Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses death by suicide and includes references to miscarriage and abortion.

The untitled preface is formed of two passages written by Hawkins and purporting to be excerpts from other works. The first an excerpt from Lilith Rising, the fictional novel Mari Godwick writes at Villa Rosato (later Villa Aestas) in 1976, part of The Villa’s narrative. In the excerpt, Victoria, the main character of Mari’s novel, describes the memories of houses and how they preserve traces of the past, as she remembers a house and a summer that, she hints, will have a dark history. The second of the two excerpts offers a feminist reading of the novel by Dr. Elisabeth Radnor, a fictional professor whose book The Lady and the Monster: Women in Horror, 1932-1990 traces female agency and the character Victoria in the narrative of horror in Lilith Rising.

Emily, the protagonist and main narrator of The Villa, meets her childhood friend Jessica Chandler, now known as Chess Chandler, for lunch. Chess, a famous author and self-help guru, breezes in, dressed casually and impeccably, late for their lunch.