![]() ![]() ![]() Constance stood trial for their murder and was acquitted, but the locals haven’t let the incident go and even chant a cruel rhyme whenever Merricat comes into town for shopping: “Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea? / Oh, no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me.” Julian obsessively mulls over the details of the poisoning, building a sort of personal archive of tragedy, while in everyday life a curtain of dementia separates him from reality. Her older sister Constance does everything for her and for wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian, the only family they have left after most of their relatives died of poisoning six years ago. Narrator Merricat (Mary Katherine Blackwood) tells us in the first paragraph that she is 18, but she sounds and acts more like a half-feral child of 10 who makes shelters in the woods for her and her cat Jonas I wasn’t sure if I should understand her to be intellectually disabled, or willfully childish, or some combination thereof. ![]() I was expecting this to be more of the same from Jackson, but instead it’s a brooding character study of two sisters isolated by their scandalous family history and the suspicion of the townspeople. challenge I read The Haunting of Hill House, which is a terrific haunted house/horror novel, a genre I almost never read. post that I didn’t get a chance to finish: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962)Ī few years ago for the R.I.P. ![]() Novellas in November is here! Our first weekly theme is short classics. ![]()
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