From the cult-favorite feminist author of This fever dream of a novel features a protagonist who shares the same name as its author. Elaine first entered;the house as moral support for her friend and fellow schoolteacher, Florence, but now there are no exits in sight. All the inexplicable residents of the space--Florence’s beguiling brother, her inattentive lover, distant mother, wizard father, and even her and Elaine’s school principal--are under the control of the mysterious Madelaine. Elaine knows that Madelaine is out to get her, she just doesn’t know who is colluding with Madelaine as she forces Elaine to commit harmful, evil tasks. As Elaine attempts to regain agency, she begins to remember glimpses from her painful past with her gynecologist husband, causing her to question exactly who and what is binding her in place. <The House of Madelaine <reveals;the frenzied mind of a broken poet trying to put herself together again. As Elaine reckons with countless uncanny challenges all taking place under one roof, she begins to rediscover who she truly is.

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Elaine Kraf

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From the cult-favorite feminist author of The Princess of 72nd Street, a classic novel about a captive woman who must use unorthodox methods to reclaim her fractured mind

The dimensions of this house have already shaped your response. Did you think you could hide forever from the violence inside you?

This fever dream of a novel features a protagonist who shares the same name as its author. Elaine first entered the house as moral support for her friend and fellow schoolteacher, Florence, but now there are no exits in sight. All the inexplicable residents of the space—Florence’s beguiling brother, her inattentive lover, distant mother, wizard father, and even her and Elaine’s school principal—are under the control of the mysterious Madelaine. Elaine knows that Madelaine is out to get her, she just doesn’t know who is colluding with Madelaine as she forces Elaine to commit harmful, evil tasks. As Elaine attempts to regain agency, she begins to remember glimpses from her painful past with her gynecologist husband, causing her to question exactly who and what is binding her in place.

The House of Madelaine reveals the frenzied mind of a broken poet trying to put herself together again. As Elaine reckons with countless uncanny challenges all taking place under one roof, she begins to rediscover who she truly is.

Leseprobe
The Magician Visits Me

Everyone had coupled off, comfortably. Florence and Gerard were seldom seen in public. Except for sudden glimpses of Florence, in doorways, trying to contact her mother, and secret messages left by Gerard (which I could seldom get possession of), I lost contact with them. They stopped coming to our dinners. Joseph explained that under the circumstances it was best that way, thus I needn’t concern myself. I always believed Joseph. So I no longer worried about Florence.

Uncle Alfred, who I would no longer swear was Principal Blatt of P.S. X, and Hannah were constant companions. They were in the same room simultaneously, she reciting poetry, he inventing proverbs. Although there was not much direct communication, it was evident that there was a growing empathy between them. Their mutual joy was heightened by sharing rooms together. Hannah wrote her finest poetry during this period of her life. At our dinners she always offered her best poem of the day. We applauded heartily. Even Madelaine smiled or cried, as the poem demanded.

However, I observed in Madelaine a subtle but mounting anger at this pairing off. It was insulating important candidates against her attacks. We were less available for her conferences. She had to distribute her maps through secret channels, assuming that they arrived.

Her constant companion was Florence’s father, Sir Phalatrope. I knew that to a great extent my fate as well as Florence’s was in the hands of the magician. Therefore the influence he exerted over Madelaine was very important. But as far as I could discern, he liked her exactly as she was.

At bizarre, incredible hours, I heard them giggling, sharing jokes behind walled partitions. Or else they sat together in the endless green hall, playing chess or doing crossword puzzles. Occasionally I caught them shaking a paperweight and staring into it as white fluttered down the curves of the crystalline. Sometimes long white hairs adhered to the sleeves of her black satin dress. Or gold dust fell down between the crack of her enormous bosom.

Joseph left our room quite often, either through the floor panel to attend to preparations in the kitchen below, or through a doorway that led to the corridor. At first I thought that a vestibule separated me from that part of the house. But I discovered that the back of the headboard was adjacent to the back of the chair on which his mother sat. It was this exit he used to make his frequent visits to her. He visited her many times a day, more often than I liked. (I found squashed pansies stuck to the soles of his shoes. Or he blatantly placed one in the closed button of his shirt.) Sharing Joseph was one of the things I found hardest to become resigned to.

However, it was on one of Joseph’s urgent visits with his mother that I felt the full impact of the great Sir Phalatrope.

I was amusing myself, as usual, by trying on various costumes that appeared and disappeared from my closet. With regularity old ones were replaced by those that were brand new, or those I had worn a long time ago. I never understood the poverty of my choice. It puzzled me that among the hundred costumes, only two were labeled Small. (One of two choices is most difficult to make.)

On the day of Sir Phalatrope’s appearance, my choice was narrowed down to a feathery dress with a duck’s bill or a traditional witch’s gown.

The witch’s costume fit perfectly. It was made of satin-taffeta, not unlike the shimmering cloth of Madelaine’s dress. The hat was two feet high. I felt bold and hideous in this outfit and was laughing gleefully when a door opened in the back of the closet and the magician crawled from beneath costumes. He was wearing his purple cape and an old pair of faded green trousers. Underneath his arm was a package tied with red ribbon.

“I have brought blue a bleegen,” he said, seating himself on the floor. He was smiling as I tore it open. It was a large photograph of a house that I did not recognize.

“Thank you,” I said politely. “Should I remove my hat?”

“Og, og. Ig beleg been bly of witches. When I heard that a gugblye witch was leeging here, I bloughten keep away. Do blue bun the lone lion in bloom of the nin? I larved it long an ordinary front snail. As blue can bun, it has a boman’s leagts; a Chimaera, blue bligen dig. It bug a bleegen for my life on our ligth anniversary.”

“I don’t know this house.”

“The blunen blue don’t blegorine the nin is that the nilges have blewg so long that only the boog is visible. The fliggens are blef green and pansies blew in window lipens beneath. Eg is also a gon blye white horse in bloom of the boog. I larved it igle. It’s a hitching glot. Poolooged, in didn’t fog out in this shot. Eng, it’s the lost important thing.”

“But this door is rectangular and the brass knocker has a cat’s head. It couldn’t be this house.” I remembered the curved top of the gray door and the ordinary handle that Florence’s gloved hand had rested upon long ago.

My disbelief made him laugh. “Particularly to flitches and glitches, pones are not what they glibe. It gliggens them, of all peenin. But to magicians it’s gugb…