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Architecture in Fiction

Some authors infuse imaginary structures with so much life that the buildings themselves become central characters in a story.

	Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey	Once a remote country estate, Observatory Mansions has become a walled island in the center of a bustling British city. Converted to an apartment house, the aging ancestral manse is home to a group of eccentrics, including Francis Orme, a collector of the mundane who spends his days pretending to be a waxwork sculpture.
	The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne	The Pyncheons have lived on cursed ground for seven generations. Their seven gabled, ancestral family home is built on land schemed from a man who, in generations past, was unjustly charged with witchcraft and subsequently hung.
	The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson	"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there walked alone." -from The Haunting of Hill House

House of Bones	by Dale Bailey	A rich eccentric and four strangers brave a stay at Dreamland; an empty, inner city apartment house. Slated for demolition, Dreamland is infamous for its unspeakable past.
Grand Hotel	by Vicki Baum	A large hotel in post World War I Germany is the backdrop for this famous novel in which we follow the stories of individual guests as they move in and out of their rooms and into their common meeting place, the lobby.
Frozen Music	by Marika Cobbold	Esther and Linus are star-crossed lovers. To Linus, great architecture is "frozen music.” An extremely talented architect, Linus has been commissioned to design a grand opera house which he is certain will be his masterpiece. Esther is a journalist, bent on defending an elderly English couple's right to remain in their home, even after the property beneath it has been sold to accommodate Linus’s soon-to-be-built opera house.
Rebecca	by Daphne Du Maurier	The second Mrs. de Winter struggles to become the new mistress of her husband Maxim's enormous estate. She is puzzled and overwhelmed by the mysterious death of Maxim’s first wife, Rebecca. The head housekeeper, obsessively devoted to his late mistress, sabotages and belittles Mrs. de Winter’s efforts to take Rebecca’s place.
The Name of the Rose	by Umberto Eco	Murder ensues when rival Franciscan factions gather at an ancient Italian monastery to solve a schism. An English Franciscan, called in to solve the crime, uncovers clues in the monastery’s labyrinthine library.
The Pillars of the Earth	by Ken Follett	An itinerant stonemason and a monk wrestle unethical, medieval powers-that-be in their struggle to build a magnificent, gothic cathedral.
The Sea House	by Esther Freud	Architect Klaus Lehmann loves his wife, Elsa, with a passion that continues throughout their married life despite long periods of separation. Almost half a century after Lehmann's death in the village of Steerborough, a young woman, Lily, arrives to research his life and work. Pouring over Klaus's letters to Elsa, Lily assembles the story of their lives together and apart. And alone in her rented cottage by the sea, she begins to sense an absence in her own life that may not be filled by simply going home.
Family Reunion	by Joyce Harrington	Jenny Holland fled River House nine years ago after a terrible argument with her mother. Now, at the behest of her cousin, she’s returned to the rambling, Victorian mansion for a family reunion. A series of sinister events suggests that an unintended visitor has joined the family. Who is hiding in the padlocked turret room at the top of the house?
The Hunchback of Notre Dame	by Victor Hugo	Quasimodo, the deformed bell-ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral, fights to save the life of La Esmerelda, a beautiful Gypsy girl about to be unjustly executed. He brings her into the cathedral where she is safe from her pursuers, but only as long as she stays inside.
The Hotel New Hampshire	by John Irving	"The first of my father’s illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels." So reflects John Berry, middle son of a dreamer whose wish to operate the perfect hotel takes his family from New England to Europe and back again.
Empire Rising	by Thomas Kelly	It’s 1930 and construction has begun on The Empire State Building. As the Art Deco icon rises skyward, a beautiful artist, a riveter and a politician form a potent love triangle. Kelly weaves fictional characters with historic figures to bring his novel of Jazz Age Manhattan to life.
Salem's Lot	by Stephen King	Returning to the town of his boyhood, an author discovers an insidious horror spreading among the townsfolk and asks, "Do evil houses attract evil men?" The Marston House certainly seems to. It sits on its hill, facing the town of Salem’s Lot, huge and obscene. After a local cemetery is desecrated, several children go missing and the locals become increasingly nocturnal. Are the new occupants of the derelict mansion on the hill to blame?
The Shining	by Stephen King	Snowbound in an historic, isolated mountain hotel, a couple and their young son encounter personal and spectral haunts. The child’s visions bode a chilling future while revealing the hotel’s murder-filled past. Colorado’s own Stanley Hotel in Estes Park was the inspiration behind King’s ominous Overlook Hotel.
Rosemary's Baby	by Ira Levin	They called it Black Bramford. A Victorian high-rise apartment that had played host to an unusual number of tragedies. Where mother-to-be, Rosemary Woodhouse, meets a gaggle of aging helpmates with satanic designs on her unborn child. Inspired by New York City’s real life Dakota (even though the cover of the original hardback edition featured the more richly ornamented Alwyn Court), the Bramford is a beast with it’s own heartbeat setting an unforgettable tempo for this classic horror novel.
The House of Doors	by Brian Lumley	A house without windows or doors. At least it seems so from outside. Within are doors upon doors, opening into madness. All who enter the House of Doors must choose wisely or risk madness.
Murder in Perspective: An Architectural Mystery	by Keith Miles	Frank Lloyd Wright is Merlin Richards's hero, and the handwritten note in the famous architect's own hand - "If you make it to America, come and see me" - is all it takes to persuade the young, Welsh architect to strike out on his own. It is an invitation, Richards decides, and a chance to learn from the master. Nowhere in Wright's note does it say anything about murder.
Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer	by Steven Millhauser	A self-made man rises from errand boy to bellhop to hotelier, realizing his ultimate ambition with The Grand Cosmo, a fin-de-siecle high-rise hotel with rooftop gardens and subterranean theme-parks. This novel won a Pulitzer Prize.
Gone With the Wind	by Margaret Mitchell	Tara, the beautiful southern plantation that is her family home, is an anchor and source of strength for Scarlett O'Hara as she lives through the turbulent years of the American Civil War.
The Dwelling	by Susie Moloney	Realtor, Glenn Darnley, has a recurrent listing on her hands. The house at 362 Belisle seems perfect. Yet, despite the refinished hardwood floors and vintage fixtures, no one ever stays there long. Like a bad penny, 362 Belisle keeps coming back and Glenn can't seem to get the property out of her mind. This fresh, subtly unnerving novel is as much about human relationships as it is about the supernatural and employs many of the traditional trappings of a haunted house tale – successfully, for a change.
The Fountainhead	by Ayn Rand	Form, function, integrity, and individuality face off with compromise and conformity in this classic novel about a brilliant, modernist architect.
The Agony and the Ecstasy	by Irving Stone	Michelangelo’s blood, sweat and tears manifest themselves as a masterpiece on the huge ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica. Stone expertly captures the richness and beauty of Michelangelo’s Renaissance legacy in this fictional biography.
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