We Have Always Lived in the Castle
by Shirley Jackson (1962)
2022 reads, 8/20:
Truly a haunting book, with a thrilling ride in the latter half. I had seen the film a few years ago, but it didn’t have much of an impact on me, so I had forgotten most of the plot. The book better captures that lingering fear throughout, in my opinion – it definitely felt like something dreadful was always lurking around the corner (thanks to Merricat’s pseudo-extrasensory ‘skills’).
The book does start off a bit slow, but the arrival of Cousin Charles really sets things into motion. Many things are left open to the reader’s interpretation, partially because of unreliable and eccentric narrator Merricat, but also because of Jackson’s writing. The writing for events occurring in the present are well-articulated, but passages describing the past are very ambiguous, something that Jackson likely did on purpose. This allows the reader to speculate what might have gone on in the past, and how those events affect the plot.
Mild spoilers ahead: I wish I remembered where I read this, but someone mentioned that this book is like the prequal of how houses become haunted, and how urban legends get started in small towns; an idea I’ve really come to appreciate.
“I remember that I stood on the library steps holding my books and looking for a minute at the soft hinted green in the branches against the sky and wishing, as I always did, that I could walk home across the sky instead of through the village.”
FILM REWATCH: After rewatching the film after this read, it was definitely better than I remember, but didn’t capture a lot of mysteriousness the book had to offer. Book: 4/5 stars, movie: 2.5/5 stars.