Marcus Kliewer confronts real-life horror in his second novel The Caretaker

Marcus Kliewer’s much-anticipated second novel, The Caretaker, dropped on April 21, 2026. Already, fans in the r/OldHouseArchive community are tearing it apart looking for Kliewer’s trademark puzzles and easter eggs. The book hasn’t disappointed – so let’s get into it.

If you missed my first article previewing The Caretaker, here’s a quick summary: Macy Mullins, down on her luck and trying desperately to keep her head above water while taking care of her teenage sister, takes an improbable job. Stay in a house on the Pacific Coast and follow the rites David Carnswel documented before he died – or else doom humanity to eternal torment.

“First of all, this should go without saying, but it’s important you keep the house generally tidy.”

At first, Macy manages to maintain the odd rules, despite how arbitrary they seem.

“Make sure you keep all the main- and second-floor lights off between three and four am.”

She even appreciates the relief she feels as she ticks off each task. Real or not real, it feels good to check the box.

“If you see a white rabbit inside the house, especially a white rabbit, catch it within the first ten minutes of sighting, release it outside, and lock the doors.”

But as the night progresses, the rules reveal themselves to be impossible and merciless, demanding more and more to atone for each mistake. The lines around reality begin to blur.  Soon, Macy – and maybe the rest of the world – may be in real danger.

“In order to rectify your failure, a price must be paid. You must burn the rabbit alive.”

This book is terrifying. Copies of dead loved ones with ice-blue eyes appear, corpses walk, voices shout warnings from a landline phone, lights flicker on and off, pictures fall from the walls, and all manner of torments hound Macy as she tries to stay sane.

But the true terror of this book is not the supernatural – not the “Visitors” and visions, the unnamed entity behind it all, the threat of apocalypse. Strip all that away, and this book is about something just as horrifying – and something very real.

Ultimately, at its heart, this is a book about OCD.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is the heart of comedy films like As Good as It Gets and What About Bob?, a TikTok trend where influencers “let their intrusive thoughts win,” and a disorder that between one and two percent of the global population are diagnosed with and live with every day.

Few people without the disease can fully comprehend the hell it’s capable of creating inside sufferers’ heads. Most of us stay silent because OCD is clever: it makes itself humiliating and painful to disclose. Many OCD patients are afraid of being imprisoned or institutionalized because of their intrusive thoughts. They may be convinced that they themselves are truly insane, violent, pedophiliac, or blasphemous, rather than exhibiting symptoms of a debilitating disorder. From the outside, it is impossible to see how badly someone with OCD might be suffering.

The Caretaker bleeds every ugly detail onto the page. Macy’s desperation to escape the house mirrors the desperation that drives OCD patients to extremes like suicide and self-harm. The forces that torment her are perfect illustrations of the phantoms that live in our heads. Yes, the story is an allegory, but it contains more truth than any psychology textbook ever could. Kliewer has given us an unflinching and stomach-turning portrait of OCD and scared the living hell out of us while doing it.

This book is the ugly scar I don’t have. It shows the pain OCD inflicts every day, the exhaustion it causes, the toll of each sacrifice as it eats away at a person’s life. Every terrible twist and jaw-clenching moment of this book cleverly illustrate another aspect of the disease, from magical thinking to impossibly fast heartrate. Everything my loved ones can’t see is laid bare in this book.

Horror is perhaps the only genre that could truly capture obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Marcus Kliewer has done so with a book that punches the breath out of its readers.

Find The Caretaker wherever books are sold or check out Penguin Random House's website.

If you are affected by the contents of this article, https://findahelpline.com/ may be a useful resource.