2.5 stars - I preferred The Haunting of Hill House. ( )

WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THIS CASTLE by Shirley Jackson. An engrossing, haunting read and short enough to read on one snowy morning! Filled with the trademarks of a Shirley Jackson work: class conflict, family dynamics, and unreliable narrators. Not scary, but haunting nonetheless.

(Also for some reason I thought The Others was based on this book? Probably because the title, but I think The Others is actually based on The Turn of the Screw by Henry James and for some reason I get Henry James and Shirley Jackson confused. So needless to say the ending was not quite what I expected) ( )

Written in a simplistic manner from an unreliable teenager's perspective, it is equal parts unsettling and deception. Worth a read. ( )

2.4

Constance and Mary Katherine (or Merricat, as she is known) Blackwood are sisters living with their disabled uncle Julian in a remote mansion on the edge of a small rural town. Their isolation is due largely to the ostracism they face from the townspeople because of a tragic incident that happened six years before: one evening at dinner, the rest of the Blackwood family died after being poisoned by arsenic, with only Julian surviving the event. Since Merricat was absent from the table at the time, Constance was accused of the crime. Although she was ultimately exonerated in court, she remains the object of scorn, fear, and derision in society. When a distant relative with suspect motives shows up at the sisters’ door, the fragile equilibrium of their existence is upset, which eventually leads to tragic consequences for almost everyone involved. The story ends with the two young women trying to restore their former lives despite the greatly diminished circumstances they now face.

With We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson concluded her legendary career as one the country’s foremost writers of horror and mystery tales. From the outset of the book, which is told from eighteen-year-old Merricat’s viewpoint, two things become abundantly clear. First, the novel is not really in the horror genre but it is eerily atmospheric; we feel the anxiety and isolation that the sisters face, even if we do not yet know why. Second, despite being the only socially functioning member of the Blackwood family, Merricat is a very unreliable narrator with ample issues of her own. The latter realization becomes particularly important as it provides a lot of the narrative tension that drives the story forward and helps to frame the destabilizing feelings induced by the arrival of the estranged cousin. Although brief in length, this is an engaging novel with a lot to say about several important themes—such as the effects of fear and isolation, familial loyalty, societal judgment, and the relativity of truth and guilt—which makes it an easy one to recommend. ( )