For a debut novel, The Road Through the Wall is a fascinating and layered read that gives the reader a snapshot of suburban life just out of San Francisco during the summer in the 1930s. 

This book is heavily character driven, and most of these characters are deeply flawed adults in the process of raising deeply flawed children who will no doubt be awful people as well. 

It's clear that Jackson was possessed with a razor sharp sense of humor as dark as it was dry right from the start because you can practically feel the contempt she had for these characters as they talked down their noses to everyone else in the neighborhood despite the utter dysfunction they lived in behind closed doors. 

The book culminates in a shocking way that I didn't see coming, which I think was probably a way for Jackson to drive home the commentary found throughout the book. 

I highly recommend this if you're a fan of dark, transgressive lit fic because this is pretty far removed from The Haunting of Hill House.