Bookatlas
1962
Cover of We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Shirley Jackson · 1916–1965 · United States

Why it matters

Two sisters live sealed away from a hostile village after a family poisoning, one of them narrating with eerie calm. Jackson's masterpiece of the domestic uncanny: 'The Lottery' grown into a whole strange world.

At a glance

gothicpsychological novel
Difficulty 4/10fast pace214 pages

Deceptively simple, eerie narration hides a slow-building unreliable perspective.

More by Shirley Jackson →

Deep dive

Two sisters, sealed away in a hostile village six years after a family poisoning, narrated by the younger one's eerily calm rituals of protection — Jackson's masterpiece of the domestic uncanny, grown out of the same instincts as 'The Lottery.'

Where to go next

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