First published 2014
A teenage orphan arrives at the grand estate of her great-grandmother, the formidable Great Granny Webster. The old woman rules her decaying aristocratic world with cold calculation and merciless self-interest. She has destroyed the lives around her through decades of manipulation and cruelty. The girl watches this domestic tyrant operate from her throne of privilege, observing how wealth and breeding can mask monstrous behavior. The great houses of the upper classes hide gothic secrets behind their elegant facades. Family members stumble through their ruined existences under the matriarch's icy gaze. The young narrator must navigate this poisonous environment while coming to terms with her own place in this twisted family legacy. Blackwood exposes the savage comedy lurking within aristocratic dysfunction, revealing how power corrupts across generations.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, gothic, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: domestic-tyrant, unreliable-narrator, wealth-and-privilege
Setting: Aristocratic Estate
Period: 20th Century
ebook · New York Review of Books
Content warnings: abuse, emotional-abuse