This was just as delicious as "The Haunting of Hill House", with the added bonus that it has not been adapted into a weak Netflix series, so the magic in the pages remains intact. The best way I can think of describing the atmosphere of the book is that I spent about 80 pages trying to decide if the narrator, Merricat, was alive or dead. Shelving this as horror is probably misleading, too, though the hostility of the townsfolk and the denouement feel very in keeping with that genre. This concludes my 2-book introduction to Shirley Jackson. I am afraid to read any of her other books, in case they are not as good as these two. Change my mind.