Elisabeth Thomas: Author of "Catherine House" Discusses Writing About a Girl Who Falls in Love with a House
Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas is a wonderfully claustrophobic, gothic, and atmospheric novel that “walks the line between speculative fiction and ghost story.” We follow Ines as she enters this pretentious three-year college where students must commit to never leaving campus for the entirety of their stay in exchange for a competitive and unmatchable education. Ines, who has nowhere else to do as she runs from a traumatic past, feels both lonely and at home with the Catherine walls. But above all, she is curious. What is happening within the labs at Catherine that are so secret and exclusive? Why are all the students subject to mass hypnosis for psychosexual healing. Filled with gothic chills and thrilling, yet lethargic energy, Elisabeth Thomas’ debut is a look into how depression, loneliness, and the need for belonging can make or break us.
I spoke with Elisabeth where she discusses her gothic influences, creating atmosphere, writing a house as a character and her debut novel, Catherine House.
What initially sparked the idea for Catherine House?
The idea first hit me while I was visiting the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. I was so mesmerized by the museum—a house, really—this gorgeous perfect pearl of a home. I jotted down a note that said, “a girl who falls in love with a house—a Bluebeard fairy tale.” And that note became the story.
The overall tone of Ines’ narration has a sort of lethargic and sleepy feel. Which is what I would imagine it would feel like to be shut in a closed society for three whole years of one's life. Can you speak about creating this atmosphere?
The Catherine House atmosphere was very important to me. I wanted this school—and the story—to feel strange, sideways, almost palpably dreadful. And I knew early on that in order to create that atmosphere, the students couldn’t leave campus during their time at Catherine. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise. I wanted the seasons to spin in a dizzy blur through fall, winter, spring, summer with a sick sense of stasis. The school couldn’t just feel strange; it had to feel tight, claustrophobic.
Belonging and the need to feel accepted is such a heavy theme throughout Catherine House. And yet, this need to belong feels oppressive at times as Ines grapples with individualism and the way she perceives herself, especially because of her past. Why were you interested in exploring this duality of being an individual while also being accepted into a community?
Yes, absolutely. In the odd sort of research I did for this novel, I read a lot about how cults work. I think a lot of us like to imagine that we would never be taken in by a cult, but really these organizations play on our very human, very universal needs to be accepted and feel at home. We all have times of transition in our lives, moments when we feel lost, unsure of who we are or where we’re going. In those moments, if a powerful organization swoops in and says, “Don’t worry, this is who you are, and this is the path forward”—that can be a very comforting, very seductive, very dangerous thing.
I absolutely love novels that use a place or in this case a house as a kind of character. Was this choice deliberate? Can you speak about building the world of Catherine?
That choice was certainly deliberate. As I drafted, I kept going back to that original germ of an idea: this is the story of a girl who falls in love with a house. Catherine House really is a romance—with all the thrills and dangers of any other romance—but one in which the love interest is not a person, but this whole raw, vivid, very specific time and place in Ines’s life. To depict Catherine as a character, I focused on describing the structure down to its smallest details: the rich tastes of the meals, the heady scents of the rose gardens, the dizzying flashes of sunlight through the library’s clerestory windows. I think when we fall in love, we suddenly find that the smallest details of someone’s looks and personality have become imbued with an inexplicable magic weight. I hoped to capture that feeling through describing Catherine’s aspects as seen through Ines’s eyes.
What attracts you to gothic literature? Did you have any inspirations that helped you create Catherine House?
I’ve loved gothic classics like Jane Eyre and Rebecca, along with fairy tales like Beauty and the Beast and Bluebeard, ever since I was a little girl. All were certainly inspirations for Catherine House. I love those stories’ eerie, obscure, frightful atmospheres—but I also think they often have an element of camp and humor that’s really fun. I wanted to explore those stories’ tropes—the haunted houses and damsels in distress, the strange labs with dangerous secrets—while creating something that felt contemporary, realistic, and bizarrely playful in its own twisted way.
How long did it take you to write this novel?
About four years, on and off.
What does your writing process look like? Do you keep a specific routine when writing a novel?
Yes, I tend to keep a strict routine, though what that routine looks like depends on where I am in the process. If I’m working on a sloppy early draft, I might aim to get down 1000 words a day. If I’m reviewing a completed draft, the goal might be to polish two scenes a day. Either way, I absolutely rely on structure; I have a nine-to-five job, so if I weren’t very deliberate about carving out space for my writing, it just wouldn’t happen.
What have you been reading or listening to during this time of self-isolation? Any recommendations?
I tend to read two books at a time, one contemporary and one non-contemporary. Currently, I'm about to start PLAIN BAD HEROINES by Emily M. Danforth and the AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton. For music, I've always loved cheesy 80s synthpop, and it's really hitting the spot right now. ABC, Soft Cell, the Human League, Oingo Boingo. They keep my spirits up during these slurry days.
Elisabeth Thomas grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where she still lives and now writes. She graduated from Yale University and currently works as an archivist for a modern art museum. This is her first novel.
