The House We Grew Up In

The House We Grew Up In is a psychological family drama written by Lisa Jewell. Published in 2014, it tells the story of a family that looks perfect from the outside but whose secrets run deep. Jewell is a British author who has written 19 novels, many of which are international bestsellers. Her first novel, Ralph’s Party, was the best-selling debut British novel of 1999, and her 2008 novel, 31 Dream Street, won the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance. The House We Grew Up In is one of Jewell’s many suspense novels and incorporates themes like Escape Versus Coming Together, Family Ties and the Cyclical Nature of Trauma, and Clarity Gained from Different Viewpoints.

This study guide refers to the Penguin 2012 paperback edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss possibly triggering topics including suicide, sexual assault, incest, and mental health conditions (hoarding, OCD, and mental health crises).

Plot Summary

The House We Grew Up In focuses on the Bird family. Lorelei is a carefree mother who wants to create a perfect childhood for Meg, Beth, Rory, and Rhys (the two brothers are twins). Lorelei is married to college lecturer Colin, and the family lives in a beautiful house in the Cotswolds. On the outside, everything looks idyllic. Every Easter, Lorelei hosts an egg hunt in the garden for her children and the neighbors. She encourages them to keep the colorful foils and look for rainbows. From an early age, she has been obsessed with collecting things.

On Easter Sunday, 1991, Lorelei meets her neighbor Vicky for the first time. Shortly after, Meg discovers that Rhys has died by suicide. There is no note, but clues are dropped as to why this happened. Growing up, Rhys was not as popular as his brother and found it difficult to make friends. His sexual behavior was also disturbing, and Lorelei started to display mental health issues. The night before the incident, Beth saw Lorelei coming out of his room with a look of horror on her face.

Rhys’s death fractures the family. They drift apart, and Lorelei’s hoarding worsens. Rory meets a woman named Kayleigh and moves with her to a commune in Spain, where he befriends Owen. Meg lives in an immaculate house in London with her husband, Bill, and has four children: Molly, Alfie, Stanley, and Charlie. Beth remains at home until her thirties, feeling responsible for her mother. She has similar hoarding instincts and has panic attacks because she is having an affair with Bill. When the affair ends, she moves to Australia with her boyfriend, Jason. Their relationship quickly fizzles out, and she has a mental health crisis.

When Lorelei and Vicky fall in love, Colin divides the house in two, living on one side while the two women live on the other side with Vicky’s daughters, Maddy and Sophie. Rory abandons Kayleigh and their daughter, Tia, and starts working for Owen in a Thai strip club. Colin visits him there before moving in with Kayleigh and bringing Tia up as his own child, which alienates him from the rest of the family.

Later, Owen betrays Rory; he is then arrested and spends five years in prison for drug possession. He accepts this as punishment for not looking after his brother, Kayleigh, and Tia. Meanwhile, Lorelei’s hoarding begins to affect Vicky and her daughters, and they move out. Vicky still visits Lorelei until she eventually dies of cancer. The family continues to implode. Kayleigh reveals Beth and Bill’s affair at Vicky’s funeral, and Beth flees back to Australia, while Rory travels restlessly around Asia.

Living alone, Lorelei has completely filled the house apart from Rhys’s room, and she lives and sleeps in a chair in the bedroom. Online, she befriends a man named Jim, to whom she reveals that Rhys had incestuous feelings for her. When he tried to kiss her, she ran away to drink with Vicky and did not address the situation. He died by suicide the next day. Lorelei drives to Jim’s house in the north of England, but she is physically weak from lack of food and undiagnosed tuberculosis, and she dies on the journey.

The family gathers to clear the house, including a pregnant Beth. When they discover the password to Lorelai’s laptop, they discover Rhys’s incestuous feelings for his mother. After the house is cleared, Beth lives there with the “newest Bird,” her daughter Elsa, and the family finally moves forward into a more optimistic future.