Sometimes you don’t love every single book by an author, even if said author is as amazing as Shirley Jackson. I struggled through reading The Road Through the Wall and kept wondering when the horrific deaths promised on the cover would happen (and thinking one of the mothers just had to be a portrait of Geraldine Jackson). I thought The Road Through the Wall would be my least favorite Shirley Jackson novel and then I re-read The Sundial over the weekend. Folks, I think I have a clear winner.

The Sundial is about the very nasty and wealthy Halloran family living in their almost feudal estate. Lionel Halloran has died and his mother Orianna has seized control of the estate and getting ready to wreck havoc on her little kingdom. All hail Queen Orianna. Then Aunt Fanny, spinster and Orianna’s sister-in-law has a vision of doom and destruction for everyone not on the estate. There go Orianna’s plans and to make matters even more fun, Orianna’s old “friend” Mrs Willow and her adult daughters come for a visit. Of course everything goes to pieces.

I can’t stand any of the characters and would love love LOVE to see them all perish in a fiery doom about five pages into the book. The only time I cared about the characters was when Mrs Willow refers to her and Orianna’s past as “bad girls”. Okay, Mrs Willow, tell me more…were you and Queen Orianna semi-amateur or professional “bad girls”? Did Orianna snare Richard Halloran with the old “I’m in the family way” trick?Mrs Willow should be hanging out with Cathy from East of Eden and showing her two leech daughters how to earn their livings with the gold mine they’re sitting on. She might be my favorite person in the book. Okay, Mrs Willow should totally be spared from a fiery doom. Fancy is a devil brat that might even give hell spawn from the bowels of the deepest pits of Hell my old friend Eloise pause. Maybe Orianna should reconsider her decision of having Fancy as her heir. Fancy is thisclose to taking a page from Rhoda in The Bad Seed. Fancy also reminds me of some of the worst high on Pixie Stix and Red Bull brats from Toddlers and Tiaras. Orianna isn’t exactly a prize either and my Mental Casting Agent kept seeing her as combination of the Grandmother from V.C. Andrew’s Dollanganger series mixed in with a huge dollop of Joan Collins circa 1983.

I am certain The Sundial has deep meanings and my tiny primitive brain is too coarse and village like to handle a novel of it’s scope. Then again I am certain that I should have listened to my gut feeling and not requested the darn thing through the inter-library loan system. For those of finer sensibilities and highly sensitive brains, enjoy The Sundial. Me? I’m going to eat the lovely Starbucks chocolate chip cookie Blacklight bought me and curl up with Stephen King’s Nightmares & Dreamscapes…