I hope people are ready to read some Shirley Jackson! This continues the theme of short stories by acclaimed horror writers that we started with Poe and Lovecraft. Coincidentally, they are all American authors and we have been doing them in relative chronological order.
Shirley Jackson, 1916-1965, one of the most brilliant and influential authors of the twentieth century, is widely acclaimed for her stories and novels of the supernatural, including the well-known short story “The Lottery” and the best-selling novel “The Haunting of Hill House.”
The above quote is from http://shirleyjackson.org/index.html, which includes a short biography, a bibliography, and some general comments from periodicals and other authors. One that I particularly like is by Dorothy Parker, in Esquire:
“Shirley Jackson is unparalleled as a leader in the field of beautifully written, quiet, cumulative shudders.”
I think that those "quiet, cumulative shudders" are what characterizes Jackson's work, rather than making you scream at the top of your lungs with obvious shocking events. Her work is subtle and psychological. Like some of Stephen King's work, she finds her material in the mundane and ordinary. The short story and novel mentioned in the first quote above are classics of modern horror, but many of her stories are not outright horror stories, but investigations into the psyche of her characters. What we find there is often left open to our own interpretation.
Jackson wrote six novels and one collection of short stories during her brief lifetime. She also had many additional stories published in periodicals, and there are several more collections of stories, both published and unpublished, that her family have released since her death.
At the same time, she could also write very funny material, including two books of memoirs about her family life in Vermont. If you like things like Please Don't Eat the Daisies by Jean Kerr, or Erma Bombeck's work, you should love these. A few of the short stories in the collection that we are reading are in this vein.
She also wrote some works for children, but I have never read any of those.
A bibliography, from wikipedia:
Novels
- The Road Through the Wall (1948)
- Hangsaman (1951)
- The Bird's Nest (1954)
- The Sundial (1958)
- The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)
Memoirs
- Life Among the Savages (1953)
- Raising Demons (1957)
Story collections
- The Lottery and Other Stories (Farrar, Straus, 1949)
- The Magic of Shirley Jackson (Farrar, Straus, 1966) (posthumous)
- Come Along with Me (Viking, 1968) (posthumous)
- Just an Ordinary Day (Bantam, 1995) (posthumous)
Children's works
- The Witchcraft of Salem Village (1956)
- The Bad Children (1959)
- Nine Magic Wishes (1963)
- Famous Sally (1966)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Jackson
I have all of the novels, memoirs, and short stories, except for Come Along with Me, but many of them do not seem to be in print these days.
I hope we get some participation, and that those unfamiliar with Jackson will enjoy it!
Of the two movies of The Haunting, the first is by far the most faithful adaptation of the novel The Haunting of Hill House (although there are still some differences). The second has superficial similarities, but they completely changed parts of the plot so much that the story became unrecognizable, but it has great special effects! It's been a while since I saw the adaptation of The Lottery, but they had to add a lot of plot, characters, etc. to expand the short story into a full-length TV-movie.
In addition, from what I can find, there was a movie called Lizzie, starring Eleanor Parker, that was based on The Bird's Nest (which is about multiple personality), and Joanne Woodward directed an adaptation of Come Along with Me (based on an unfinished novel) starring Estelle Parsons.
basson_mommy12 wrote:You know, I've never read Shirley Jackson. I've heard of the films, but I hadn't heard of the books. Cool! Thanks for adding to my ceaseless TBR pile... grrrr...
Always glad to be of service, Ruth!!! 
I'll have to make sure Ryan knows about this. He also loves The Haunting of Hill House, and his campaigning was of great help in getting it selected on Literature by Women a while back.
Another bit of information about Jackson - she was an influence on Stephen King, and he paid homage to her in his miniseries Rose Red, which had a similar theme to The Haunting of Hill House. At the beginning, the main character is giving a lecture and talks about Jackson's novel.
I'm sure I read The Haunting of Hill House when I was a kid. I remember some of the descriptions, the cold spots, the walls breathing , etc.. It was deliciously creepy! And, I recall that some of the characters were very well-described--Eleanor in particular.
This time I'm confining myself to
The Lottery. I just purchased it used, so it might be a while before I receive delivery and start reading, but I will read it this month!
dulcinea3 wrote:Although Jackson's works are still protected by copyright, I found this, which appears to be a scanned copy of the book. I think there are only a few stories shown. This link opens up to My Life with RH Macy, because that's what I was searching for, but if you page up above it, there are other stories before and after it:
It looks like a copy of exactly the edition I checked out of the library -- even the page numbers match perfectly! 
It's The Lottery and Other Stories, no ISBN, but its Library of Congress catalog card number is 82-70094. The drawing on the front cover is of the little folded slips of paper from "The Lottery," with the one with the black circle on it in the center of the drawing, and a pencil right below it. What a great coincidence!
Jeff
Jefferson_Thomas wrote:It looks like a copy of exactly the edition I checked out of the library -- even the page numbers match perfectly!
Jeff
Yes, that's the version that is now only available in the UK. I've located it at WHSmith eBooks UK, but there is a notice that Penguin has restricted the sale of this version outside the UK. It was available here at one time, but no longer.
