It’s October, and while I might not read *solely* spooky books this season, it seemed appropriate to kick off the month with a master of the genre. I have never read anything by Shirley Jackson (no, not even The Lottery) and I was most familiar with her work via Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House. Which is an excellent show (highly recommend!) but by all accounts not a great adaption of the source material. More like, inspired by. So I went into We Have Always Lived in the Castle knowing the synopsis of the book, but nothing about Jackson’s writing style. “Atmospheric” does not begin to describe it. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is unsettling from the get-go, and only becomes more so as the story unfolds.
Merricat (Mary Katherine) and her sister Constance live in their family’s ancestral home, along with their Uncle Julian. They are all survivors of a crime that resulted in the deaths of the rest of their family: Merricat and Constance’s father, mother, and younger brother, and Julian’s wife. Constance was accused of the murders but was later found not responsible, and the three of them have lived a fairly solitary life ever since. Constance cooks and keeps house. Julian writes over and over again about the night of the murders, trying to figure out what happened and why. Merricat has elaborate rituals to keep them safe, including burying things around the property and creating wards to keep evil out. Of the three, Merricat is the only one who ventures down to the town for their groceries, while the others stay on the Blackwood property. The townspeople look down on the Blackwoods, often taunting Merricat with a nursery rhyme about the murders. Still, they are relatively content with their quiet lives. Until their cousin Charles Blackwood arrives for a visit. He quickly disrupts their routine and while Constance seems charmed – or at least intrigued – Merricat is determined to make him leave. Over the course of his stay tensions build between Charles and Merricat until they erupt in an explosive confrontation.
Despite its short length – about 150 pages – We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a dense read. The reader experiences the story entirely through Merricat’s point of view, and you aren’t always sure what is real and what she’s imagined. The tension that builds over the course of the book is almost unbearable by the climax of the story, while the denouement is unsettling and creepy. You won’t be terrified by the book (at least, I wasn’t) but you will probably think about it for a while after you’ve finished reading it. For my first Jackson read, I enjoyed it. I look forward to reading The Haunting of Hill House later this month.