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Explore membershipsWe Have Always Lived in the Castle
Narrator
Bernadette Dunne
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Length
5 hours 32 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“The perfect book for your inner Wednesday Adams. As always, Jackson is master of creating a creepy, unreal atmosphere bubbling with foreboding and dread. What sets her apart from other horror writers, however, is her empathy for the outsider. In other stories, Jackson's characters are the monsters lurking in the dark. Instead, they're the heroes, standing alone against a cold and hostile world.”
— Katherine • Bookshop Santa Cruz
Bookseller recommendation
“Constance is the conventional, yet suspected, sister; Mary Katherine—nicknamed Merricat—is the weird one. Or so people think. This portrait of an unconventional sibling relationship, one affected by outside opinions about whether Constance poisoned the family some years ago, is a twentieth-century gothic masterpiece. What I love most here is the lively, somewhat feral voice Jackson gives to Merricat. ”
— Steve • Tsunami Books
Bookseller recommendation
“Siblings Constance and Mary Catherine are the main characters in this book. Delusion and isolation are the main themes. Jackson so well articulates the reality and falsehood of a shunned, deceased, wealthy family.”
— Otillia • Page 1 Books
Bookseller recommendation
“Shirley Jackson is the queen of domestic horror! This book is so claustrophobic and suspenseful, even though it's mostly just characters sitting around chatting & doing everyday chores. I loved every elegant, sinister, appalling line. Read if you like quiet horror, unlikeable main characters, judgmental small towns, and societal ostracism and isolation. ”
— Isabelle • Scorpio Books
Bookseller recommendation
“Deeply eerie and deeply beautiful! Shirley Jackson sustains a mood and turns a phrase like no other. This book also features one of the best opening lines of all-time...!”
— Lydia • House of Books & Friends
Shirley Jackson’s deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family takes readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, macabre humor, and gothic atmosphere.
Six years after four family members died suspiciously of arsenic poisoning, the three remaining Blackwoods—elder, agoraphobic sister Constance; wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian; and eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine, or, Merricat—live together in pleasant isolation. Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic to guard the estate against intrusions from hostile villagers. But one day a stranger arrives—cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune—and manages to penetrate into their carefully shielded lives. Unable to drive him away by either polite or occult means, Merricat adopts more desperate methods, resulting in crisis, tragedy, and the revelation of a terrible secret.
Jackson’s novel emerges less as a study in eccentricity and more—like some of her other fictions—as a powerful critique of the anxious, ruthless processes involved in the maintenance of normalcy itself.
Shirley Jackson (1916–1965), a celebrated writer of horror, wrote such classic novels as We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House, as well as one of the most famous short stories in the English language, “The Lottery.” Her work has been adapted to film, television, and theater and has influenced generations of writers that followed.
Bernadette Dunne is the winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and has twice been nominated for the prestigious Audie Award. She studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and the Studio Theater in Washington, DC, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center and off Broadway.
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Audiobook details
Author:
Shirley Jackson
Narrator:
Bernadette Dunne
ISBN:
9781481553650
Length:
5 hours 32 minutes
Language:
English
Publisher:
Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:
March 10, 2010
Edition:
Unabridged
Libro.fm rank:
#1,376 Overall
Genre rank:
#41 in Classics
Reviews
“A witch’s brew of eerie power and startling novelty.”
“In her art, as in her life, Shirley Jackson was an absolute original. She listened to her own voice, kept her own counsel, isolated herself from all intellectual and literary currents…She was unique.”
“I have always felt that some writers should be read and never reviewed. Their talent is haunting and oblique; their mastery of the craft seems complete…And now, Miss Jackson has made it even more difficult for a reviewer to seem pertinent; all he can do is bestow praise.”
“Bernadette Dunne, her voice all sweetness and smiles with only the slightest tinge of the sinister, gives a fully vocalized reading that enhances the increasing unsettling plot.”
“This story is a happy combination: a gripping listen matched to a narrator who delivers the story perfectly. While it’s not action packed, thrilling, tense, or any of those other adjectives usually applied to a mystery, one just cannot switch it off…It’s a compelling journey to the depths of the human soul, with an ethereal narration that almost defies description. Just listen.”
“Jackson’s novel emerges less as a study in eccentricity and more—like some of her other fictions—as a powerful critique of the anxious, ruthless processes involved in the maintenance of normality itself.”
“Bernadette Dunne’s reading is flawlessly paced and suspenseful. The voices she provides the cast of characters are spot on: precocious Merricat is haunted and increasingly desperate; Constance is doting but detached; Uncle Julian is both pleasantly dotty and utterly unnerving; and Charles is the conniving villain listeners will love to hate. A treat for fans of mystery and suspense.”
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