become a vehicle for truth – for trauma. There’s no outrunning it. You have to face it.
For all its dread, there is a story of sisterhood at the heart of this novel. What from your own experiences inspired these women and their individual stories?
This book is truly my lovesong to sisters. I have two, and they are my best friends. I would say I wrote this book for them, but that’s not exactly right. I wrote it to celebrate the unique bond of sisterhood, the way vicious fights can take a sudden turn into adoration. A friend will lie to make you feel better, but a sister will tear you apart to get to the glowing center, and then show it to you because you can’t always see it yourself. (My sister, Allison, is especially good at this.)
There have been some incredible suburban gothics to hit the shelves lately, and THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT DOOR brings its own unique twists and worst fears into the mix. Ignoring things like alphabetical order, if you could pick any two books to anchor this one on bookshelves, what would they be?
This might seem like an odd first choice, but I don’t think THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT DOOR would be too out of place next to How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix. Hendrix’s book does a fantastic job of taking a microscope to a complicated sibling dynamic when put under the pressure of grief and impossible happenings.
My second pick is The September House by Carissa Orlando. I love horror that anthropomorphizes, especially things and places that are meant to be comforting – like home. In Orlando’s novel, saying the house is haunted is like saying the ocean is water. [That’s}true but doesn’t come close to addressing the eerie undercurrent. Like THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT DOOR, the fact of a presence in the house, or the evil nature of the house itself, doesn’t matter as much as what it means for the characters and the memories they’ve tried to hide away in boxes.
What message or lesson do you want readers to take away from your book?
Anyone who knows me knows I love a good allegory. I know what I wanted to take away from writing this book, but I’m hesitant to assign a message or lesson to it for others. I’ve taken to calling this book the final piece in my “Triangle of Trauma,” with They Drown Our Daughters and Graveyard of Lost Children as the other two. Put together, they are hard lessons I’ve had to learn, a past I’ve been trying to outrun. My own keys to impossible doors.
I do hope it resonates with readers who have their own darknesses they can’t quite articulate. I want them to know that I see them, and that though it might not look like it right now, everything will be okay.
And finally, can you share anything about what you’re working on now, or what readers can expect next?
I have taken a sharp left turn, for sure. Being a private investigator by trade, I’ve been asked hundreds of times whether I’ll ever write a P.I., mystery. For years, I stubbornly said no.
Then, I got an idea. (Isn’t that always the way?)
It’s definitely on the lighter side. The Triangle of Trauma is complete, for now, and I had a ton of fun writing a new kind of story with characters I’m still thinking about. In an ideal world, it would be the start of a series with a mom at the center, and the wide, curious world spreading out around her. It’s with my agent at the moment, and we’re hoping to find a home for it soon. Cross your fingers for me!
