The House That Wasn't Quite Right

The house in this book has several problems. The stairs are on the wrong side. The kitchen window faces the living room instead of outside. There is a door on the second floor that opens onto nothing — not a balcony, not an emergency exit, just four feet of air and then the garden. The ceiling in the hallway is four inches lower than it should be, for reasons never fully explained by the builder, who has since retired.

The family who lives in the house is fine. They have adapted. The children use the nothing-door to look at the garden from above, which is, one of them explains to a visiting friend, actually better than a balcony because you have to stand in the doorway to see it rather than lounging, which means you pay attention.

R. Staircase wrote this book because he grew up in a house that was not quite right and has spent his adult life thinking about houses that are exactly right and has come to prefer the first kind. He did not elaborate. The book is the elaboration.

The final spread shows the house at night, all windows lit, door on the second floor open to the dark air, someone standing in it looking at the stars. The house was not quite right. The family was, mostly, fine.