The Villa

The past in The Villa looms large in both the present and the future, represented by the houses that witness past events and serve as stages for the present and future. Mari first writes the line, “Houses remember” (1) in Lilith Rising, presented in the unnamed preface to The Villa, and this phrase is repeated seven times in the novel. The early use of this phrase and its repetition emphasizes the novel’s interest in spaces and their preservation of memories and presences; it also echoes the patterning of repeated and altered meaning as time and the novel progress.

One signal feature of the Gothic novel, including the Southern Gothic novel, is the dark and foreboding space, usually the medieval castle or cathedral or decaying plantation. Hawkins subverts these generic expectations, transplanting her narrative to the sun-drenched environs of Italy, with a tidy, elegant, and proportionate villa with a manicured lawn. In doing so, she creates a world in which the darkness is hidden, whether in the past, inside the characters, or in the layered narratives themselves. The focus on physical spaces and their histories appears The Villa in regard to every home: Mari’s childhood home, the flat she shares with Pierce, Villa

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