We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Penguin Modern Classics)

The Book Report: A classic of American suspense literature, this is the story of the Blackwood family, told by Mary Katherine "Merricat", of her life with elder sister Constance and elderly uncle Julian. They live in the biggest, grandest house around their New England village, surrounded by

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villagers whose suspicions of them are well-founded: Constance and Julian are survivors of a mass murder, a poisoning of the entire Blackwood family, for which crime Constance was tried and acquitted. Merricat, ten years younger than Constance, is the classic unreliable narrator, and a person very young for her age. The isolation the family lives in is voluntary, though no one tries too terribly hard to break it until cousin Charles Blackwood shows up with designs on Constance and her money. The realignment of the family constellation doesn't sit well, or wear well, and the end of the book closely resembles the beginning, only more so. The journey between is highly creepy, and just a little bit disturbing.

My Review: This isn't a horror novel in any way. It's horrible, in that it's got eerie atmospherics galore and Gothic characters and events in spades, but there is not one ounce of gore and no one speaks in tongues or is possessed by even a minor demon. The characters aren't particularly believeable, nor is the plot particularly plausible, but the fun of a book like this is that it's improbable but somehow satisfyingly so...it's so much fun to listen to little Merricat go through her OCD rituals, and her extreme clarity of character analysis makes the events of the book happen; somehow it all just *fits* in Jackson's universe, though not in yours or mine. Well, mine anyway; for all I know, LT could be chock-a-block with Merricats....

All in all, I found the trip Shirley Jackson takes me on in this short book to be very worth taking. I wasn't blown away by the book, but I liked it and I think most readers of literary fiction would as well. If you liked The Aspern Papers, you would most likely enjoy this book. Imagine a Saki story with a violent punchline...that's what Jackson delivers.

Yes, recommended, and without trepidation. At least, not much trepidation. o.O

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I love reading books that are somewhat “off” in tone, and this book was no exception. This novel, first published in 1962, was recommended to me as a quick read by two LibraryThing members (_Zoe_ and richarderus).

The story begins with eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine Blackwood (also known as

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Merricat) returning to her large and lovely home after a shopping trip to the nearby village. She seems very paranoid around the townsfolk, but, before the first chapter is finished, our curiosity is aroused as to why. We go on to learn that Merricat lives with an older sister and an ailing Uncle Julian because both of her parents are dead. As the story progresses, we learn more details about the deaths of Merricat’s parents as well as the concurrent death of Uncle Julian’s wife Dorothy.

The odd remaining family members live together fairly well secluded until cousin Charles Blackwood arrives and precipitates a turbulent change to their precarious living situation. Disliked intensely by Merricat, Charles becomes the target of her hexes in an effort to drive him from their house.

I loved this book. It was a short, but utterly compelling, read in all of its gothic finery. I found its prose very lyrical as themes repeated in a kind of a rhythmic beat.

Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?
Oh no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me.
Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?
Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!

I understand this novel’s becoming a cult classic. As a result, I very much look forward to reading other writing by Shirley Jackson.

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Mary Katherine Blackwood lives in an old home with her older sister Constance and Uncle Julian. They live a very isolated life. As they struggle to deal with the consequences of a recent tragedy, a stranger comes to visit - their cousin Charles. His arrival sets in motion a chain of events that

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will be even more shocking and dramatic.

It's hard to review this one, because I don't want to give away any of the big plot twists and ruin it for anyone. This was a quick read and I couldn't go to bed until I had finished it. Jackson is great at creating a slightly creepy, menacing feel to a seemingly normal atmosphere and then wrenching it into something even darker. It was hard to categorize this book too - psychological Gothic might be the best description. Highly recommended.

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The title of the novel is no accident, for it is as gothic a tale as any that was ever set in a crumbling castle on the banks of the Rhine. Its treatment of human evil, isolation and madness could easily qualify it as the pinnacle of 20th Century American Gothic.

A shadow has fallen across the

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house of Blackwood. Though once a prominent family, a possibly accidental poisoning has reduced their numbers to three (two sisters, an uncle) and made the townspeople suspicious of the survivors. The uncle, Julian, has been left physically crippled and one of the sisters, Constance, has developed a phobia about the world outside the house which does not prevent her from accepting visitors. It is left to the younger sister, Merikat (short for Mary Katherine), to venture into town on necessary errands.

Gothic literature often features singular characters, individuals who seem eerily plausible yet who are warped in a way that makes them unlike anyone else we've ever encountered. Merikat, who is the narrator and thus our guide through this story, is just such a character. It is clear that she views the townspeople with hostility, going so far as to craft charms--ordinary household items such as books or mirrors placed in odd locations or strange configurations--to keep the world at bay.

But soon it does intrude, in the figure of Charles, a cousin from an estranged branch of the family. His healthiness and level headedness seem to promise an opening up of the Blackwood home, a return to normality. But Merikat sees in him a representative of the crudity and selfishness of the outside world and seeks to drive him out through more and more powerful charms. The last of these results in a terrible reaction from the townspeople which sends the Blackwoods into greater isolation, leading to a hauntingly melancholy end to the story.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is an incomparable achievement, a story that will equally charm and disturb in ways that sometimes can be almost intolerable. And you will probably never forget Merikat Blackwood.

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Somehow, We Have Always Lived in the Castle manages to be both delightful and incredibly creepy. Jackson's narrator, Mary Katherine, leads the reader on a tour of sociopathology, horrifying groupthink, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and crippling agoraphobia as she and her sister Constance tremble

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through their lives as social outcasts, objects of fear and loathing but themselves fearing and loathing the village outside which their castle sits. Much as in Jackson's most widely-read short story, "The Lottery," the reader is presented with an upsetting view of social structure gone nightmarishly awry. The book is dark and upsetting, but also a quick, engaging read, and a brilliantly-written one at that.

Johnathan Lethem's introduction to the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition offers some insights into Jackson's inspiration for the novel and the way in which Jackson is viewed as having split her own personality into the two Blackwood daughters. I rather wish I'd saved the introduction until after reading the book, as I think Lethem's lengthy discussion of the parallels between this story and "The Lottery" deprive the reader to some degree of discovering what is really going on under Mary Katherine's serious and rambling narration.

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This story was a marvelous character study. While there are a few peripheral characters, most of the book is devoted to Merricat, Constance, Uncle Julian and Charles. I felt that much of this was a tug of war between the two dominant characters (Merricat and Charles) over the allegiance of

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Constance, with Uncle Julian serving the role of illuminating the back story. It is evident early on that Merricat, the narrator, is quite unreliable, and this is one of those novels that had me actively wondering how very different this would have been if it had been told from, say, Charles's perspective. I also enjoyed how my sympathies were played upon throughout: do I feel badly for Merricat? Charles? I was tugged back and forth. All of this is by way of saying that Ms. Jackson has created unforgettable characters here with neuroses that appear entirely believable and not at all over the top, and this is what struck me most about the story.

Ms. Jackson also creates an extraordinary sense of place. Having lived in New England all of my life, I know all too well these rural communities where others gossip and ostracize others for eccentricities. I also know many houses just like the Blackwood residence, though admittedly with less land.

Finally, I found it intriguing that the story spoke essentially of how a haunted house story gets started: a few traumatic events and a pinch of sheer weirdness and a murder and BOOM, you've got yourself a haunted house. A pleasant read for a Halloween season.

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The best claim of We have always lived in the castle as a literary masterpiece is that it is a fairly simple story that is nonetheless far from straightforward, and keeps readers puzzled long after finished reading. There is not much of a story, and some of the action in the book is quite absurd.

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The sisters, Mary Katherine ('Merricat') and Constance, and their uncle Julian are somewhat unusual, but not in the extreme.

Readers who find the novel spooky or stange, are in fact on a par with the villagers in the novel, who see things that are not there. The novel presents a fine example of the suspicion of a small-town community in the United States of that time, harking back to the witch-hunt episode in Salem, but also casting long shadows into our time, as it seems a part of human nature to be attracted and repelled by the unusual, to reject it and venture to gloat and look into it. The visit of Mrs Wright and Helen Clarke is nothing very unusual, and in as far as anything looks out of the ordinary neighbours' visit, it should be remembered that the whole episode is related by Merricat who cannot be taken as a reliable narrator.

The home of the Blackwood family is not a castle, but does stand within its own grounds, somewhat removed from the village. After the fire, which destroys a large part of the house, the home is said to resemble as castle. The perceptual transformation of the house into a castle, that is to say, when it is revealed to resemble a castle after parts have burnt away, suggests that the true state of things should be looked for underneath reality.

Merricat is by far the most intriguing character in the novel. Although she is described as being 18 years old, she appears a bit younger, and the ambivalence between the ages of 15/16 and 18 casts doubt on the innocent nature of her interests in magic, or rather witch craft. For sure, she has an interest in poisonous plants, charms, and rituals to avert events. There is an element on compulsion in her actions. In a novel with relatively little action, it seems significant that the major events were precipitated by Merricat, whether consciously or unconsciously. The fire seems the result of an unconscious act, but is should be remembered that the outcome of the event is what Merricat had apparently originally hoped to achieve with that other evil act, namely to remain alone with her older sister in the home.

Highly recommended.

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Creepy, ominous, and a bit sad. Mary Katherine "Merricat" & Constance Blackwood are agoraphobic sisters who have been happy with their secluded life in their large home, isolated from the village. They live with Merricat's cat Jonas and their uncle Julian, who is permanently ill from ingesting

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arsenic-laced sugar which killed the rest of the wealthy Blackwood family 6 years prior. (Constance did not have any of the sugar & Merricat had been sent to bed without dinner as punishment). Merricat is slightly less of a shut-in than Constance, going into the village every week to buy groceries and borrow books from the library. She is a very creepy and strange character, protective of her older sister, superstitious, and harboring an incredible deal of hatred toward the villagers. The villagers aren't exactly well-meaning, either - almost all of them regard the Blackwood sisters with intense animosity, since they believe Constance poisoned her family and got away with it. Merricat starts sensing that the Blackwoods' peaceful lives is about to be disrupted by some unwelcome change, which she tries to prevent by means of sympathetic magic. A short, strange but powerful story that explores family relationships, mental illness, persecution, class relations, and disturbing sides to everyday people.

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The Danger Within

Constance Blackwood and her younger sister Mary Katherine (Merricat) live with their infirm Uncle Julian in a big old rambling house on a large estate and set apart from the town. Six years previously someone poisoned the rest of the Blackwoods at dinner by putting arsenic in their

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dessert of blackberries. Since Merricat had been sent to her room for being bad and Constance didn’t eat blackberries, suspicion fell on Constance. However, an inquiry found her not guilty, though the townspeople always suspected she, in fact, murdered her mother, father, brother, and aunt, and severely injured her uncle, and so ostracized her. Constance herself is agoraphobic and will only venture as far as the house’s backyard. Merricat takes care of any errands and shopping in town, where people usually give her a wide berth or make fun of her. She, in turn, hates them all and has thoughts of killing them, watching them die, and seeing the town destroyed. She’s quite content to live alone in the big Blackwood house with Constance and Uncle Julian, whom she constantly promises herself to treat more kindly. To protect herself and Constance, she has nailed to trees and buried around the house various familiar objects that belonged to the family. Readers learn what happened to the Blackwoods, as well as gain insight into the deceased Blackwoods, through the ramblings of Uncle Julian, who busily works on a history of the incident and the Blackwood family.

As the novel progresses and we spend time with Merricat, we can see that she isn’t quite right, that she feels comfortable and kindly to one person only, her sister Constance, and that Constance is indulgent regarding Merricat and either oblivious to or accepting of her oddities, not to mention the not so secret “secret” they share. There’s always a sense of impending danger and Merricat always keeps her guard up, making her rounds of magical objects to ensure she and Constance remain safeguarded against the outside world. But then she starts having a bad feeling, a dread that something terrible is closing in on them, heightened when she discovers a book she’d nailed to a tree has fallen.

Charles Blackwood, a cousin, appears at their door and Constance invites him in. Merricat takes an immediate dislike to him and doesn’t hide her hatred of him. She resents that he beguiles Constance, coming between them, and recognizes him for what he is, a financial mercenary. When spying on his quarters in her father’s room, she discovers that he has left his pipe smoldering on the nightstand, she topples it into a wastebasket of newspapers. Later, it ignites a fire destroying the entire top flood of the house and bringing an invasion by the fire department and the townspeople. This permanently expels Charles, leads to Uncle Julian’s death, and leaves Constance and Merricat together alone with each other in three rooms forever. They subsist on Constance’s preserves from the basement, food from their garden in the back, protected by barriers established by Merricat, and penance offerings from townspeople to make up for their bad behavior the night of the fire.

What makes We Have Always Lived in the Castle so striking and absorbing is Jackson’s portrayals of Constance and especially Merricat, as well as their relationship. She never tells us that Constance suffers from agoraphobia or that Merricat is a sociopath. She shows us by taking us into Merricat’s mind, a very dark and disturbing place, conveying past and potential violence without any overt violence, just the sense that it could erupt at anytime. Readers will find it interesting to note that evil might move in two directions, depending on Merricat’s and the reader’s points of view. Merricat has it coming from the outside, from her deceased family, from the townspeople, and from Charles. Readers will eventually discover that the evil emanates from Merricat out to all of these parties with devastating consequences. Brilliant conjuring not to be missed.

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I have never been thoroughly enchanted by Shirley Jackson. I find that her writing—while generally taut and suspenseful (and even sometimes profound)—often falls rather flat, which reminds me a bit of writers like Bram Stoker (for whom I share a similar opinion). Now, that may seem like a

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contradictory sentence (and I suppose it is), so let’s clarify: there is a quality to her prose that is difficult to define—it is immediate, to-the-point; but this immediacy can sometimes border on the brusque side of the equation, lending to her work the curious image of Gothic elegance walking hand-in-hand with the pulps.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a book that I read in two sittings and left with a high opinion of—a five-star opinion, really; but the more I thought about it, the less I loved it: and it seems the same way for everything I read of Ms. Jackson’s, with the (signifigant) exception of her two more famous pieces: 'The Lottery' and The Haunting of Hill House. Aside from those two masterpieces, Jackson’s fiction is just not something I enjoy enough to come back to, though I may find it interesting—even spellbinding!—the first time around.

The novel is well-plotted, but its premise is somewhat sketchy: after their entire family is poisoned (save one uncle), two sisters (one of whom the crime is believed to have been perpetrated by) retreat into utter solitude in their curiously well-kept ancestral home somewhere in rural, any-town USA; their isolation borders on mutual delusion (and eventually descends into just that), leading to a climax that is, unfortunately, so stale it almost reads as satire.

Jackson’s narrative seems quite aware of its unlikelihood, and so it is somewhat jarring to see just how hard the woman will try to create plausibility where it is simply not going to happen. She’d be better off just rolling the dice and leaving us to our own capacity for suspension of disbelief, rather than attempting to mine realism from a character study whose power lies largely in its sense of fantasy. The premise itself is not totally implausible, but Jackson’s littering of tiny digressions becomes tiring and a little—yes, I’m going to say it—stupid. I feel at times, reading Castle, that my intelligence as a reader is being both stimulated and insulted at the same time.

I would suggest this for both hard-core Gothicists and for those who find the genre entirely annoying, which is a good illustration of how polarizing I find it. Jackson fans will appreciate her gracefully laconic prose and her generally pessimistic world-view, but her detractors will find this more than a little wooden. I’d reiterate that I find this one of Jackson’s stronger works (though it's certainly no Haunting of Hill House), and I really did enjoy reading it, but it’s one that’s a hell of a lot better in the thick of the reading than it is upon deeper reflection. So bottom line: I’d recommend it, with some serious reservations. It’s certainly better than most of the ‘suspense’ drek taking up space on your local library’s shelves, but it’s not the goldmine of subtlety and emotion I had been led to believe it was.

Shirley Jackson observes some real truth in her writing: I just wish she was able to communicate it without leaving such a humdrum taste in my mouth. I’d love to hate this novel, but I can’t; I’d love to love this novel, but I can’t: and you’d think that that would be the mark of something really important—really rare—but it’s just…not: this is remarkably pedestrian stuff, and I’m simply left wanting.

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This is the quintessential ghost story, told from the inside out — a perfect blend of creepiness and tenderness, of believability and otherworldliness. The story is told beautifully, drawing inexorably toward a climax of destruction. A stunning work, I liked this even better than Jackson’s

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other classic of the genre, The Haunting of Hill House.

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My first introduction to Shirley Jackson’s work, though I’m sure it won’t be my last. This is a masterful story. A disquieting tale that’s not quite what it seems, with a creeping and insidious uneasiness. It’s a strange mix of humour, sadness, innocence, and wickedness that has no real

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surprises and yet is surprising even so. The story extends beyond those in the house to become a doleful look at a small community throws a larger uglier light on society.

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This is a book that stays with you. You might not like it - it reads at the edge of uncomfortableness - but you will find yourself coming back to it, over and over and over again.

Shirley Jackson is the best at American Gothic - and this book is no exception. We have a creepy house, the majority of

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a family dead by cyanide poisoning (no worries on spoilers, this happened a few years before the book starts), with the remainder of the family being shut ins, not leaving the house.

I don't think there are any likable characters in this book. Constance being an enabler, Marykat as a mischievous imp, running wild in her forest, and crazy Uncle Julian, half alive, half dead. But they are intriguing. The book hints at their former life, of a family that is not so happy. But, its up to the reader to figure out what is true, what is made up. And that is part of what makes this book so well written.

Highly Recommended.

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I went into reading this book almost blind. I knew the title, it's one you see all the time, but I didn't know what the story was at all. It is a strange tale, and the slightly disjointed way the POV character tells it makes it a not-easy read. The style took some getting used to but the book is

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worth any struggle. This is termed a modern classic, and it's worthy of the description.

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Jackson's work - which has been recommended to me again and again - is an exceedingly eerie gothic wonder that sticks with you long after you're done reading.

It's a bit difficult to describe We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It is not horror, it is not especially scary, and it is very unusual in

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a lot of ways.

Mary Katherine, called Merricat, is our narrator, and she sets up our expectations for the book. She relates her day-to-day activities with such matter-of-fact frankness that we accept them (at first) almost without question. Twice a week, she must navigate the village, where everyone hates her and her family. She bears their suspicion and their scorn and their haunting refrains ("Merricat," said Connie, "would you like a cup of tea?") stoically in order to return to her fenced-in house and her sister and her invalid uncle.

As the story progresses, more and more details unfold, and it's not until halfway through the book when an unexpected cousin arrives and seems to be turning Constance away from Merricat that we start to wonder about the reliability of our narrator.

The final surprise is not really shocking, but it /is/ beautiful, and there is something intensely haunting about this story of two sisters who are ultimately loyal to each other above all else, and who thus become figures of both terror and legend for the local town.

Jackson has a fantastic touch with voice, with character, and with atmosphere. The neatness with which she unfolds the events surrounding Merricat and Constance and Uncle Julian is fascinating, and even now that sing-song refrain sticks in my head ("Oh no!" said Merricat, "You'll /poison/ me!").

I wasn't sure what to expect with this book, and it took me awhile to get into it in part because of that. But I'm very glad I persisted - I feel like We Have Always Lived in the Castle is one of those books that is an /experience/, and that you are always a little better for having had it.

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Cue lengthy but wonderful quote:

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to

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be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.

So starts the this highly atmospheric, disturbing gothic tale of mental illness. A story made disturbingly vivid by the memorable narrator Mary who toes the line between a worrying childlike simplicity and a sharp adult perception.

Jackson expertly uses the 1st person to ensnare our empathy and twist the tale so to fit Mary's point of view. It is very hard to break away from Mary, to view other characters and actions without her taint, an unsettling feat to achieve. Small things menace and odd actions soothe and then everything gets very very tense.

The mental illness depicted in the novel is uncomfortably realistic seemingly echoing Jackson's own neurosis and if the end (minor SPOILER alert!) is an agoraphobics flight of fancy well that's what a unreliable narrator is for and makes the tale even more creepy.

I can't highly recommend this enough, although I cant pin down why I haven't given it 5 stars (slight SPOILER!), maybe it's because I was misled to be believe there was a twist but lets face it it's all quite obvious.

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Mary Katherine Blackwood has lived alone with her sister and their invalid uncle in a large old house outside a small unnamed American town after the rest of the family was poisoned, a crime for which Constance stood trial but was acquitted. Since then the villagers have looked on the small family

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with a mixture of terror and morbid fascination and the family has largely been left alone, receiving few visitors. Their daily routine changes dramatically when one day their cousin Charles arrives out of the blue and takes up residence in the house, much to Mary Katherine's chagrin. With tensions between the two running high, events soon spiral out of control.

This novella is narrated by Mary Katherine, affectionately called Merricat by her sister, and from the first page her flitting thoughts indicate an emotional lability and possible mental disorder, the tone of her musings being intrinsically disturbing and unhinged; Shirley Jackson has masterfully captured Merricat's character and created one of the most memorable and creepiest character in modern literature. The house itself is both a cage and a sanctuary and there is something very poignant about the situation of the family members who are mostly shunned by society.

The book is a master class in increasing the tension, slowly notching up the tension from the very first page to its violent conclusion, and while there's a degree of predictability to it, the sequence of events is anticipated, not dreaded. The revelation, three-quarters in, doesn't come as a surprise as the answer to the mystery was on the cards from the beginning, with clues scattered quite generously throughout the narrative. While the dramatic finale was unexpected and fitting, the actual ending falls curiously flat in my opinion and the anticipated final confrontation didn't materialise, though the final scene of the two women content playing house, with Constance refusing to face the changed reality of their situation, is quite chilling.

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Constance Blackwood, age 28, and her 18-year-old sister Merricat have lived alone in a mansion with their Uncle Julian for the past six years. The rest of the family was poisoned with arsenic at dinner one night. Constance, always the responsible one, took the blame for the poisoning but it is not

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totally clear for most of the book how it happened or who exactly did it, and Constance was never convicted. The townspeople, however, exact their own punishment, treating the family with overt and cruel contempt. Thus Constance is afraid to leave the house, and Merricat only does so as needed for supplies, but is terrified all the while.

Uncle Julian has been confined to a wheelchair since the arsenic poisoning, but Constance and Merricat are just as paralyzed from routine, fear, and stasis. Constance, imprisoned not only figuratively by the townspeople but literally by her own fear of others, cooks and cleans and cares for Uncle Julian. Merricat is crippled by a severe obsessive compulsiveness involving superstitious rituals, as well as an overwhelming desire to see all of her enemies dead.

When their cousin Charles arrives to try to get their money, the careful balance of their lives on the fringes of insanity is upended. Before long, they are attacked on all sides, and their very mental and physical survival is called into question.

Discussion: This short book explores the canker of class envy, the cruelty of persecution, and the contagion of mob-thinking. Less attention is devoted to the family’s pathologies, which are taken as givens.

The title evokes the Gothic mood of the book, not only for its darkness and fear, but also for the sharp divisions between the isolated Blackwoods and the villagers, who may not have the power of the purse, but have physical and psychological advantages over the Blackwoods.

Evaluation: This is a disturbing book, although its surrealism offers some protection to the reader. I concede it’s a powerful book, providing a great deal for discussion; however, it is not a very pleasant tale. Thus, I found it difficult to assign a rating; it seems masterful in many ways, but it was just a bit creepy for me. I think I prefer creepiness in books to be mitigated by some upbeat developments, as with The Hunger Games (which, it should be noted, bears more than a passing resemblance to Jackson’s famous short story, “The Lottery”).

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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

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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.

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"My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I

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dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead."

I was hooked immediately - I had to find out what happened to the rest of her family. It was so easy to get caught up in this haunting tale. Mary Katherine Blackwood, known as Merricat, is the narrator, living with her reclusive sister Constance and their Uncle Julian, the surviving members of a large family that came to a sad end through the consumption of arsenic laced sugar.

The intriguing Merricat tells the story, regaling the reader with her rituals, talismans and magic, but these alone are not enough to counteract the interloper, who threatens her familiar lifestyle, and tries to destroy the strong family unit.

Cousin Charles arrives at Blackwood house, with his eye on the family fortune. He disturbs the sisters' careful habits, installing himself at the head of the family table, unearthing Merricat's treasures, talking privately to Constance about "normal lives" and "boy friends." Unable to drive him away by either polite or occult means, Merricat adopts more desperate methods. The result is crisis and tragedy, the revelation of a terrible secret, the convergence of the villagers upon the house, and a spectacular unleashing of collective spite.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is one of Shirley Jackson's earlier novels. It is a Gothic horror masterpiece, full of murder, poison and madness. This story explores the evils of the human mind - sometimes much more frightening than ghoulies, ghosties, vampires, and all other things that go bump in the night.

This book examines what happens when a family is shattered and the truth is held back too long. The fear and anxiety of the sisters combined with the hostility, blunt rage, and inhumanity of the villagers makes this a compelling novel.

The story is compelling and darkly humorous, making this novel downright creepy - but wonderful!

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There is a continuum of children as characters in literature that runs for me something like this:

First, there's Sarah Crew of A Little Princess. She is plucky without being obnoxious, strong, caring for others, and while she may despair she tries to make things better for herself and everyone

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around her. In the end, of course, everything does turn out for the best, but I've always had the sense that if Sarah had been left to fend for herself she would've done just fine.

Next, there's Mary Lennox of A Secret Garden. In the beginning of the book she's sallow and sulky, prone to throw temper tantrums and in my ways not fit for human company. Throughout the course of the book we get to watch companionship, outdoor exercise, gardening, good food, and love turn Mary into someone quite different. She remains tempered by her previous misadventures, but that makes her an even better friend.

Next, Scout (of course) from To Kill a Mockingbird - she's a tomboy whose best friends are her brother and a boy named Jim. In a way they're all outcasts, perhaps Scout especially because she doesn't fit neatly into the box built for Southern women. I've always liked Scout and always wondered how things worked out for her as a grownup. She's tough, not above fighting, and loyal to her core.

In more modern times we have Flavia de Luce from The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag. She's also smart and just a bit off. Not much parental supervision and perhaps a little too much fascination with poisons of one kind or another - with Flavia there's always just the slightest hint that things might get out of hand at any moment.

Last, there's Merricat from We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Merricat is in most ways blank, a cipher, a little girl living in a world that she has literally created. You get the sense that aside from Constance and her cat everyone else is sort of unreal to her. Her narrative is one of the creepiest ever written due to all of the blankness (and fear and hatred) that it is steeped in.

A child psychiatrist once told me that children who were institutionalized for psychiatric conditions were only those who were the most ill. The behavioral parameters for children, you see, are very broad. A child has to be very far outside of the norm behaviorally to need to be locked up. I think about that every time I re-read this book. None of it can end well.

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We Have Always Lived in the Castle is the story of the reclusive remnants of a wealthy family that died mysteriously before the narrative begins. Mary Katherine, Constance, and their Uncle Julian are all that survive, and Merricat does everything she can to protect her older sister from the world.

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Shirley Jackson's short novel is haunting and thrilling, and she masterfully creates tension and horror without resorting to trite themes of slash and gore. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is terrifying for its simplicity and honesty, and although the primary mystery is evident from very early the story itself is thoroughly engaging.

I highly highly recommend We Have Always Lived in the Castle, even for those who do not normally enjoy horror novels. Jackson is an exception worth making.

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Mary Katherine Blackwood (Merricat to her family) is walking home after a trip to the grocery store describing all the stares and name calling she must endure before finding herself back home and safely ensconced behind a locked door. She shares her home with her older sister Constance and their

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Uncle Julian, neither of which ever leave the house. The three have lived under a cloud of suspicion and ridicule after several family members were found dead of arsenic poisoning one night many years ago. Constance was acquitted of the murders, and after her release, she retreated to the house and hasn't left since. Her fear of others and the outside world is palpable. Merricat tries to help as best she can but is hampered in her own way. A teenager of 18, Merricat still thinks and acts like a child, unable to deal with change, afraid for her sister, and prone to outbursts of anger.

One day their cousin Charles shows up for a visit. His motives seem very sinister to Merricat who takes an immediate dislike to him. Constance, oddly, seems to relish having a visitor but you can feel the tension building in her attempting to placate Charles, restrain Merricat, and care for the ailing Uncle Julian. Merricat takes it upon herself to drive Charles from their safe haven wanting to return to their comforting schedule of cleaning and cooking.

In one of the most affecting and riveting scenes in the book, a fire ravages the house and the townspeople show up to fight the fire and heckle the family. “Let it burn” chants echo over the flames and after the fire is extinguished, the onlookers wreck the house --- trashing furniture, smashing plates and carefully cared for and cherished pieces of family history with little regard. It's fantastically abhorrent to see the actions of the people mixed with the raw emotions of the sisters. It made me want to put the book down but I couldn't, wanting desperately to know they would survive the unconscionable actions of the townspeople.

You can't say this book has a happy ending but you come to an understanding with Merricat and Constance and are glad to see they are happy and feel safe in the small, tragic world that is their own. Jackson weaves in agoraphobic fears and traits so well that you almost believe the sisters are better off alone, locked away in a house reclaimed by vines and shrouded in cardboard and spare wood staring out at the world through peep holes.

This was a marvelously refreshing book to read. After the description above I'm sure you may be wondering why I would say that but the characters are so amazing and clever that you may want to stay in their world with them even though it is suffocating and sad.

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Spoilers abound in the following review; you have been warned.

So, first off: I'm reminded of Orwell's description of Kipling as a good bad author. I'm tempted to apply that to this book, though in a slightly different form. Where, from what I recall, Orwell was referring to the artlessness of

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Kipling's prose still resulting in a satisfying narrative, I can't help but feel that this is an unsatisfying narrative buoyed along by the artfulness of the prose.

So, what are my issues?

1. The ages of the characters. Mary makes sense, in some ways: she's 18 but has grown up in isolation since she was 12. (And one gets the impression that she was spoiled and perhaps not entirely sane even before that.) Her childishness is therefore forgivable. Constance, on the other hand, we are told is 28. Yet she never feels like 28. She never feels like 22 — the age at which she would have withdrawn from society — either. She feels younger; somewhere in her late teens instead. One's left with the impression that the ages were chosen because they fit the narrative — any younger wouldn't really be plausible — not because they necessarily fit the characters.

2. The mystery that wasn't. Jonathan Letham, in his introduction to this edition, seems to think that the true identity of the murdered is meant to be a "purloined letter" — hidden in plain sight and transparent to the reader. I'm not certain I agree with him, given the manner and point at which the information is finally revealed. I'm not entirely certain he agrees with himself either, as he describes some of Uncle Julian's comments as representing an in-story stand-in for the reader's questions — comments that only make sense if the mystery is not transparent. (Or, at least, not so immediately transparent that, when it first gets mentioned in Chapter 2, the true identity is blatantly obvious.)

3. A lot of the characters outside of the core three (Constance, Mary, Julian) come across as one-dimensional. Normally I'd attribute this to the fact that Mary, the narrator, has a grasp on reality that's a little tenuous and is likely unreliable. Except that there's never any good evidence, be it people's dialogue or actions, that can really be interpreted in any way other than how she views them. For example: she considers Cousin Charles to be a villain (a "ghost and a demon", to be precise), and sure enough, everything that Charles says presents him as someone who's only there to get his hands on the vast fortune that Mary & Constance's parents left behind.

That all said: it's a wonderfully moody book, something which Jackson's always excelled at, and the two scenes where Mary is confronted by the local populace are, as is appropriate, discomforting to an extreme degree. It's just that I'm not certain the plot holds up.

Finally, two further notes having nothing to do with the actual novel itself, but are in reference to the edition that I read:

Jonathan Letham's introduction is one of the worst I've read in a while, giving away every single plot point and coming across as completely muddled otherwise. (E.g. my above comment about Julian, and also his section "If we examined it in a Freudian sense we could interpret it as […] but Jackson was opposed to that sort of analysis [that I just performed], so we won't".)

Also, the Penguin Deluxe Classics design is absolute rubbish. As pretty as it is, it's simply not useful. The image from the front cover wraps around to the back, and the inside flaps — it being one of those paperbacks trying to act like a hardcover via dust-jacket-esque inside flaps — merely repeat the novel's opening paragraph (on the front flap) and a fragment of a sentence from the second chapter (on the back), thereby leaving a potential reader with no information on the work.

Want to know what type of book it is or what it's about? Well, you could go by the front cover and the first paragraph, but unless you know the sort of books that Jackson wrote, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's supernatural or historical horror of some sort. So unless you're willing to read the first 40 pages or so, you're out of luck.

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