What is the author's style in We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson?

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is written from a first person point of view. Mary Katherine Blackwood is the narrator. She is an eighteen-year-old young woman, but she comes across as much younger and much more immature than eighteen. She lives with her older sister Constance and her Uncle Julian.

Mary Katherine Blackwood, also known as Merricat, is an unreliable narrator. An unreliable narrator cannot always be trusted to tell the reader the truth, either because she is deceitful or because she is mentally unstable and cannot see reality for what it is. Using an unreliable narrator in a mystery such as this is an effective way to get the reader involved in the action. The reader becomes a detective, cross-examining even the narrator on whom she depends for information.

Mary Katherine's perspective is such that she is looking back at the story, knowing full well how it ends. She refers occasionally to the present, which adds additional intrigue to the story. For example, she says that the library books on the shelf are months overdue, but at the beginning of the story we know that she goes to town twice a week to get new library books. This tells the reader that something has happened which doesn't allow them to go to town, and this increases the suspense.