Author
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson writes gothic and horror. We've read and reviewed 2 of Shirley Jackson's books, including The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, each scored and written up in full, with a clear verdict on who it's for.
The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson's 1959 ghost story works less by what it shows than by what it withholds: four strangers spend a summer in a house that may or may not be alive, and the real haunting happens inside one woman's head. It is the template most modern horror is still copying.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
by Shirley Jackson
Jackson's last novel is narrated by eighteen-year-old Merricat Blackwood, who lives with her sister and uncle in a grand house the village despises, six years after most of the family died at the dinner table. It is a gothic told entirely from inside a charming, frightening mind, and it never once flinches.