Laura’s Favourite Book #3: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
There had not been this many words sounded in our house for a long time, and it was going to take a while to clean them out. – Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Why We Have Always Lived in the Castle?
Well, why not? That would be my instinctive answer to that particular question. I had read The Haunting of Hill House first as it is Jackson’s most famous work, but after falling in love with her writing, my next pick, the best possible pick, was Castle.
As I’ve said before, I ended up writing my Masters dissertation on Jackson’s unreliable narrators and Castle’s Mary Katherine ‘Merricat’ Blackwood is arguably the most unreliable of them all. She lies by omission, she has violent fantasies, and she’s oddly infantilised for an eighteen-year-old, and yet…
And yet, we are always on her side in this old country pile as it’s invaded by a long-lost cousin.
Story
I’ll try to minimise spoilers, but beware anyway.
We very quickly learn that several years ago, most of the Blackwood family were murdered in their own home – poisoned, apparently by Merricat’s older sister Constance who was arrested but eventually acquitted. Since then, the remaining Blackwoods have been isolated and ostracised…
Until cousin Charles come to stay.
When Charles infiltrates the family, Merricat fights back with various acts of guerilla vandalism.
Fantasy and reality blur as Merricat (Jackson’s only major first person POV) drip-drips various clues about what really happened to the Blackwoods until, like Rebecca, the house goes up in flames and the sisters are left alone, content, maybe even satisfied, after the violent catharsis.
It’s a deeply feminist book: the sisters, who are very witch-coded deal with this menacing, male invader who wishes to subjugate what scraps of the family remain. I highly recommend the 2018 film – there is a change to the end, but it is one I agree with.
Character
There are the Blackwoods and there are the villagers. I won’t spend too long on the villagers, who only appear in a handful of scenes, but the majority of them are evidently small-minded to the point of cruelty, which makes us root for the Blackwoods’ survival even more.
In terms of the surviving Blackwoods, there’s Uncle Julian, who has been both physically and mentally disabled by the poisoning that killed the others, Constance, the sweet, unassuming older sister accused of the murders, Merricat, our narrator, and Charles, the cousin.
I love a good dysfunctional family dynamic, but interestingly at the beginning of the book, the Blackwoods are getting along swimmingly. Uncle Julian is charming and easily indulged, Constance is an excellent homemaker, and Merricat is happy to hang up her talismans and play with her cat, Jonas. There’s something deeply endearing about the way they just rattle on together in their routines…
Routines which are rudely disturbed by cousin Charles (who is played with just the right amount of obsequious charm by Sebastian Stan in the 2018 film).
Charles reminds the sisters of their late father. A strong man. In both senses of the word. This means he seduces Constance while utterly repulsing Merricat, with whom his battle of wits begins. It’s abundantly apparent that Charles is there for the family money and maybe for Constance’s hand in marriage. He’s a dominant, oppressive presence who even ingratiates himself with the Blackwoods’ enemies, the villagers, and so Merricat’s war against him rapidly escalates.
From that point on, the family dynamic very much is dysfunctional as we watch Charles’ blunt brute force smash up against Merricat’s passive-aggressive outbursts, while Constance tries to appease both of them and Uncle Julian becomes increasingly confused about who’s living and who’s dead.
Obviously I can’t go any further without delving into Merricat. In the 2018 adaptation, she’s played by Taissa Farmiga as autistic-coded and I would be tempted to agree with this characterisation. Routines are exceptionally important to her, she has very particular interests, and she’s extremely sensitive to stimuli. Not to mention that any perceived loss of control sends her off the deep end, as demonstrated by Charles’ arrival and continued presence in the house. Having said that, there are absolutely arguments to be made that she’s a psychopath or a sociopath – either way, she’s definitely neurodivergent.
There’s obviously a darkness to Merricat but also a real vulnerability that we see when she has to face the villagers or Charles. She makes it explicitly clear that she deeply loves Constance and Jonas, while she also reminds herself to be nice to Uncle Julian. She’s weird but endearing enough to make the reader excuse any gaps in her story and a bit like Maxim in Rebecca, once we know the truth, we don’t turn against her. In fact, we think she’s absolutely justified.
Setting
As usual, my favourite books have one big thing in common: a beautifully Gothic setting.
In this case, it’s the Blackwood estate, locked away from the prying eyes of the village. Like Jackson’s other novels, it’s set somewhere in New England, which conjures up ideas of gloomy, silvery skies, fog wrapping around skeletal trees, that Salem-inflected darkness that you don’t exactly find under the California or Florida sun.
I would also like to shout out the cellar of the house, which is the perfect representation of the family and their psychology – this family is rooted to this land and it will not be moved:
The entire cellar of our house was filled with food…
All the Blackwood women had taken the food that came from the ground and preserved it, and the deeply colored rows of jellies and pickles and bottled vegetables and fruit, maroon and amber and dark rich green, stood side by side in our cellar and wood stand there forever, a poem by the Blackwood women. Each year Constance and Uncle Julian and I had jam or preserve or pickle that Constance had made, but we never touched what belonged to the others; Constance said it would kill us if we ate it.
The description is full of foreshadowing but also, it’s just beautiful. There’s a history and a weight to this place and these characters that’s disturbing but also seductive.
Dysfunctional families in old houses: Coldharbour edition
As you may have noticed, Castle has also been a significant influence on my writing, so here’s a glimpse into 1 St Augustines, Coldharbour:
Alex nodded and leant back on the front door, letting Elizabeth across the threshold, although she hadn’t been expecting…
This.
Elizabeth had been charging into, well, just about anywhere like she owned the place, but now…
Now she was taking tentative step after tentative step down the hallway and into the study, like a child creeping into somewhere they shouldn’t be.
Something Alex knew all too well.
But then the study was exactly as she’d left it that day in 1990.
The huge wooden ottoman under the wonky window, the cushion still faded in its vibrancy. The bookcase, covering the left wall. The table, sturdy and time-battered, in the centre of the room. The floorboards, creaking with every step.
“One of those houses,” Elizabeth murmured.
“It does its own thing,” Alex said, “Did warn you. The study’s alright though.”
“So the study is safe, but the rest of the house?”
“I don’t think the house likes me anymore,” Alex confessed, “I demolished it. Nine years ago. On my wedding day. What was my wedding day.”
“It’s still standing,” Elizabeth said, tapping the edge of her stiletto against a flaking floorboard.
“I resurrected it,” Alex said, “With a single breath and a wave of my hand. The wood was burning with burgundy fire and the brick was crumbling into ash. And I was picking sawdust out of my ears for weeks.”
“Can I ask…”
“Someone broke my heart.”
