We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)

Merricat Blackwood lives in proud isolation with her sister Constance and ailing Uncle Julian, years after arsenic in the sugar bowl eliminated the rest of their family. Jackson crafts an exquisite, pitch-black domestic comedy through Merricat's deadpan, sociopathic logic. Her obsessive rituals, buryings of silver dollars and hostile village trips are quietly hysterical until you realise how deeply dangerous she truly is. The book leans towards psychological horror and venomous spite, with mob cruelty and arson stripping away every lingering trace of comfort.