Chicago

Chicago is the former home of the Creed family, a bustling Midwestern metropolis from which they relocate to rural Ludlow, Maine, at the start of the novel. The city represents the life they leave behind—a place of familiar urban noise, professional networks, and family tensions, particularly with Rachel's wealthy parents, the Goldmans. Its memory haunts the narrative as a contrasting symbol of normalcy, safety, and the past, against which the escalating horrors of their new home are measured.

The Creed Family's Former Life

The Creed family lived in Chicago before Louis accepted the position as head of University Medical Services at the University of Maine. The move was a major upheaval, involving a three-day drive with their two young children, Ellie and Gage, and their cat, Church. The journey was fraught with tension: Gage was teething and fussed ceaselessly, Rachel was uncertain about leaving her lifelong home, and Church yowled from his kennel before being freed to pace restlessly in the car. Louis himself felt a wild urge to abandon the trip and drive to Orlando, Florida, to start a new life under a false name, a fantasy that underscores his deep ambivalence about the change. The family's Chicago apartment was the setting for Church's early life, including an incident where he killed a large rat, a bloody event that made Rachel, then pregnant with Gage, vomit. Louis's professional life in Chicago included working with a colleague named Tony Benton, who called Ellie "the Indian Princess." The city also holds the memory of a brief, regretted visit to a prostitute six years prior, an episode Louis later equates in insignificance with his sleepwalking incident in Maine.

The Goldman Family and Tensions

Chicago is the home of Rachel's parents, Irwin and Dory Goldman, who live in the affluent suburb of Lake Forest. The relationship between Louis and Irwin Goldman is deeply antagonistic, rooted in a past confrontation. Before Louis and Rachel married, Irwin Goldman offered to pay Louis's entire medical school tuition on the condition that he break off his engagement. Louis refused, leading to a heated argument in which he accused Goldman of trying to keep his daughter "like an exhibit in a museum." This incident created a lasting rift, and Louis has never fully reconciled with his father-in-law, whom he privately derides as "Im-Ho-Tep" and "the Sphinx." The Goldmans' wealth and influence are a recurring source of tension, symbolized by their habit of buying expensive gifts for the children, which Louis resents as an attempt to buy affection. Rachel's traumatic childhood in Chicago is also central to her character. Her older sister, Zelda, died of spinal meningitis in the family's back bedroom, a prolonged and agonizing death that left Rachel with a profound phobia of death and illness. Rachel was present when Zelda died, an event that has haunted her with nightmares and a deep-seated fear of mortality.

Return and Escape

Chicago serves as a destination for escape and a source of conflict throughout the novel. After Gage's death, Louis manipulates Rachel and Ellie into flying to Chicago to stay with the Goldmans, ostensibly for a break but in reality to clear the house for his plan to resurrect his son. Rachel's journey back to Chicago is marked by Ellie's disturbing nightmares, which include prophetic visions of the resurrected Gage and the ghost of Victor Pascow. The Goldmans' home becomes a place of refuge and anxiety, where Ellie's psychological distress manifests in hysterical episodes. Rachel's desperate decision to fly back to Maine from Chicago, driven by a premonition that Louis is in danger, sets the final tragic sequence in motion. Her return journey is fraught with obstacles, including a missed flight and a car breakdown, which she interprets as a supernatural force trying to prevent her from reaching home. Ultimately, Chicago represents the world of the living, the rational, and the past—a world that Louis, in his grief and madness, is willing to abandon forever.