A House in the Sky

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes detailed descriptions of physical and sexual violence, psychological abuse, and extreme hardship. It also discusses topics related to captivity and torture.

“We named the houses they put us in. We stayed in some for months at a time; other places, it was a few days or a few hours. There was the Bomb-Making House, then the Electric House. After that came the Escape House, a squat concrete building where we’d sometimes hear gunfire outside our windows and sometimes a mother singing nearby to her child, her voice low and sweet.”

Lindhout describes the various temporary homes during her captivity, each named for distinctive features or experiences associated with them. This naming practice underscores the constant instability and displacement she faces, while the juxtaposition of violence (gunfire) and normalcy (a mother singing to her child) highlights the surreal and dual nature of her environment. These contrasts not only emphasize the harsh realities and occasional glimpses of ordinary life amidst chaos but also reveal the psychological coping mechanisms Lindhout employs—naming and cataloging her surroundings—to impose some sense of order and understanding in an otherwise unpredictable and traumatic situation.

“When I was a girl, I trusted what I knew about the world. It wasn’t ugly or dangerous. It was strange and absorbing and so pretty that you’d want to frame it. It came to me in photographs and under gold covers, in a pile of magazines, back-issue National Geographics bought for twenty-five cents apiece at a thrift store down the road. I kept them stacked on a nightstand next to my bunk bed. I reached for them when I needed them, when the apartment where we lived got too noisy.”

This excerpt provides a vivid reflection of how Lindhout, as a young girl, perceived and romanticized the world through the pages of National Geographic magazines, which contrasted sharply with her reality. This quotation encapsulates her initial worldview, sets the tone for her later adventures and hardships, and highlights her escapism and budding curiosity about the world beyond her immediate environment.

“When I was nineteen years old, I moved to Calgary. For any kid from central Alberta, Calgary is the big city, a beacon of possibility, ringed by busy highways, its glass towers rising up from the plains like a forest. It’s also an oil town, a boom-and-bust headquarters for stock traders and energy executives working to extract and sell the huge reserves of oil sitting beneath the soil.”

This excerpt sets the stage for Lindhout’s young adult life, marking a significant shift from her past experiences to new opportunities and challenges in a bustling urban setting. It encapsulates her