We have always lived in the castle - by Shirley Jackson book review

Rating 5/5

Genre: Gothic, horror, suspense 

This is a story where two young sisters,under the pretext of desiring safety, turn themselves into ghosts in their tomb like castle/mansion. The story is narrated in the first person account of the younger sister, Mary Katherine. She has a desperate and compulsive need to remain safe and isolated..to have a predictability to things and persons in her life. She cares little for the loss of property,wealth and valuables as long as there is no infringement into her secure world from the outside. I thought at various points that she must be quite mad. Her sister, Constance, is as quirky as her in wanting security but is more open to allowing strangers inside their closed bubble of life.

At the start of the story, in the old mansion of the Blackwoods, three people are shown to be living a contented life filled with routine activities and with little to no contact with the outside. Constance, Mary Katherine(called Merricat by her sister lovingly) and their old, senile uncle Julian. Most of the cooking and house hold chores are done by Constance, Julian mostly is seen to be occupied with writing or arranging his papers,Merricat gets groceries from the village, plays with her cat and sets up secret hiding places for herself in the woods around their house. Merricat hates change and people on the outside. Anyone who is not Constance. She has to remind herself to be kind to uncle Julian several times. When she makes her visit to the village to get groceries, everyone she meets sneers at her, mocks and laughs at the sisters ..she escapes the taunts in silence but filled with hatred and disgust. So we learn eventually that something has happened to the family about six years ago. Someone mixed arsenic into the sugar at their family table and saving these three, the other members of the family perish. The blame falls onto Constance. A trial happens but she is aquitted of the crime. But ever since they live in a self outcast isolation - only venturing into the world as when needed. 

Once their cousin Charles pays them a friendly visit. He tells them he has come to stay with them for a few days and wishes to be of a helping hand in the household chores. But i think he saw the vulnerability of the girls who care little for the wealth they possess and the old man who is quite mad and dependant on them for his care.. so he decides to make a long term settlement in the house. He contrives to take control the house and order them around. He becomes an unbearable pain to both Julian and Merricat and they must get rid of him. What happens then? How do they rid themselves of a menace in the form of Charles? What do they have left in the house after a fire breaks out and how they adjust to their new life inorder to regain their lost sense of security??

I loved the book..the dark mind of Merricat and protective love between the sisters. I had my doubts towards the end..how would the girls get their supply of groceries if they never step out of their house. How are they really secure inside a locked house if outsiders can easily break in and enter. How long can they sustain  a life devoid of outside contact and is a sense of temporary security worth the pains they have gone to in securing that security.