How to Sell a Haunted House

How to Sell a Haunted House, Grady Hendrix’s sixth novel and a New York Times bestseller, was published by Berkeley Books in 2023. Although Hendrix is currently most well-known for his horror novels, he has also written science fiction, nonfiction, and several screenplays. Hendrix is originally from Charleston, South Carolina, and How to Sell a Haunted House, as well as two previous novels, My Best Friend’s Exorcism and The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, are set there. Hendrix’s horror novels are known for their humor and character-driven stories that grapple with larger themes such as grief and generational trauma. How to Sell a Haunted House is currently in development as a film from Legendary Entertainment, produced by Sam Raimi.

This guide uses the eBook version of the novel, published in 2023 by Berkeley Books.

Plot Summary

Louise Joyner is a single mother living in San Francisco with her daughter, Poppy, when she finds out that her parents have died in a car accident. She returns to her hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. Louise and her brother, Mark, argue violently when she finds out that he has arranged to have their parents’ house cleaned out and has already made funeral arrangements.

Louise enlists the help of Aunt Honey, their mother’s aunt; her daughter, Aunt Gail; and her daughters, Mercy and Constance, to convince Mark to hold a traditional service. When their parents’ wills are read, Louise and Mark discover that their mother, who technically died last in the accident, has left Mark everything. He immediately decides to sell the house and does not plan to share anything with Louise. However, when Louise reads the will more closely, she discovers that their mother left Louise her art collection, consisting of all the puppets, dolls, and other craft projects that fill the house. Louise decides to drag out the inventory process to delay Mark’s sale of the house.

While she is in the process, however, strange things begin to happen. Pupkin, their mother’s most beloved puppet, is the first thing that Louise throws away, but later she finds it missing from the trash can. She falls asleep and is attacked by taxidermized squirrels from one of her mother’s projects. However, Louise doesn’t tell Mark and is determined to pretend that nothing happened.

These events continue to escalate, and Mark sets aside his animosity to try to convince Louise not to stay in the house overnight. She refuses to leave, and, that night, Pupkin attacks and tries to kill her. Mark returns to the house to save her in the nick of time, shooting Pupkin. Afterward, he reveals the true reason why he dropped out of college: He and his friends got too involved with Pupkin, who was telling them to do horrible, destructive things. Louise, in turn, confesses that, when she tried to drown Mark when they were young, it was because Pupkin told her to do it.

When they return to the house, Pupkin attacks again. He forces Mark to put him on his hand and then nearly kills Louise with a hammer. Louise is forced to cut Mark’s hand off with a circular saw, and later, when Mark is safely in the hospital, she returns to the house and burns Pupkin to ashes. Believing that the haunting is over, Louise returns to San Francisco.

When she gets there, however, she finds that Poppy has made a Pupkin puppet, and he is now possessing her daughter just as he possessed Mark. Louise returns to Charleston with Poppy, and they consult their Aunt Gail, who sometimes helps her friend, Barb, cleanse spirits from objects like dolls.

They realize that Pupkin is animated by the ghost of their mother’s younger brother, Freddie, who died when he was five. In order to cleanse Pupkin, they have to convince Freddie to move on. Although the family has always been told that Freddie died when he stepped on a rusty nail and got lockjaw, Louise confronts Aunt Honey to get the real story. They learn that Freddie drowned when their mother was supposed to be watching him, and the boy is buried in the backyard of their parents’ house.

Louise and Mark return to the house, where they are attacked by Pupkin and all of the other puppets. They barely make it to the backyard, where Louise digs at the base of a tree and finds a box with Freddie’s remains. She puts Pupkin on her hand and is able to communicate with Freddie, telling him to move on and be with his family. He finally agrees, and Louise, Mark, and Poppy are all safe.

Louise and Poppy go home to San Francisco but return months later for Freddie’s funeral. Mark has renovated the house and found a buyer for it. When they return to the house to say goodbye one last time, they smell the scent of stollen, a sweet bread that their father baked every year for the holidays. They know, then, that this is their parents’ final goodbye to them, and they are finally able to move on themselves.