Throwback Thursday: We have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

 

Author: Shirley Jackson
First published in 1962 by Viking Books

Visitors call seldom at Blackwood House. Taking tea at the scene of a multiple poisoning, with a suspected murderess as one's host, is a perilous business.

Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate.

I loved The Lottery and The Haunting of Hill House, so I was eager to try We Have Always lived in the Castle when it came up on my library's site on audio.  I am sad to say that I was pretty disappointed.  I guess I was expecting something a lot more creepy.  Instead, the book was pretty boring.   By the time I got halfway through, I didn't care what happened to Merricat, Constance, or Uncle Julian.  The "reveal" at the end was pretty easy to figure out.  There are enough hints in the book that it isn't a real big surprise.   I know that others seemed to love this one, but it just didn't do it for me.