Shirley Jackson – Carol's Notebook

Author: Shirley Jackson

Shirley Hardie Jackson (December 14, 1916 – August 8, 1965) was an American writer, known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Over the duration of her writing career, which spanned over two decades, she composed six novels, two memoirs, and over 200 short stories.

A native of San Francisco, California, Jackson later attended Syracuse University in New York, where she became involved with the university’s literary magazine and met her future husband Stanley Edgar Hyman. The couple settled in North Bennington, Vermont in 1940, after which Hyman established a career as a literary critic, and Jackson began writing.

After publishing her debut novel The Road Through the Wall (1948), a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood in California, Jackson gained significant public attention for her short story “The Lottery,” which details a secret, sinister underside to a bucolic American village. She continued to publish numerous short stories in literary journals and magazines throughout the 1950s, some of which were assembled and reissued in her 1953 memoir Life Among the Savages. In 1959, she published The Haunting of Hill House, a supernatural horror novel widely considered to be one of the best ghost stories ever written.

A reclusive woman, Jackson remained in North Bennington for the last years of her life, and was reluctant to discuss her work with the public. By the 1960s, her health began to deteriorate significantly as a result of her increasing weight and cigarette smoking, ultimately leading to her death of heart failure in 1965 at the age of 48.

The Haunting of Hill House is more eerie than scary. Jackson's writing is so tight and so descriptive in ways that make you think about ordinary things, like houses, differently. The plot itself is not outstanding, maybe because it's almost become a template of haunted house stories. Three people, Eleanor, Theodora and Luke, are invited to stay in a supposedly haunted house for the summer to aid a scientist, Dr. Montague, in his pursuit of paranormal investigation. We some started banging, laughs, cold spots, a ghostly scene, but really the story is about Eleanor. We see this world through her eyes. Eleanor's eyes. She is insecure, introverted, and often finds herself fantasizing about her current and future situations. She's not a reliable narrator to any extent. Eleanor is affected by the house more than any of the others. While they all see and feel some of the manifestations, but some she only hears and others are directed at her by...

Thanks to RIP and FrightFall, I tend to read a few scarier than usual books in October each year. It's probably the one time of the year when I actually read horror books on purpose anymore. I read way more back in the days of Anne Rice's vampires and witches, but not so much recently. When I was thinking about what books I might read this month, I decided to include We Have Always Lived in the Castle - it's a classic so I can use it as my Classics Club Dare book, people love it, and while it's horror it's not monster or gory horror. That's what I love about reading challenges and events, they encourage me to pick up books I wouldn't normally read and sometimes I love them. The opening paragraph is an amazing introduction to our narrator, Merricat. My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often...

Author: Shirley Jackson

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson