Are You in the House Alone? by Richard Peck

First published: 1976

Type of work: Social realism

Themes: Social issues, crime, sexual issues, gender roles, and emotions

Time of work: The 1970’s

Recommended Ages: 13-18

Locale: Oldfield Village, an upper-class suburb in Connecticut

Principal Characters:

• Gail Osburne, a seventeen-year-old eleventh-grader
• Steve Pastorini, Gail’s boyfriend
• Phil Lawver, the son of the most prominent, wealthiest, and oldest family in Oldfield Village
• Alison Bremer, Phil’s girlfriend
• Mrs. Montgomery, the woman for whom Gail baby-sits
• Sonia Slanek, an eccentric girl at school

The Story

The protagonist of Are You in the House Alone?, Gail Osburne, lives in the well-established upper-middle-class Oldfield Village. Gail is fairly typical of teenage girls of her age: She has some difficulty in communicating with her parents; and she has a boyfriend, Steve Pastorini, whom she loves. Gail also does odd jobs, baby-sitting for Mrs. Montgomery, a divorced woman who regularly attends singles events, and has a best friend, Alison Bremer, with whom she shares confidences. Alison is a very goal-oriented young woman, who intends to “marry money”; her boyfriend, Phil Lawver, is from the oldest and wealthiest family in town.

The plot of the novel hinges on a series of mysterious telephone calls and notes that Gail begins to receive: While she is baby-sitting for Mrs. Montgomery, she answers the telephone, but there is only silence on the line; she discovers a note on her locker that says “I’m watching you—You know you want it. You’ll get it. And you won’t have long to wait.” Alison’s reaction to these events is disappointing to the troubled Gail: She tells her friend simply to ignore these disturbing messages and pretend that there is no problem.

Unable to find a sympathetic ear, Gail skips school to go to New York to see her father at his architectural firm, only to discover from the firm’s secretary that he has been laid off for weeks; now she does not have the heart to approach him with her own problem. To compound her difficulties, she learns that her mother, who does not approve of her boyfriend Steve, knows that she is on the pill. Later, she receives another silent telephone call; also, she and Steve are followed by a fast car. When Gail discovers another threatening note sticking out of her locker vent, she takes it to the school counselor, but when the counselor proves ineffective, Gail turns to the dean of boys, who patronizes her—and keeps the note.

The following Saturday night, when Gail is baby-sitting at Mrs. Montgomery’s, she receives a call from someone with a falsetto voice asking “Are you in the house alone?” When the doorbell rings, Gail runs to it in relief, expecting Steve, but opens it to find Phil Lawver instead, who proceeds to rape her brutally; she grabs the fireplace poker to defend herself, but he pulls it away and knocks her out with it.

Gail awakes in the hospital. Only now does she tell her parents of her ordeal; she also tells them who raped her. Later, despite a nurse’s objections, the police question and patronize her, initially implying that Steve is the responsible party and then, when she tells them who raped her, saying that she is “asking for trouble,” since they are fully aware of the Lawvers’ wealth and influence. Even the lawyer advises Gail that she has little chance of making charges against Phil stick: She knew Phil; she has a boyfriend; and she was not a virgin. Moreover, she cannot produce the vital evidence that would show that she had been threatened: the notes left at her locker and later confiscated by the dean. Gail resolves that her best choice is not to file charges: She does not want to be raped a second time in court. When she asks the lawyer why the law protects the criminal and not the victim, he responds, “Because the law is wrong.”

Recovering at home, Gail receives a visit from Madame Malevich, who persuades her to resume her life and return to school. There, she is avoided by the other students; even Mrs. Montgomery does not want her to baby-sit anymore. Amazingly, Phil Lawver again confronts Gail, following her slowly in his MG as she is walking home from school but acting as though nothing really serious had passed between them. Gail suddenly realizes how sick Phil really is. Not long thereafter, Sonia Slanek, a rather eccentric girl, is attacked by Phil. At this point, Gail realizes how right Steve is when he says, “In a way it is happening to all of us, isn’t it?” What happened to her was not an isolated incident but part of a larger problem, and she must take some responsibility in seeing that it is resolved.

Gail confronts Alison and forces her to see the danger in her relationship with Phil and her part in perpetuating the problem by refusing to recognize that Phil is disturbed. Alison finally acknowledges that there is a problem; whether she finally discusses it with Phil’s parents is not revealed, but it is implied that Phil disappears from Oldfield, and there are rumors that he has been placed in a boarding school or has had a nervous breakdown. Gail’s family finally decides to move, with her mother summing up: “It could have been worse”—clearly an inadequate response to events that could have been much less damaging had someone spoken up in time.

Context

Are You in the House Alone? is a young adult problem novel in which author Richard Peck provides a realistic account of young people in the 1970’s. The story reflects their real concerns, concerns with which teenagers can identify. The novel thus follows in a tradition of young adult novels since the 1960’s, which have recognized progressively fewer taboos in their subject matter; Peck’s novel reflects the realization on the part of many writers of young adult stories that there must be more and better communication between adults and their young adult offspring—more empathy and less judgment. The consequences of failure to communicate are shown in the price that Gail and Sonia pay.

The novel is also typical of post-1960’s young adult literature in that it treats issues of class privilege and barriers. Too, the feminist movement, with its concerns about stereotypical generalizations about men and women, their roles, and their relationships, and especially rape, is also reflected. The growing concern for victims of crimes, and the questions of society’s responsibility are highlighted as well. Before writing this book, Peck consulted doctors, lawyers, and hospital personnel in order to present his story as realistically as possible, and he made an attempt to portray his fictional case of rape as it has been handled in some actual situations. Are You in the House Alone? thus joins novels such as Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951) in representing, through fiction, a stronger truth than any mere statements of facts alone could convey. As such, Peck’s novel can be as profitably read by adults interested in their teenagers’ concerns as by young people themselves.