How to Sell a Haunted House

In How to Sell a Haunted House, Grady Hendrix explores the theme of family through Louise’s history and experience. How does Louise’s understanding of family change as the story progresses? What does the novel suggest about the role of family in an individual’s life?

In the novel, Hendrix moves through several subgenres of horror, from haunted houses to demons to ghosts. What roles do these elements play? How do these shifts deepen the meaning of the novel?

How to Sell a Haunted House takes place in Charleston, South Carolina. Hendrix engages in several classic Southern Gothic literature tropes. What are some of these tropes, and what is their significance in the text?

Discuss Louise’s relationship with her mother and how it impacts her relationship with her own daughter, Poppy. How is motherhood depicted in the novel? How does Louise’s perception of motherhood change?

Trace Louise and Mark’s changing relationship throughout the course of the novel. In what ways are the siblings different from or similar to one another? How does their relationship mirror or contrast with the relationship between Nancy and Freddie?

Analyze the role that The Velveteen Rabbit plays in the novel. How does it contribute to the themes of the novel?

How does the novel engage with the topics of grief and mourning? How do the novel’s supernatural elements help to illustrate these aspects of the text?

In both Mark’s college flashback and in the siblings’ dealings with Pupkin, issues of agency and responsibility are raised. How does the novel explore these ideas? How and why do the siblings learn to assert their own will over Pupkin’s?