Lock Every Door: A Novel

Content Warning: The source text references multiple deaths by suicide and deals with the psychological effects of trauma, loss, and grief. It also uses stigmatizing and potentially offensive language to refer to people experiencing mental illness.

Lock Every Door explores the Psychological Effects of Isolation and Loneliness via protagonist Jules Larsen’s experiences at the Bartholomew. Jules takes the Bartholomew apartment-sitting job because she doesn’t have a family, partner, home, or job. Therefore, Jules is in an alienated position at the outset of the novel. Jules’s eagerness for companionship leads her to trust the Bartholomew’s residents and dismiss Chloe’s concerns. However, when Jules starts probing into the Bartholomew’s mysterious history, she begins to realize how isolated she truly is. The Bartholomew and its residents prey upon isolated and lonely individuals like Jules. Before Jules agrees to take the Bartholomew job, Leslie interviews her, probing into her social connections to ensure that she does not have a support system. Further, in Chapter 30, Jules and Dylan realize that none of the apartment sitters have family. Through this, Riley Sager illustrates the ways in which isolation opens people up to manipulation and other vulnerabilities. The building’s rules against associating with permanent residents further isolates the apartment sitters, effectively estranging them from society.

Though the Bartholomew’s permanent tenants initially feel trustworthy and kind to Jules, the longer she remains there, the more alone, confused, and lost she feels. Her initial, hopeful connections with Greta and Nick seem to offer companionship, guidance, and intimacy where she has had none. They pose as the archetypal guides in her story, Greta as a wise artist and Nick as a respectable doctor, clouding her perception. As the building’s dark underbelly become exposed and tenants begin to turn cold, Jules’s fellow apartment sitters also begin to disappear, leaving her with an acute sense of alienation. Ingrid and Dylan both disappear, and even Chloe becomes unreachable. By the time Jules begins to understand what’s really going on at the Bartholomew, she is entirely alone, with no one to go to for help or to corroborate her version of events. This, along with the social stigma surrounding people with mental illness, is why Jules is determined not “to sound crazy” when she conveys her story to Dr. Wagner, Bernard, and their attendants (206). As a social outcast presumed to be experiencing mental illness, her story is considered less reliable. The novel suggests that without social connections to back them up, individuals are less likely to be believed. Jules can’t reclaim her autonomy over her life or build community if society has deemed her a pariah.

When Jules realizes the precarious position her isolation has put her in, she fights hard to preserve those she has made at the Bartholomew. She investigates Ingrid’s disappearance at great risk to herself and despite assurances that nothing is wrong. That effort leads her to make friends with Dylan, Bobbie, and, eventually, Ingrid. Those friendships, in turn, help her to see the truth about the Bartholomew. By the end of the novel, Jules learns to make friends and accept their help. In Chapter 56, Jules lives a new life defined by balanced friendships. Surviving the Bartholomew teaches her the importance of building connections. Jules’s loss of her sister and parents began a struggle to maintain friendships and trust others. Her Bartholomew experiences disrupt this habit of withdrawing from others and creates new pathways to connection and community.