Summary

As an opening to Part I of the novel, The Prologue of The Family Upstairs gives the reader a brief introduction to the central plot. A narrator, whose name is not yet revealed, tells the reader that their and their sister's childhoods were plagued by darkness brought on by as-yet-unnamed "they." The Prologue ends with this first-person narrator saying that when they were 16 and their sister 14, a baby came, and that this was several decades ago. Although not revealed until later in the novel, this narrator is Henry Lamb, Jr., and his sister (Lucy) and the baby (Libby) will have their own narrative pieces throughout the novel.

Chapter 1 opens with a 25-year-old woman named Libby Jones receiving a letter in the mail from a solicitor in upscale Chelsea, London. Libby is on the phone with her adoptive mother, who lives in Denia...