From the Bookshelf of On Paths Unknown…

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Shirley Jackson

Start date: December 8, 2015

Discussion: AMERICAN/SOUTHERN GOTHIC

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AMERICAN/SOUTHERN GOTHIC

We Have Always Lived In The Castle ENDING SPOILERS Chapters 8, 9 and 10.
By Traveller · 79 posts · 229 views

last updated Jan 20, 2016 05:21AM

We Have Always Lived In The Castle Chapters 5, 6 and 7.
By Traveller · 39 posts · 20 views

last updated Dec 18, 2015 09:51AM

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Nov 10, 2021 BJ Lillis rated it it was amazing

Shelves: autumn, horror-and-suspense

This is an intoxicating and horrific book. At the heart of it all is Mary Katherine's voice—playful and violent, confident and defensive, observant and disconnected, honest and endlessly unreliable. I was enticed into sympathizing with her, if not quite into loving her; I could not help but see her enemies as my enemies, no matter how clear it became that she herself was the violent heart of her own brutal little world. And that ease with which Mary Katherine and I became intimate, despite every ...more

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Sep 27, 2016 Amy (Other Amy) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: they-burned-what, reviewed, sibling-study, war-of-the-sexes, 5-stars-favorites, team-villain-rights, crime-fi, library-i-love-you, assassins-vigilantes-and-murderers, woman-with-an-axe

I had always buried things, even when I was small; I remember that I had once quartered the long field and buried something in each quarter to make the grass grow higher as I grew taller, so I would always be able to hide there. I once buried six blue marbles in the creek bed to make the river beyond run dry. "Here is treasure for you to bury," Constance used to say to me when I was small, giving me a penny, or a bright ribbon; I had buried all my baby teeth as they came out one by one and perha I had always buried things, even when I was small; I remember that I had once quartered the long field and buried something in each quarter to make the grass grow higher as I grew taller, so I would always be able to hide there. I once buried six blue marbles in the creek bed to make the river beyond run dry. "Here is treasure for you to bury," Constance used to say to me when I was small, giving me a penny, or a bright ribbon; I had buried all my baby teeth as they came out one by one and perhaps someday they would grow as dragons. All our land was enriched with my treasures buried in it, thickly inhabited just below the surface with my marbles and my teeth and my colored stones, all perhaps turned to jewels by now, held together under the ground in a powerful taut web which never loosened, but held fast to guard us.

This is, quite simply, fantastic. I picked it up on a whim, really knowing nothing about it, because The Haunting of Hill House always has a wait list at the library and I thought this would do. Did it ever! I could easily have downed this in one sitting if I hadn't had some social obligations to meet, and you know it's been a while since I've been really excited about a book. (It's low praise to say that something is one of the best things I've read in 2016, but this is, and I think it would have held its own in a better year as well.) I really do think you should read it with no warning like I did; it rather defies genre and I think trying to wedge it into mystery or horror or haunted house or what have you while you read would bring disappointment. (Maybe just stop reading this review and go pick it up.)

If I had to say what it is? It's like Miss Havisham and Caddy Compson getting to tell their side of the story. Like watching the House of Usher become, well, the House of Usher. A sort of making-of, if you will. It's a study of evil, and a kind of how to manual for living with madness and desolation and total ostracization. (Not that you'd want to socialize. God, the neighbors, you know?) The whole thing has a very 'what the hell is this?' feel to it, with nary a decent person anywhere in sight.

So, yeah. Good book. Give it a go. ...more

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