We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Book Review
I recently borrowed “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”, by Shirley Jackson, on my kindle. (Yes, I know, I used to be a strong hater of reading on a screen too, but seriously you have to try it). I chose the book on a whim, scrolling through my local library’s options, and settled on it because I liked the cover. The book was originally published in 1962, and it was Shirley Jackson’s last published work as she died three years after its publication. The gothic/horror fiction novel has a 3.9 rating on Goodreads, although I personally rated it five stars!
The story focuses on the two remaining daughters and the sickly uncle of the Blackwood family: Constance, Mary Katherine (Merricat), and Uncle Julian. Oh, and of course we cannot forget Jonas, Merricat’s dearly beloved pet cat. The Blackwood family lives in isolation from the nearby village, accepting visitors only if they are old family friends. Merricat makes weekly trips to the village out of necessity, but Constance stays locked away in the Blackwood home, never venturing out the front door. Why?
Because Constance Blackwood, the eldest daughter of the Blackwood family, was accused and acquitted of murdering their family. The 28-year-old woman lives in hiding, unable to live a normal life after her family was poisoned by arsenic in the sugar, right at the dinner table, while they ate a meal Constance had prepared. Although she was acquitted of the crime and it was labelled an unsolved mystery, the village has never forgotten. They recoil from Merricat as she walks through the streets, acquiring food and necessities for the last few members of her family. The villagers taunt her, singing, “Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea? Oh no, said Merricat, you'll poison me...".
Merricat is our narrator for the entire story, and she is an odd girl. She is said to be eighteen, although as I was reading, I honestly forgot her age and thought her to be around twelve. She is extremely protective of her older sister and their isolated, entrapped lifestyles, and often puts measures in place that she believes will keep them safe from the angry world outside. She nails her dead father’s book to a tree, buries marbles and money, and has a very strict routine and rule set that she follows.
Constance and Merricat are extremely close, and it becomes clearer throughout the book how close they are. Constance is the eldest, and she cares for the home as well as her sister and uncle. Cooking is her specialty, and her favorite activity. She takes great pride in her vegetable garden, canned foods, and delicious meals. This is the number one reason that she was assumed to have put the arsenic in the sugar; she makes the food.
Merricat’s voice, while seeming younger than her age, is unique and entrancing, and probably the biggest reason that I gave the book a five-star rating. She speaks often of taking her sister to the moon, where everything is exactly as it should be. She holds fast to rules she has made for herself, like banning herself from her uncle’s room, when there is seemingly no reason to do so. Her voice as a narrator is whimsical, unsettling, and possibly unreliable. When the Blackwood’s cousin, Charles, randomly shows up at their front door one day, Merricat is immediately unsettled and on the alert. She wants him gone as soon as possible. She detects that he will ruin the careful bubble her and Constance have created around themselves and their home, and she does everything she can to get rid of him.
Constance is less easily persuaded. She is kind to Charles at first, and in return, their cousin sniffs around for money and lost fortune while berating Merricat and tearing Constance from her side, insisting she works too hard and that something “must be done” about the wild and strange Merricat.
Constance and Merricat’s relationship is possibly the most intriguing part of the story. From a reader’s perspective, it seems immediately odd that the two of them are so close when one is accused of murdering their family. In addition, the two girls are emotionally dependent on each other in a way that is most definitely strange and unhealthy. Constance often babies Merricat, adding to the impression that the 18-year-old is younger than she is. When her younger sister buries money, destroys cousin Charles’ room, or spends her days traipsing in the woods and nailing valuables to trees, Constance is unfazed. It seems her sister’s oddities go unnoticed or simply do not matter to Constance. The two of them cling to each other and their life in the Blackwood house, always confessing their affection for each other and never fighting.
The emotional entanglement that is displayed between the two sisters truly kept me interested throughout the whole story. Their separate reactions to Charles arriving and the chaos that ensues are indeed individual, but they bounce and weave with each other in a unique way that alludes to an unhealthy bond. Constance tries to listen to her cousin, feeling suddenly guilty about the state of their lives and of Merricat’s wildness, and in return Merricat grows frightened and resentful, wanting nothing more than to return to their perfect, routine bubble. However, she is never angry with Constance. Instead, it is Charles, and anything disrupting their routine, that is at fault. Even if Constance scolds her, which she never used to do, the girl’s immediate reaction is to try harder to force the change from her home by tormenting Charles. She is completely loyal to her older sister, and she refuses to submit to others and allow their secluded, entrapped lifestyle to fall apart.
The story is an eerie look into the home of two sisters who formed an intense and emotionally entangled bond once their family was mysteriously murdered. The characters are strange and the narrator is unpredictable. The book slowly reveals a twist at the end, but I won’t spoil! It is truly an incredibly told story with so many themes explored underneath the strange surface; mental illness, isolation, persecution, and unwavering loyalty are woven into the story in ways that feel so realistic and almost draw the reader into the world. I found myself not even catching that some of the things Merricat thought or said were odd because of how well the characters are written. The gothic setting and strange tone throughout the story kept me captivated and genuinely engrossed in the novel. Constance and Merricat are incredibly well-written characters with barely hidden flaws and oddities, and their raw narrations of their situation are impossible to look away from. “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” is a fantastic book, and I truly enjoyed my time reading it. I definitely recommend this book to anyone craving a strange and eerie read that will also elicit a chuckle or two!
