We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (Viking Press, 1962)
A friend recommended this extraordinary novella and I am a little ashamed to say I hadn’t heard of it beforehand. It’s such an immediate and surefire classic that it seems amazing that it hadn’t crossed my radar before.
This dark, funny and strange tale sadly proved to be Shirley Jackson’s final work. She died in 1965, aged just 48.
Here’s how it begins:
This hooked me from the get go.
The unreliable narrator – whose pet name is Merricat – proves to be a real enigma and remains something of a mystery right to the end. Continue reading
