It begins straightforwardly, with our narrator’s name-a somewhat old-fashioned way of opening a book, appropriate for our somewhat old-fashioned, or at least sheltered, perhaps even stunted, narrator. You must have a certain sensibility to truly appreciate its charms. It almost seems like overkill to explain why this paragraph is so wonderful. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. 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 am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. During her lifetime, she wrote “The Lottery,” and The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the latter of which features what I consider to be the best first paragraph of all time, or at least of any novel that I have ever read. One hundred and one years ago today, Shirley Jackson was born.
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