Incidents Around the House

Josh Malerman’s Incidents Around the House, published in 2024, is narrated by a young girl, Bela, who is followed by an entity she calls Other Mommy. Though she initially believes Other Mommy is her friend, the relationship turns sinister, threatening her and her parents. Incidents Around the House is Malerman’s 10th published novel and was nominated for a 2024 Goodreads Choice Award for Horror. Malerman’s horror novels are widely praised, and his debut book Bird Box was adapted into a film starring Sandra Bullock. Incidents Around the House explores themes including The Resurfacing of Hidden Trauma, Coming to Terms with the Fallibility of Adults, and The Dangers of Growing Up Too Soon.

This guide is based on the 2024 Random House Worlds e-book edition.

Content Warning: This guide and the novel contain references to substance use.

Plot Summary

The novel is narrated in first-person present tense by an eight-year-old girl named Bela. Bela says goodnight to her parents, Russ and Ursula, whom she calls Daddo and Mommy. She excitedly greets an undescribed entity named Other Mommy who lives in her closet.

Bela is out of school for the summer and spends the day with Russ, who works from home. Bela is worried about a recurring conversation she has been having with Other Mommy. Other Mommy repeatedly asks Bela “Can I go into your heart?” and wants Bela to trade places with her. Though Other Mommy has been coming to visit for years, the question has become more and more insistent, and Bela dreads having to say no to her.

Throughout the day, Bela tries to spend time with Other Mommy without Daddo noticing. Daddo asks Bela to choose a movie to watch when he’s finished with work. He tells her they can’t wait for Mommy to come home, because they don’t know how late she will be. Bela is sad and thinks about how her mother used to spend time at home with them but is constantly busy. When her mother does return, she is drunk and rushes Bela to bed. Bela tells her she smells like another person, and her mother is angry.

Bela goes to the park with her friend Deb. Deb tells Bela that she would hurt anyone who tried to hurt Bela. Bela latches on to this and begins asking her how she would help if there was a woman in her room who lived in her closet. Deb becomes scared and hides in the playhouse at the top of the jungle gym. Bela hears her crying and comes close to apologize. When she does so, she realizes that the real Deb is below and that Other Mommy has followed her to the park. She screams and falls backward off the gym.

Her parents take her to the doctor, who says that she is fine. She tells him she saw Other Mommy and was frightened. Her parents are surprised to hear the name and said she mentioned it once a long time ago.

As they do often, Bela’s parents throw a party at their house, hiring a local teen to watch Bela so they can get drunk. During the party, Russ introduces Bela to a woman named Lois Anthony, who can sense ghosts. She touches Bela but says she can’t tell if Bela is a Sensitive as well. During the party, a woman named Marsha begins screaming, saying that she saw a monster across the room that was tall, hairy, and dark blue. In the ensuing shock, Bela corrects her and tells Marsha that it wasn’t a monster—it was Other Mommy.

The next morning, Bela reminds them that they promised to take her to the zoo, and they agree to go. She knows that her mother didn’t sleep at home the night before and hopes they will reconcile there. At the zoo, they run into Lois, who tells them she loves to walk there to clear her head. Lois asks them to stop by her group, which meets on Fridays to discuss the supernatural. Russ is interested, but Ursula is dismissive. The parents send Bela ahead so they can argue, and she is frightened when she thinks she sees Other Mommy’s eye in the butterfly house.

Ursula is furious with Lois for scaring Bela. She empties out the closet in her room and opens all the windows, telling Bela to take a nap. Bela does so and later awakens to find Mommy sitting in her dark room, telling her how much she hates being a parent. Her real mother walks in, and it is revealed that Other Mommy is impersonating her. She snatches Bela up and runs out into the yard.

Bela and Ursula wait at their neighbors’ house. The couple, Dan and Amanda, has a new baby and is unsettled. Everyone tries to sleep in the living room while they wait for Russ to talk to the police. Both Dan and Bela hear noises that indicate Other Mommy is there. When Russ gets back, Dan asks the family to leave. Ursula angrily calls her mother, Grandma Ruth, and they go to her house.

Grandma Ruth quickly understands that something strange is going on and urges the family to find someone who can help. The next morning, Ursula leaves to go stay with her affair partner under the guise of clearing her head. Bela tells them she is afraid Other Mommy followed her, so they go to meet Lois at a nearby diner. They stay the night in a hotel and resolve to meet with Lois’s paranormal group the next day.

At Lois’s house, the group attempts to communicate with Other Mommy. One man, Kyle, tells Bela he has a message and that Other Mommy has sent her a present. Just then, Ursula arrives with the news that Frank, her lover, is dead. Bela realizes that Other Mommy killed him. The family leaves Lois and her friends and tries to find somewhere to sleep. Ursula suggests Frank’s now-empty house, but she and Russ argue once they are there. Bela tells them Other Mommy followed them again, so they sleep in a gas station parking lot.

The next morning, they go to the small town of Goblin, known for paranormal happenings, where they try to find someone who can help them. They are unsuccessful but spend the night at the house of Grandma’s friend, Evelyn. Initially, they can relax, but Bela’s parents get too drunk, and she wakes up needing to go to the bathroom. She can’t wake them and enters the bathroom, only to realize that she is sitting in Other Mommy’s lap instead of the toilet. The ensuing chaos wakes everyone, and Other Mommy becomes frighteningly large. Evelyn screams at them to leave and they do so.

Russ and Ursula return home with Bela, and Grandma goes back to her house. They hire a paranormal investigator named Brian as well as two guard dogs and numerous security cameras. None of these measures work. Though Brian does see Other Mommy appear, he leaves shortly thereafter, admitting that he only cared about having a real supernatural experience. Russ and Ursula try to kill Other Mommy with knives but can’t find her.

Lois arrives at the house and says that she has done more research. She tells them that the creature is attracted to innocence, and they will need to revoke Bela’s to help her. She reveals to them (but not to Bela) that Ruth told her that Russ is not Bela’s biological father and thinks that telling Bela this will make her less interesting to the entity. Though Ursula is initially upset, they agree.

They camp at Lake Michigan overnight. While they camp, Bela sees a far-off dog (presumably Other Mommy) that never gets close. Ursula tells Bela the story of her real father, who was her first husband and that she and Russ met through having an affair. Bela is devastated and thinks that all adults are liars. She resolves to lie back to them and tells them that Other Mommy is gone. The next day, Lois nervously asks if anyone noticed something in the water, and Ursula slaps her. They return home and rejoin Grandma Ruth.

Grandma and Bela stay up and work on a puzzle. During the night, Bela drifts off from time to time. She awakens and realizes that the person with her is Other Mommy, pretending to be Grandma. She hides in a closet, and Other Mommy uses Grandma’s voice to lure her parents upstairs. In the closet, Bela finds her grandmother’s body.

She hears the house go quiet and walks upstairs to her room, seeing her parents lying face down on the carpet. She tells them not to worry and that she will keep watch so they can sleep. She sits on her bed and cries. Other Mommy appears and asks, “Can I go into your heart?” Bela answers yes and finds herself in a huge, empty space, all alone.