Today, Shirley Jackson, best known for “The Lottery,” but whose stylish, edge-wise view of life extended to many other novels and several clear-eyed (and hilarious) takes on family life.
“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead.”
The kickoff of We Have Always Lived in The Castle.
A Few Reasonable Words 