Welcome back our dear readers. Sorry for the extended absence and thank you for your patience. We at Umbra Ex Libris enjoyed a very busy summer leaving us little time to write. But, here we are back and hopefully better than ever! For our returning post I am writing a book review on Shirley Jackson’s, We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
Shirley Jackson wrote three well known stories. She wrote a short story called The Lottery about a small town who hosts a lottery to decide who gets stoned to death in the town. Another story you might know is The Haunting of Hill House which many consider one of the best literary ghost stories of the 1900’s. Netflix made a show based on this book that many people, including myself, loved. Lastly, she wrote this book three years prior to her death.
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On our monthly stroll through Barnes and Noble, the cover of We Have Always Lived in the Castle caught my eye immediately. I know you aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover, but the cover art caught my attention and I just had to have it. I started reading it as soon as I got home.
The Summary
18 year old Mary Katherine Blackwood lives in a castle with her agoraphobic older sister, Constance, and her dementia ridden uncle, Julian. Prior to the start of the story, someone put arsenic mixed in a sugar bowl. The family ate sugar on their blackberries and died. Mary Katherine survived because she was not present at dinner. Constance survived because she didn’t put sugar on her berries and their uncle survived because he only used a little sugar. The arsenic negatively affected Uncle Julian’s health. This left him obsessed with the family tragedy and vows to write a memoir about it.
The police put Constance on trial for the murder because she didn’t eat any sugar and she washed the sugar bowl making her seem guilty. She was acquitted for the crime and since lived in isolation at the castle. Mary Katherine is the adventurous type going on biweekly grocery trips and exploring the lands surrounding the castle while her sister is the homebody who cooks cleans and gardens for the remaining family. The murders of the Blackwoods left the entire town suspicious and scared of the sisters.
Mary Katherine begins to sense a change to their lifestyle coming and becomes worried. She does not want Constance to leave the castle because she’s worried for her sister. In the following days their cousin arrives to visit and Mary Katherine becomes increasingly uneasy and hostile towards their cousin. Their cousin starts sleeping in their father’s old room and starts wearing his clothes and using his watch. Their cousin convinces Constance to trust him and tries to increase her confidence to go and see the outside world all while trying to steal the family fortune.
One night in anger at her cousin, Mary Katherine pushes his tobacco pipe into the trash can filled with newspapers. This causes the house to catch on fire. The town firefighters come to help put it out, but then the villagers ransack the girls home destroying and stealing things. After cleaning and doing what they could to salvage the house the girls lock themselves away from the rest of the town and watch the world go on without them from a peephole they made. The villagers bring them food to apologize and try and coax them out of the house but they remain sealed away in their castle of solitude.
The Good
Three things really stood out to me in this book. I enjoyed the mystery and minor suspense, the language used, and the characters. The mystery of trying to figure out what happened to the Blackwood family and who killed them kept me invested in this book. Trying to figure out why the town hated the girls so much also kept me involved in the story.
Jackson uses flowery language along with descriptive similes and metaphors hard to find in other mystery/thriller books. Here is an example.
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Often, I imagined her paragraphs and sentences were akin to poetry. Some sentences took more than one read to understand the vivid imagery.
Lastly, she wrote very colorful characters. Constance and Mary Katherine were strange in a good way. They reminded me of an anxiety ridden Wednesday Adams. They each felt fears and anxieties, had a set schedule they didn’t like to deviate from and each had their own jobs. Julian’s obsession with his memoir kept me entertained and hoping he would finish it.
The Bad
Unfortunately, the bad takes a lot away from the story. I felt the story dragging on because nothing really happens until the very end of the book. The day to day life of the sisters and Mary Katherine’s constant talking about how she doesn’t want things to change slows the pace of an already short story. The first few chapters are slow and I kept asking myself what’s the point of all of this. The plot of the story is very small and the girls do not go through much character development.
The second to last chapter had an exciting plot twist I didn’t see coming. However Jackson did nothing with it, just mentioned it. Lastly, the mystery of why the Blackwood’s were murdered was never touched on. Some say it’s hinted but the hints do not clarify the reason. Unlike the book, the movie explains why and goes more into depth about it than the book does. However, for those that liked the ambiguity of the book I can see that causing a dislike for the movie.
The Review
While I found this book an interesting and intriguing classic, I did find the main plot to be too short. Not much happened in the book until the very end. Jackson added nice depth to the characters and gave enough mystery to keep me engaged, but I did put the book down a few times because I felt slightly bored. I would recommend this book to classic and mystery enjoyers along with people who like shorter books.
6/10 A decent read.
Do you have a book recommendation for us? Do you disagree with my rating? Let us know down in the comments! We haven’t heard from you in a while and would love to chat!
As always, happy reading!