Horror Home Run
A Review of We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
STAR RATING: ✰✰✰✰✰
Spoiler-free review.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle is an unsurprising home run for Jackson.
The novel describes the daily lives of sisters Constance and Mary Katherine Blackwood, who spend their days in a robotic routine after the death of their entire family--except for their senile Uncle. The nature of their family’s death is mysterious and rarely discussed, and even more fascinating is the hatred the townsfolk feel for the sisters and their family, which serves as part of the driving force keeping the sisters isolated in their extravagant home. There’s a feeling like something is very wrong here, like how Constance is almost in a trance-like state, and when she breaks free on occasion readers find themselves uncomfortable, like we’re being reminded their daily lives aren’t normal. Overall there’s an eerie feeling, like you’re just waiting for something bad to happen.
The protagonist, Mary Katherine, isn’t quite an unreliable narrator but she’s close to it.1 We see the world through her eyes, and even though she’s been orphaned and isolated, she feels no grief; only anger and a strange (almost abusive) protection over elder sister. She lives her life in delusion and rage. We feel sympathy for her, but we also feel scared of her.
The townsfolk are mean and cruel, yet they’re also afraid of the Blackwood sisters. They serve as both a foreboding force reminding us of the power of social outcasting, and as a tool for showing us the control the mostly unmentioned Blackwood family had on their town. Readers are skeptical when the townsfolk show kindness, though I still can’t tell if that’s because of Mary Katherine’s beautifully warped narrations or not. They don’t seem to be all bad, but something even scarier; they’re undeniably human, and this kept me on edge.
The pacing of the book is slow, particularly in the middle. This can be hard for some readers, but if you stay tuned, it will be worth it.
2025 EDIT: She is an unreliable narrator. I don’t know what I was smoking when I wrote she wasn’t.
I think Merricat is definitely unreliable. Part of her appeal is not knowing whether to trust her narration. And she’s also my favorite character in all of horror literature. What I love most about We Have Always Lived in the Castle is that none of the usual horror story tropes show up, nothing paranormal for instance, but it’s as creepy as if tarantulas were crawling all over it. Jackson excelled at the horror of mundane evil. Getting that horror from Merricat is the master stroke.