"We have always lived in the castle" by Shirley Jackson (Penguin, 2009)

First published in 1962. Mary (18), sister Constance (28) and uncle Julian (wheelchaired and confused) live in a big house. Only Mary goes out - she walks into the village twice a week to shop. The villagers dislike her family though Stella in town is cordial to Mary. Something happened 6 years before. They receive a few regular visitors for tea. During Mrs Wright's visit we learn of a meal in the house where the sugar was laced with arsenic and many of the family died. Constance had prepared the food. A visitor suggests to Constance a plan to gradually re-integrate with society.

Uncle Julian is writing up the details of that fateful day. He repeats and discusses the details.

Mary's not allowed knives. She fantasises about living on the moon. One morning she thinks that making up 3 magic words (Melody, Gloucester, Pegasus) will protect her. Constance does the gardening and hordes food in the cellar. They have a routine -

• Monday - Constance and Mary neaten the house
• Tuesday - Mary goes to the village
• Wednesday - Mary checks the fence
• Thursday
• Friday - Mary goes to the village
• Saturday - Mary helps Constance
• Sunday - Mary checks her buried keepsakes

Cousin Charles arrives. Mary doesn't trust him. There's a fire, caused (accidentally?) by Mary. When it's out, the villagers ransack the house. Some want the girls dead. Uncle Julian is dead. As the 2 girls flee we learn that Mary was the poisoner. They return to check the damage. The ground floor's largely untouched except for vandalism. Mary thinks that the lettuce will need washing because of the ash, and that nobody had harmed the library books because there'd be a fine.

They barricade themselves in. Guilty villagers leave food at the front door. Nobody tries to enter. The 2 girls are so happy.

What does the house symbolise? Why did Constance happily take the blame (though she was acquitted)? Self vs Others, I presume.

Other reviews

• wishfullyreading
• David Barnett
• Zachary Houle (As a novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is flawed. Its central “mystery” is all too easy to figure out in the early goings. People come and go, and because Merricat is such a sociopathic figure, they are treated in an unflattering light — which adds a sense of one-dimensionality to the novel. And, to be honest, not a lot happens.)
• Murray Ewing (home is ... both a longed-for refuge from the world and a potential trap or prison — and in We Have Always Lived in the Castle that extends to other aspects of the home, with both family and food highly charged sources of nurture on the one hand, and suppression and control on the other.)
• goodreads