Horror Novel, Good Read… We Have Always Lived In The Castle

It’s Beautifully Melancholic Macabre

Once I began reading, I couldn’t stop. Sad, not in a crying way, but in that somehow beautiful melancholic way. It’s depiction of comfort coming from a routine of mundane things we do in life. At some points delving into great detail of setting the table for tea, making a list for the market, and gardening. All of which sound like they’d make for a dull read- they aren’t at all. 

The classification of this being a horror story is surprising. Yes, the whole story is about the death of an entire family. But it isn’t scary in a slasher sort of way. It’s more unsettling in it’s sadness.

The novel, narrated in first-person by 18-year-old Mary Katherine “Merricat” Blackwood, tells the story of the Blackwood family and an terrible event that took place some years before the book begins. 

Award Winning Fiction Character
Author Shirley Jackson would’ve been proud to know (had she been living long enough) that the character of Mary Katherine was included at number 71 in Book Magazine’s list of the best characters in fiction since 1900. This was actually Shirley Jackson’s final book, penned one year before she passed.

A Sliver About The Story& Characters
Merricat, her elder sister Constance, and their ailing uncle Julian live in a large house on large grounds, in isolation from the nearby village. Constance has not left their home in six years, going no farther than her large garden… 

I won’t tell you any more than that. The author does a much better job at getting into the intricacies of each character and the reasons why they do what they do and what’s shaped them to become themselves.

Check it out  We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

And if you have any good October reads, please comment and tell me what they are.