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 my family is dead.

If that opening paragraph hasn't sold you, I'm not sure what else I can say. Shirley Jackson is a writer who makes me almost furious with love and envy; I know I'll never be that good, but at least I get to read someone who is.

The narrative proper begins with Merricat and Constance and their uncle Julian living in a large house on the outskirts of a small New England village where everyone loathes and fears them for reasons that aren't initially clear. Constance is agoraphobic and unable to leave their property, and Julian has cognitive and mobility impairments and requires constant care. Merricat seems obviously autistic, but is the family's only connection to the world outside their home, so she bears the brunt of the villagers' hateful stares and cruel comments when she ventures out for groceries and library books. Nonetheless, their life together is stable and predictable (as Merricat needs it to be)—until their estranged cousin Charles shows up and threatens to tear that stability apart.

I had this book under horror on my list, but it might also be categorized as a gothic mystery. What happened to the rest of the family? We hear one story of their demise early on, but the more we learn, the less it adds up. If it's not horror, though, it's at least horror adjacent, and one thing I loved about it is how it turns its horror tropes on their heads, using them to emphasize the power of the esoteric feminine and to align the narrative's sympathies with people who have been ostracized and rejected as monstrous.

spoilery thoughts

The villagers think Constance poisoned the other family members, but I never believed that. The fact that Merricat killed them and Constance covered it up is... I mean, it's barely even a twist, everything points to it. Means, motive, opportunity. But until it's spoken aloud, we don't really know, just as it seems it isn't quite real to Constance either until she says the words.

I see this book as a subversion of misogynist horror tropes—it's folk horror from the point of view of the witches. You see the townsfolk creating their myth of the murderous woman, complete with a Lizzie Borden-like playground rhyme and a dilapidated house that the kids dare each other to go near. Merricat uses magic of her own devising to protect herself (or she tries to) and Jackson names the image out loud, casually describing the sisters as looking like witches when they return from cleaning carrying their broomsticks. They represent contrasting feminine archetypes, with Constance as the tame and domestic caretaker who does not leave the home, and Merricat as the wild girl of magic and nature, accompanied by her familiar, Jonas the cat. Merricat's psychological and magickal battle to cleanse her home of the presence of greedy Cousin Charles is a battle to exert her will, to maintain female control and banish patriarchy once again.

Another angle the book takes on the ostracism of those seen as abnormal is that of disability. All three protagonists are disabled—Julian in his very visible wheelchair, Constance with her agoraphobia, and Merricat so clearly neurodivergent. I realize this was written in 1962 so this may not have been exactly how Jackson would have described her intentions, but for me as a reader the theme is very strong. To me it's the key to the sister's relationship. Why does Merricat love Constance, why did she spare her? Because Constance accepted her differences instead of punishing her for them. I loved that Julian got his moment of power too, telling Charles off so satisfyingly and refusing to be dismissed or controlled.

The horror of the book is in the proverbial villagers with pitchforks, coming for the ones they see as monsters, to kill them with fire. But the triumph of the book is that they fail. The sisters' happy ending isn't to conform to the norms of the outside world, it's to make their own world together even it's not one that others would understand. And in the end the villagers capitulate to it, even leaving gifts at their door which are framed as shamefaced apologies, but reading more like superstitious offerings to keep the witches' wrath appeased. These women are not nice, they're not safe, they're not under society's control—but they've won, even if to accomplish that they've had to go to unthinkable extremes.

This psychological horror game opens with a man named Max making an incredible discovery and rushing home to tell his wife, but finding that his car's brakes have been sabotaged, causing him to run off the road and crash. He awakens in a dilapidated sanitarium with complete amnesia, surrounded by neglected psychiatric patients and having no idea who he is or how he got there. Exploring the place, he discovers portals to surreal realms—a creepy town populated by disfigured children, a traveling circus threatened by an escaped monster... But every time Max awakens back in the sanitarium, calm and reassuring Dr. Morgan is there to tell him that these are just delusions and he needs help. But Max's experiences trigger memories that suggest Morgan is not trustworthy. The goal of the game is to figure out what is real and who Max and Morgan really are.



This is a new game to me, suggested by cielsosinfel. I was certainly aware of it when it came out (it got great reviews and won awards) but back then I didn't really play horror games and I thought it would be too scary. But then I was 16, and now I am a brave individual of advanced years with many pixel-scares under my belt, so let's dive in.

( cut for length )

Sanitarium is on Steam for $12.99 USD and on GOG for $9.99. The Steam release is a port that runs natively on modern operating systems, while the version on GOG runs on the ScummVM emulator. I played the Steam version and the game did crash once, so I recommend saving often regardless.