SHIRLEY JACKSON - WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE

Image: author photo

Many pleasures and thrills in horror depend on the reader’s alignment with an outsider to whatever horrific happenings take place in the story; Dracula isn’t told from Dracula’s perspective, much less does it depict the normalcy, to Dracula, of his life. Shirley Jackson’s tale subverts the outsider-alignment paradigm by ushering the reader — swiftly, deftly, and with her mastery of narrative voice — directly into the shadowy world of the castle, where she holds us and asks us to consider the world on the shadows’ terms. The characters of the castle are sympathetic, nuanced, and possessing souls as only the finest literary characters do. Masterful. Read, September 2019.