“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead.”
What a little gem of a gothic, scary novel!
Mary Katherine, known as Merricat, is a young lady who lives in this big house with her sister Connie and her invalid uncle. They are kind of recluse after Connie is accused of having poisoned and killed all the rest her family including mother.father, brother and aunt. The story is told by Merricat herself and she has a very authoritative voice, even if she also sounds very young and immature for her age. She seems very fragile and gentle at the beginning, but then her wild side comes up pretty quickly.
A great Halloween read. creepy and weird, very well written.
“I can’t help it when people are frightened,” says Merrycat. “I always want to frighten them more”.
Overall rating: 8,5 Plot: 8,5 Writing style: 8,5 Cover: 7
Title: We have always lived in the castle
Living in the Blackwood family home with only her sister Constance and her Uncle Julian for company, Merricat just wants to preserve their delicate way of life. But ever since Constance was acquitted of murdering the rest of the family, the world isn't leaving the Blackwoods alone. And when Cousin Charles arrives, armed with overtures of friendship and a desperate need to get into the safe, Merricat must do everything in her power to protect the remaining family.
The Author:
Shirley Hardie Jackson (December 14, 1916 – August 8, 1965) was an American writer. She was popular during her life, and her work has received increased attention from literary critics in recent years. When her short story The Lotterywas first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail; it has since become one of the most iconic American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by five more: Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial,The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, widely seen as her masterpiece. In addition to her dark, brilliant novels, she wrote lightly fictionalized magazine pieces about family life with her four children and her husband, the critic Stanley Edgar Hyman. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep in 1965 at the age of 48.
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