The Heritage Month Project: The Lives of Housewives With Shirley Jackson and Erma Bombeck

The Women's History Month portion of my Heritage Month Project has provided me with an opportunity to do some thinking about two women writers who worked in times that were close together in terms of timeline but different in terms of what was going on in society. They also both wrote about the lives of housewives. 

I am talking about my obsession, Shirley Jackson, and Erma Bombeck.

Shirley Jackson

While Shirley Jackson is known today for writing literary horror, during her lifetime she also wrote memoirish essays for women's magazines, work that paid rather well and was well received. She turned out two collections of these things in the early 1950s, Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons. In 2015, fifty years after her death, Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings was released, which included more of her housewife work. It's been fifteen years since I've read the first two books, but at the time I found one of them "just so well done." The same is true of her housewife essays in Let Me Tell You, which I've been reading this past month.

These essays are drole, but they don't focus on being funny. They are not jokie. There is no reaching to get a laugh, because making readers laugh isn't the point. The family members who appear in the essays are well-defined characters. Whether they are true to life or not is another thing, but from essay to essay they stay true to the characters Jackson created. 

Because these essays were written so long ago, some of them seem like historical documents. The one on teenagers' need to conform, for instance. That was an issue in the 1950s? Who knew? Jackson gives the best explanation for the teenage desire to sacrifice individuality for the crowd that I've ever seen. 

What Jackson doesn't do in the housewife essays in Let Me Tell You is complain about doing housework. I kept waiting for that, but it never came. She certainly doesn't glorify it or say anything to suggest it is women's God given role for which they should be grateful. Housework isn't a good thing, it isn't a bad thing. It's just a thing.

Erma Bombeck

Around the same time Jackson was writing for women's magazines, Erma Bombeck, a humorist who wrote specifically about being a housewife and mother, began writing a column for a local newspaper. It wasn't until the mid-sixties, however, that she became a syndicated columnist and the '70s and '80s were her era.

Being old as mud, as I am, I remember Erma Bombeck. It is difficult to exaggerate how successful she was. I remember being surprised to see her as a guest on some evening television special. I was totally blown away when I learned she was pulling down half a million dollars a year, because that was real money back then. I didn't know until recently that she had an eleven-year gig on Good Morning America or that she developed and wrote for a sitcom. It was not a successful sitcom. However, this was before stand-up comics were getting their own shows. To me the failure of the show is far less significant than the fact that a woman got a chance to create one. 

I have huge respect for Bombeck's achievement. I was just never a fan of her writing. It may have been because I was younger and felt the things she wrote about were somewhat dated. I may have found her humor obvious and contrived. I can't even recall. I tried to read one of her books this past month and just couldn't get through it. Bombeck's success must have put her under tremendous pressure to produce content for the columns and appearances she was making, which Jackson probably didn't experience. The "rush to publish" could easily have had an impact on her writing. 

Is Writing About Housewives a Good Career Move?

In the foreword to Let Me Tell You, Jackson's biographer, Ruth Franklin, says that Jackson "considered herself at least a part-time housewife." A lot of the writing she did about that part-time life was done in the early 1950s, a period we think of as the Golden Age of Housewifery, the era I've read that trad wives look back upon with nostalgia. Yet an article in The Guardian from 2016 raises the question of whether critics didn't take her seriously for a long time because of "her busy sideline producing funny tales about life as a housewife and mother for women's magazines."  The era when being a housewife was most highly accepted was also a time when being a housewife marked you as lesser? Twisted much? 

Bombeck, on the other hand, was writing during the second wave of feminism. Women were leaving the house. You'd think that would be a really bad time to be trying to make a career writing about housewives. But, no, Bombeck did fantastically well. Two theories about why, both my own:

1. While Jackson didn't complain about housework, Bombeck did. She made it okay to complain, and her housewife readers appreciated that. 
2. Bombeck's housewife humor was nonthreatening. Readers could embrace this housewife stuff at the same time that women were turning their backs on it in order to do other things. Jackson's housewife writing was nonthreatening, too, but there wasn't anything going on culturally at that time that would make people seek it out for comfort the way they might have in the '70s and '80s.

Hey, Maybe Networking Does Help Writers

In Haunted Houses in The New Yorker (2016), author Zoe Heller says that Jackson and her husband were part of a social set that included Ralph Ellison and Bernard Malamud, and I've seen several other references to them knowing those writers. But I don't know what that means. Jackson lived in Bennington, Vermont in the 50s and 60s. (There's not much there even now.) What access did she have to these writer friends? How much did being part of group of writers help her? (Note: I have not read Ruth Franklin's Jackson bio, which might address those questions.) 

However, even I knew Erma Bombeck was friends with Art Buchwald, a high profile humor writer of the period, and I believe there may have been other humor writers she was connected with. All men. In those days, it would have been helpful to be tight with men in your profession. I recently learned she was also friends with Phyllis Diller, a stand-up comic who specialized in housewife humor. These names mean nothing to you now, but these people were a very big deal in Bombeck's day. More so, I'm guessing, than Bernard Malamud was in Jackson's. Coverage in the press of friendships among well known writers/comics could benefit all of them.  

Don't Let Your Mind Wander

Jackson did more than one type of writing. In addition to the housewife memoirs and the literary horror, she wrote short stories. As I said earlier, the question has been raised as to whether or not the housewife work hurt her with critics of her time. But the refusal stay in a lane may not have helped her, either. The literary world does like its labels and pigeonholes. So does the publishing world. There's nothing like a nice clear book category to make marketers happy. Because Jackson did different types of work, it may have been difficult to define her during her lifetime.

Bombeck didn't just stay in her lane, she owned it. She wrote about housewives and mothers. People liked reading about housewives and mothers. People knew what they were getting with her. The publishing world knew how to sell her. Everything fell into place.

Life After Death

I believe Shirley Jackson has always maintained a bit of a reputation, even if it was primarily for her short story, The Lottery. Horror fans have kept up interest in her work as well. Recently, though, she's been experiencing a comeback. Part of that is due to her children's efforts to manage her estate. (Well done, guys.) Part of it may be that she's been dead more than half a century, and the 50-year anniversary might have triggered some attention. Then there was Netflix's beautiful version of The Haunting of Hill House in 2018. That could well have encouraged readers to go back to her books. I think she's doing pretty well right now, though probably not for her housewife writing. 

Erma Bombeck is all housewife writing.  A play about her was being staged a few years ago and the University of Dayton runs a writers' workshop named for her, but it can be difficult to find her books in libraries or places like Libby. She's been dead for just under 30 years, and her time for a revival of interest may still be coming. Also, humor writers may not age well.  A 2022  Guardian article claims that Bombeck's friend, Art Buchwald, who died in 2007, has been forgotten. Finally, humor about women's lives is more common than it was in Bombeck's day, and it's not just about being a housewife or a mother. Readers can find more up-to-date material. 

Housewife Writers

Though both Jackson and Bombeck self-identified as housewives, they were also both writers. The extent of Bombeck's career demands and the money her writing earned her may have meant that there came a point where she was no longer doing housework. I don't know that Jackson ever made enough money to be able to pay for someone to take over housework for her. 

While their lives as housewives had an impact on their writing, it's hard to determine what kind of impact their writing had on their lives as housewives. Did the writing become such a big factor for them that they were no longer living the experience they were writing about? 

I Almost Missed Shirley Jackson's Birthday

Shirley Jackson walked up this street. And down.

I learned on BlueSky that today is Shirley Jackson's birthday. In years past, I learned it was her birthday on Twitter. I need to put her birthday in my bullet journal along with family members'. I don't want to forget her day.

To observe this event, here is a list of just a few of my Shirley Jackson posts from over the years. 

I Could Get Inside One Of Shirley Jackson's Homes

Hill House...Book And Series

Happy Birthday, Shirley

My Personal Shirley Jackson Photo Album

Where's Shirley?

Oh, My Gosh! Oh, My Gosh! I'm So Glad I Saw This!

Motherhood

I Could Get Inside One Of Shirley Jackson's Homes

A couple of days ago, I learned that one of Shirley Jackson's homes in North Bennington, Vermont is now a bakery, Moon Scones. It is not the house I walked by during my personal Shirley Jackson Bennington Tour back in 2015. If only I'd known this second house existed when I was there! 

Now there is a business in Jackson's second home, the bakery I just mentioned. I could make another trip to the Bennington area and actually get inside this house, the one Kathye Fetsko Petrie says Jackson bought with money from her writing.

However, it's a bakery, and I don't eat gluten. 

Woe, huh?

Here's something to mull over--Fetsko Petrie says Jackson bought the Moon Scones house with money she made writing Life Among the Savages, one of her mom memoirish books, not the books she is famous for now. Is Netflix ever going to turn Life Among the Savages into a series the way it did The Haunting of Hill House? Probably not.

But maybe it should. 

Hill House...Book And Series

"cup of stars"

I have just finished watching The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix...for the second time. I watched it once last fall, and then asked for the book for Christmas. I finished reading it  (rereading, actually, since I'd read it in high school) the second week of January and watched the series again, looking for connections between the book and film. I'm not big on watching "reruns," certainly not so soon after watching something the first time. But Shirley Jackson wrote The Haunting of Hill House.

You all know how I feel about Shirley Jackson.

Shirley Jackson has a  horror writer reputation. Because of that, she doesn't get credit for things like the incredible elegance of her writing in The Haunting of Hill House. You can hear some of it in the TV series. Some of Steven's voice overs from his book are Jackson's actual words. While the series is very different from the book as far as action and characters are concerned, in terms of mood, it's very true to the original.

The series also picks up a multitude of bits and pieces from Jackson's book, working them into the weekly episodes that move back and forth through time, often from different characters points of view. Jackson fans like myself can have a glorious time looking for the connections.

Overlap Between Hill House The Book And Hill House The TV Series

• The Dudleys are the only characters who appear, as is, in both the book and the series, though they have a very different story arc in each. Mr. Dudley, in particular, is quite different in terms of behavior.
• The names of three of the major characters, Luke, Theo, and Eleanor/Nell come from the book. In the series, Eleanor's married name is Eleanor Vance, which is her name in the book. Though they are adults and unrelated in the book, they are described as beginning to feel like family. In the series, Luke, Theo, and Nell are siblings and appear as both children and adults.
• Theo is sexually ambiguous in the book. She's a lesbian in the series.
• Hugh Crain is the original builder of Hill House in the book. In the series, he is a major character, the father of Luke, Theo, and Nell. He is also some sort of contractor who has bought Hill House and is planning to flip it, giving him another connection to the builder Hugh Crain of the book.
• In the series Luke, Theo, and Nell have a sister named Shirley, which is an obvious tribute to our Shirley Jackson. She is very much a caretaker in the book, the way an author is.
• I have no idea where the name Steven, the last sibling in the series, comes from. 
• Rooms are referred to by colors in both the book and the series.
• In the book, Theo and Nell are in a bedroom at night screaming because of the pounding around them. The child Theo and Shirley in the series have a similar scene. As adults they're together in Shirley's funeral parlor when more pounding occurs.
• In the series there is a scene where Theo wakes up having been holding someone's hand, but she doesn't know whose. A similar thing happened to either Theo or Nell in the book.
• A cup of stars is referred to in both the series and the book.
• In the book, Nell runs up a spiral staircase where someone in the past had killed herself. In the TV show, Nell hangs herself near a spiral staircase. That spiral staircase shows up a lot in the last episode.
• A statue of a father and child appears in the book. There are statues turning up all the time in the series.
• Eleanor dances in both the book and series.
• There's a cold spot in both book and series.
• A mystery dog runs through the house in both the book and series.
• In the book, Nell experiences a rain of stones when she was young, which is why she is invited to Hill House. She has experienced a supernatural event. In the series, the mother Olivia experienced it when she was young. It's made clear throughout the series that she has some kind of supernatural thing going on, something the house evidently can plug into.
• "Journeys end in lovers meeting" Liv says to Hugh in the last episode of the series. She's quoting Shakespeare. The line appears often in the book.
• "I am home. I am home." Yup. Appears both places.
• The series ends with Steven reading a line from his book, which also happens to be the last line from Shirley Jackson's book. But not quite. Jackson's line ends "and whatever walked there, walked alone." Steven's line ends "and whatever walked there, walked together."  Kind of significant, all things considered.

I am sure this is not an exhaustive list. I only watched the series twice, after all.

 About That Cup Of Stars

No, I am not so obsessed with Jackson and Hill House that I made star-shaped cookies so I could make a cup of stars, because a cup of stars appears in the book and the TV series. Come on! The cup of stars was a cup with stars painted in it. It wasn't a cup of cookies!

No, what happened was I made these little toddler star cookies, then thought, Hey, I could make a cup of stars! That's a totally different thing and makes all the sense in the world.

Halloween Reading

The History of Halloween: The Haunting of New England, by Christopher Kelly at Synaptic Space, includes a section on Shirley Jackson, The Lottery, and North Bennington, Vermont. The article includes a picture of mine (with permission) that first appeared here in 2015 in My Personal Shirley Jackson Photo Album.

By the way, I am aware that Netflix is running a production of The Haunting of Hill House. I'm going to start that for my weekend afternoon TV zone out when I finish my present weekend afternoon TV zone out.

Happy Birthday, Shirley

I like to take Wednesdays off from blogging. But while on Twitter I learned that today is Shirley Jackson's birthday. My obsession with Shirl is well documented. I had to observe this day.

Hmm. Sounds to me like an opportunity to send readers to my Shirley Jackson in Bennington Pinterest Board.

Jackson Articles You Could Find on Twitter Today

Happy 100th Birthday, Shirley Jackson! at Literary Hub.

Hearts of Darkness: The Short Fiction of Shirley Jackson at Tor.Com

Shirley Jackson's Haunted Houses and Haunted Psyches also at Tor.Com

Shirley Jackson and the Female Gothic at JStor Daily


How many people will be tweeting about us on our hundredth birthdays?

 

Another "Lottery"

I'm not sure how I found The Lottery by Beth Goobie since it's a fourteen-year-old book. It was one of those situations where I bring home a book from the library, leave it on my library pile for weeks, and when I find it go, "Why, whatever could this be?"

Okay, time to remind everyone about my Shirley Jackson obsession. No doubt The Lottery title was the initial draw for me. There definitely is a conection between this Lottery and Jackson's. The basic premise of Goobie's book is that a secret club, the Shadow Council, exists at Saskatoon Collegiate High School. Each year the members, which change as students graduate and move on, select a victim for the year. The victim serves the Council by running errands that primarily involve delivering notes instructing students to do their unsavory bidding. Oh, and the victim is shunned by the rest of the student body for the school year. Then a new victim is selected, and things go back to normal for the old one. In a manner of speaking.

Yeah, it sounds pretty far-fetched when I put it that way. But I totally bought into it, just as I, and so many other readers, bought into Jackson's Lottery. One of the fascinating things about both stories--all the townspeople/students had to do was say, "No." All the characters bought in, just as the readers do. They gave the lotteries their power.

A little drawback to the Goobie book: It's a problem book, which is fine. Main character Sal is dealing with a significant and interesting problem. But it's not the only problem. Sal has a troubled backstory. There's a character in a wheelchair and another who's autistic. It's a little bit of a pile on.

But otherwise this was a good world/reading experience.

My Personal Shirley Jackson Photo Album

Okay, so get this. We were in Bennington, Vermont this past weekend. The North Bennington section of Bennington is where Shirley Jackson lived with her husband and children. Saturday night, after dinner, we did a Shirley Tour. I used information from these readings to plan it. I can't be certain of that info's accuracy, but it provided me with an incredible hour.

Where to begin?

Let's start with the house the Jackson family lived in. This turned out to be pretty easy to find because some of those other sites I mentioned gave her street name and included pictures of the house. I'm not going to name the street for the sake of the people who live there now. I am showing my gratitude, because no one called the police on me while I was there taking the pictures I'm showing you.

We hadn't been on the street long, when I started shouting, "That's it! That'sitthat'sitthat'sit!" My husband's immediate response was, "Perhaps I should drive."


I am not totally without shame. This side view of the house was the first picture I took, because I thought it was less intrusive than standing across the road and taking a picture head on. I got over that. We even have a picture of me standing in front of the house. It is not flattering of the house. Oh, who am I kidding? It's not flattering of me.

What I'm showing you now is the street leading up the hill to the Jackson house. I've read that Shirley was pushing a stroller up this street when she got the idea for The Lottery. Needless to say, I walked up it, too.

According to my reading, Shirley based the town green in The Lottery on Lincoln Square in North Bennington. Sure enough, Lincoln Square is right down the hill from the Jackson house. I don't remember a fountain in The Lottery, but the plaque I found suggests it wasn't there back in Shirley's day.

I'd read that I shouldn't expect to see any remembrance of Shirley in the Bennington area. However, Lincoln Square has an array of commemorative bricks, and there's one there for Shirley and The Lottery.




Finally, I read just last week that Shirley did her grocery shopping at Powers Market. Yowsa! It is still there! Talk about nerve! Not only did I have my picture taken in front of it (again, I did not flatter the store), I looked in the windows. (It was closed.) The interior looks remarkably like the interior of a store at a crossroads in Whiting, Vermont when I was a girl. We only went in for things like ice cream and bread, but I sort of shopped at a store like the one where Shirley shopped!

Powers Market is across from Lincoln Square, and they are both at the foot of that hill Shirley walked up with her stroller while she came up with The Lottery. It makes for a tight little loop, down to the store and back. I wonder how often she made it. A website about the town of North Bennington includes this line: "...her biographer, Judy Oppenheimer, describes a strained relationship between Shirley Jackson and the villagers of North Bennington." I've read that sort of thing frequently over the last few years. And now I can think about Shirley walking down that hill and back with a small child, probably over and over and over again.

Where's Shirley?

I'm in Bennington, Vermont this weekend because we're hitting a museum in Massachusetts and going biking. Bennington was the Vermont home of Shirley Jackson, with whom I've been obsessed since high school.

I've collected some Shirley Jackson Vermont reading to do while I'm up here.

Shirley Jackson and The Lottery/North Bennington

Shirley Jackson's Outsider Perspective of Bennington, Vermont

Shirley Jackson Road Trip, the report I'm really looking forward to this one.

Shirley Jackson Day Returns to North Bennington

Shirley Jackson's 'Life Among the Savages' and 'Raising Demons' Reissued

And, to be honest, I brought my copies of Life Among the Savages and The Lottery/Adventures of the Daemon Lover with me, so they could have the experience of being in the same town where Shirley lived. I've had The Lottery so long it smells of mildew. I hate when that happens.

I hope to have at least one Jackson-related photo to share before the weekend is over.

OMG! I Am Listening To Shirley Jackson! Her Voice!

I worry that I use too many exclamation points. I've read that they're like bullying. Still, I am listening to Shirley Jackson as I type these words. I must exclaim, because I am, you will recall, obsessed with her.

On Valentine's Day, Jessa Crispin did a post at Blog of a Bookslut on the possible reasons behind Shirley Jackson's name being missing from the list of great twentieth century authors. In her post she has embedded a link to Jackson reading from her short story, The Daemon Lover on an album.

I couldn't make out the words, but it was her voice. At least, that's what Jessa says.

The Tenth Anniversary Obsession Post--Shirley Jackson

Over the past decade, I have indulged many of my obsessions here at Original Content. I've done many Rebecca posts, for instance. I went through a dad book period. I've gone on, at length, about breakout experiences. Then there's Louisa May Alcott.

But the obsession worthy enough for a tenth anniversary post can only by the one I have with Shirley Jackson. That goes back all the way to high school.

December 6, 2008 Not What I Expected From Shirley

Shirley Jackson's main connection to YA literature is probably through the short story The Lottery, which many students read in high school. I think it's considered attractive to kids because it's scary and surprising. So a lot of readers think, "Oh, Shirley Jackson. Creepy." As Jonathan Lethem said in the Salon article Monstrous Acts, "An unfortunate impression persists (one Jackson encouraged, for complicated reasons) that her work is full of ghosts and witches. In truth, few of her greatest stories and just one of her novels, "The Haunting of Hill House," contain a suggestion of genuinely supernatural events". That is definitely the case with the short story collection The Lottery: Adventures of the Daemon Lover. (This is the original title of the 1949 book and it appears that way on my old paperback published in 1969.)

What struck me about these stories when I reread them last month is that many, if not most, of them are about women. Specifically, they're about women's lives. I'm not talking about a writer making some kind of feminist statement with her writing. (Though her story Elizabeth might be of particular interest to feminists.) I'm talking about a writer showing us women's experience during a particular point in time and in a particular place--mid-twentieth century America. The women in Jackson's stories live extremely claustraphobic, narrow lives. They are almost always referred to as Mrs. Something or Another or Miss Something or Another. They are thus defined in terms of their relationships--or lack thereof--with men. How often do we see Mrs. or Miss or even Ms. used these days the way Jackson uses those honorifics? She creates a very definite feeling of oppression with them.

Jackson's female main characters in these short stories are almost always alone. They are also often trapped emotionally in some way. And many of the stories involve a city woman who has moved to the country, where she is, once again, isolated and trapped.

The Lottery appears at the end of this collection, which is a very good place for it. After having read the other stories, The Lottery doesn't seem all that surprising. Instead, it fits in rather well with Jackson's other stories of women trapped in worlds from which they cannot escape.

It's still scary, though.

Happy Birthday, Shirley

Today is Shirley Jackson's birthday. If any of my regular readers are out there, you know I have a long-term relationship with Shirl. I believe I've done fourteen posts in which she's mentioned.

Thanks to Blog of a Bookslut for letting me know about this.

I'm So Glad Shirley's House Looks Nice

Leila at bookshelves of doom made me happy by directing me to an article about Shirley Jackson's houses in Bennington. If you click on the photo of the yellow house, you'll be able to see the second home she lived in. I am...reassured...to seem them looking so lovely now, as if that might mean that they looked beautiful and comfortable and comforting when she lived in them, too.

This article includes sketches Jackson made of floor plans and exteriors of houses that appeared in her writing. I've been known to do that, too!

The Jackson house piece appears at Writers' Houses, a beautiful site. I'm going to try to visit it before leaving on trips to see if there are any pilgrimages I can make.

Time For Another Dose Of Jackson

That's Shirley Jackson, of course. Thank goodness Jessa Crispin at Bookslut is also a Jackson follower and periodically connects her blog readers with pieces like last year's Chilling Fiction in the Wall Street Journal. I read The Haunting of Hill House back when I was in high school. If only I had time to read it again.

I know! I'll mark my calendar and read it in October for a Halloween reading! Yeah! I've made a note on the scribble paper we keep next to the computer so I won't forget.

Didn't I Say Something Very Similar About Shirley?

The New Republic carries an article about Shirley Jackson called The Read: I'm Sorry, Ms. Jackson. In it, the author, Ruth Franklin, says of Jackson's short fiction, "The majority of the short stories...are tales of women in distress." She also says, "Jackson’s stories explore the claustrophobia that often accompanies marriage and motherhood, and the desperation to which it might drive a woman."

I noticed that Jackson wrote about women, many of them trapped in some way, when I reread her short stories back in 2008.

I had a bad work day today, but reading about Shirley always...well, gives me a lift isn't quite right. Reading about Shirley drives me on. Yeah, I needed that. Thanks for the link, Bookslut.

Oh, My Gosh! Oh, My Gosh! I Am So Glad I Saw This!

My Shirley Jackson obsession is well-documented here at O.C.. So imagine my delight when Blog of a Bookslut referred me to The Strange World of Stanley Edgar Hyman and Shirley Jackson in the Wall Street Journal. Be sure to read the comments.

Though I have been to Bennington, Vermont a number of times in years past, and one of my sisters lived there for a little while, I cannot lay any claim to knowledge of Bennington College. To Vermonters of my tribe and era, Bennington College was...another world. Out of state. Beyond our grasp and understanding. We could not imagine the wealth or fathom the intellect.

If Shirley Jackson had not been connected with it, I would barely have known Bennington College existed. Because she was, I've paid attention to anything I've read about the place. For her sake.

Coincidently, today I had lunch with my mother-in-law who was a faculty wife during the same period (and beyond) as Jackson, though at much techier colleges. How did those women maintain their sanity?

Motherhood

A few years back, I read about a woman who had self-published a couple of books about her experiences as a wife and mother. She said that she was careful to put only short amounts of text on each page because she wrote for women, and women were busy and didn't have time to read much.

I have a hard time coming up with the words to describe how I felt about that.

I kept thinking of that woman as I read Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson. The pieces in this book (the structural layout is a little odd, in that things seem run together though they aren't) are just so well done. You never get the feeling that Jackson considered her readers--whomever they ended up being--too busy to consume good writing. She writes of experiences common to women, and she gives mending and going shopping with the kids the attention and style those tasks deserve.

I believe Jackson to have been a writer who was very interested in women's lives. You see it in her short stories, and again in Savages. Her work reflects the period in which she lived. In Savages, for instance, Jackson smokes during pregnancy and appears to have thought nothing of it.

You don't see a lot of Jackson the writer in Life Among the Savages, and when you do, it's in a heartbreaking passage in which she describes being admitted into the maternity ward. When asked her occupation by a clerk,

"Writer," I said.

"Housewife," she said.

"Writer," I said.

"I'll just put down housewife," she said.

Jackson doesn't comment on the exchange, but I don't think she has to.

About those savages--they are piece of works. Jackson, as she appears in this work, clearly loves them. But those kids are...difficult to describe. They have fantasy lives at a time when fantasy lives may not have been all that desirable. They are outspoken with one another and with everyone else. In the last pages the three older ones are introduced to their new baby brother, whom they refer to as "it." These are not Mother's Day greeting card children by a long shot.

As I've often said, I was a big Jackson fan when I was a teenager, and I suspect I read this book back then. I probably found those kids funny, but I couldn't possibly have understood all that was going on here. This is a book for adults (male and female) who don't give a damn about how much they have to read in order to share an experience with a writer.

Not What I Expected From Shirley

Shirley Jackson's main connection to YA literature is probably through the short story The Lottery, which many students read in high school. I think it's considered attractive to kids because it's scary and surprising. So a lot of readers think, "Oh, Shirley Jackson. Creepy." As Jonathan Lethem said in the Salon article Monstrous Acts, "An unfortunate impression persists (one Jackson encouraged, for complicated reasons) that her work is full of ghosts and witches. In truth, few of her greatest stories and just one of her novels, "The Haunting of Hill House," contain a suggestion of genuinely supernatural events". That is definitely the case with the short story collection The Lottery: Adventures of the Daemon Lover. (This is the original title of the 1949 book and it appears that way on my old paperback published in 1969.)

What struck me about these stories when I reread them last month is that many, if not most, of them are about women. Specifically, they're about women's lives. I'm not talking about a writer making some kind of feminist statement with her writing. (Though her story Elizabeth might be of particular interest to feminists.) I'm talking about a writer showing us women's experience during a particular point in time and in a particular place--mid-twentieth century America. The women in Jackson's stories live extremely claustraphobic, narrow lives. They are almost always referred to as Mrs. Something or Another or Miss Something or Another. They are thus defined in terms of their relationships--or lack thereof--with men. How often do we see Mrs. or Miss or even Ms. used these days the way Jackson uses those honorifics? She creates a very definite feeling of oppression with them.

Jackson's female main characters in these short stories are almost always alone. They are also often trapped emotionally in some way. And many of the stories involve a city woman who has moved to the country, where she is, once again, isolated and trapped.

The Lottery appears at the end of this collection, which is a very good place for it. After having read the other stories, The Lottery doesn't seem all that surprising. Instead, it fits in rather well with Jackson's other stories of women trapped in worlds from which they cannot escape.

It's still scary, though.

The Big Read IV

My faithful readers are probably aware that when I'm not obsessed with the Transcendentalists, I'm obsessed with Shirley Jackson. So imagine my delight when I learned that Leila at bookshelves of doom is doing another Big Read, this time on The Lottery and Other Stories. And I own all the stories!

November will be wonderful.

I've already told you the story about how I read The Lottery to my kids when they were little. Ah, memories like that make a person get all warm and fuzzy, don't they?

Shirley And Me

Back in 2005 I got all excited reminiscing about Shirley Jackson because of a post at Blog of a Bookslut. Well, it's about to happen again because Jessa is reading Shirley.

If you read that 2005 post I just linked to, you saw that I read The Lottery to my kids when they were in grade school. Well, the older boy gets to high school where, lo and behold, they read The Lottery in one of his English classes. He goes, "Hey, my mom read this to us when we were little."

Evidently the other kids in the room were impressed. And not because my boy was so well read. He got the creepy mom award that day.