Book #39: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Number of pages: 196
Merrycat (Mary-Kate) lives in a house with her sister Constance and their Uncle Julian; all three are somewhat reclusive, which seems to be a result of the rest of the family having been murdered, by arsenic-laced sugar. My understanding was that Uncle Julian had dementia, though this was never made explicit.
Constance was arrested for the crime, but later acquitted, though this has still resulted in them being the town paraiahs. Merricat only goes into town to get groceries, where she encounters hostility from locals, prefers the company of her pet cat and is prone to fantasy, imagining if all the townsfolk were dead, or if she lived on the moon. She also has some unusual superstitious habits, which include nailing items like books and watches to trees, apparently as a way of warding off bad luck.
The family live a relatively peaceful life, but this all changes when their cousin Charles comes to visit, sparking up a chain of events, mostly through his interference in their lives.
This was a book that was recommended in Richard and Judy's Keep Reading lockdown show, and I was really glad I read it; it felt like a book about the effects gossip can have on a person's life, and the whole stigma of being associated with some terrible thing, like Constance being accused of murder. This was a book where not a lot really happened, and most of the narrative (all from Merricat's point of view) was about its main character's thoughts and feelings, but I found it compelling.
I was surprised by the fact that it was also very funny in places, though for the most part it felt like quite a sad, melancholy novel, summed up most by Merricat telling Constance at one point: "What place would be better for us than this? Who wants us, outside? The world is full of terrible people". I think what made the events more tragic (from my point of view) was that when outsiders did try to help, the characters hid in the house and tried to push them away.
Overall, the only real issue I had with this book was that:
[Spoiler (click to open)]
There was a big plot twist that I guessed quite early on, and that was when the book made somewhat explicit late on (twice) that it was in fact Merricat who poisoned the whole family, putting the arsenic in the sugar because she knew Constance wouldn't touch it. The book didn't go into her precise motives behind her actions.
I would definitely read this book, and want to read more by Shirley Jackson; I'm considering The Bird's Nest and The Sundial. The overall plot and narrative put me in mind of the writings of both Edgar Allen Poe and Dapne duMaurier.
Next book: The Wild Rover by Mike Parker