Cassandra Austin is a homesick Australian who lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. The author of two previous novels with Penguin Random House Australia, she worked as a criminologist and documentary film-maker, before deciding to pursue a career in writing. Her new book is a novel called Like Mother.
Today, Cassandra Austin is on the blog to pay homage to some of her favourite feminist authors, and in doing so asks the question: is a woman’s home her castle or her cage? Read on …
Dear Auntie Agony,
Help! Is a woman’s home her castle or her cage? I’ve asked my mirror, my mother and even my accountant — all to no avail!
Signed, Princess or Prisoner
Dear P or P,
If you’ve been paying attention to my previous columns, you’ll know that life’s queries are best answered not by mirrors, matriarchs or moneymen, but by literature! And even had you asked me about money I would have sent you to Trollope, Amis or one of the Smiths — from Ali to Zadie. However, your question is a problem of hearth and home. And the home, my dear, given your interest in castles and cages, belongs firmly to the Gothic.
In particular, I direct your attention to the subgenre some call ‘domestic noir’ — which combines horror, romance and suspense to highlight the concerns of the vulnerable housebound female.
Now, if I am correct in surmising that you are still ensconced in your parent’s castle, you might begin by reaching for:
See What I have Done by Sarah Schmidt
Lizzie Borden, still living at home with her parents, sister and maid, chopped through to the heart of the matter. And like Lizzie, you will know about the nature of your childhood home when you find yourself arguing over the little things like pears, pigeons and privacy, because dreary rules put bars on any window. Of course, her solution; the sudden death of her parents, is a dreadful occurrence. Unless it is not.
Or perhaps, parents be damned, you are already in possession of your family’s castle; possession being nine tenths of the law? Then you might look to:
We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson
Here you will be reminded that what you are in possession of, even if just a bad reputation, someone else will want. Merricat’s neighbours, indeed, her whole village, not to mention her cousin, all threaten her inheritance. And while she chooses to hunker down and fight back, perhaps you would instead prefer to seek a castle, or at least a room, of your very own.
If so, your bedside reading should be:
Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier
Here you will learn that the first requirement must be to thoroughly inspect a new castle before accepting or making an offer. Never let yourself get caught out like the famously nameless narrator who — only after moving in — found that the previous tenant hadn’t ever really left. Rebecca’s smell, her clothing, her preferences still lovingly carried out by her faithful servant, Mrs. Danvers, meant that the narrator struggled to become mistress of her own house. Any castle may become a cage if you have not evicted the previous inhabitant.
Now, once you are happily enshrined within your new domicile you must still beware the potential threats of interior decoration. The best literary handling of the perils and pitfall of home renovation is:
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
This nameless narrator married and had a baby, only to find herself spending too much time in a room with ghastly yellow wallpaper. If she had put decoration ahead of procreation, it wouldn’t have driven her nearly mad. The proper eradication of basements, dungeons and atrocious wallpaper can make all the difference.
And while paint swatches consume your time, don’t forget to pay just as much attention to the habits of the roommate or partner with whom you will share said castle. For advice on such matters consult:
“The Bloody Chamber” by Angela Carter
Counter to common wisdom, curiosity as often saves as kills the cat, so if your roommate is being secretive and denying you access to a particular room, don’t be surprised to find that s/he is hiding literal skeletons in the closet. Confronting your cohabitant will lead some some unpleasantness, but avoiding such issues amounts to complicities, and necessitates one final recommendation:
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
In her extended letter to her younger self, Machado warns that, castle or cage, a home is built from the inside out – beginning with our first and last home, the fleshy corporeal form of our own body. And this house is ultimately constructed by the altogether slipperier building blocks of memory, which may elude, beguile and bedevil us. For even as we as rely upon memory to piece ourselves back together into safety, we may simultaneously become the ghost haunting our own home.
So don’t be like so many paperback Gothic heroines, fleeing from a castle turned cage in a filmy negligee, pay attention to the signs along the way. Seek wisdom from the nursery rhymes and fairytales you once laughed at. Because the stories and books you thought were just for fun, were warnings handed down from grandmothers to little pigs about wolves. And above all dearest, keep in mind that in the end the real difference between castle and cage may not be provenance, nor decoration nor co-inhabitants past or present, but simply whether or not you are in possession of the key to the front door.
Sincerely, your Auntie Agony
P.S: Just a word to the wise: should you, like our hapless narrator in “The Bloody Chamber”, and so many other naïve but dauntless daughters, rely upon your mother to come and rescue you, just remember that many mothers have a hand in turning castles into cages.
On the precise elucidation of that point, please turn to Like Mother by your Auntie Agony, Cassandra Austin. And don’t say I didn’t warn you …
—Like Mother by Cassandra Austin (Penguin Books Australia) is out on the 30th of March.
Like Mother
It's 1969 and mankind has leapt up to the moon, but a young mother in small-town Australia can't get past the kitchen door. Louise Ashland -is exhausted - her husband, Steven, is away on the road and her mother, Gladys, won't leave her alone. At least her baby, Dolores, has finally stopped screaming and is sweetly sleeping in her cot. Right where Louise left her. Or is she?
As the day unravels, Louise will unearth secrets her mother - and perhaps her own mind - have worked hard to keep buried...
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