• Shirley Jackson

• A Rather Haunted Life
• By: Ruth Franklin
• Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

This relevant biography makes Shirley Jackson a prominent figure in American literature and revives the life and work of a forgotten master.

Known to millions primarily as the author of “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson has been eerily absent from mainstream American literary canon. A genius of literary suspense and psychological horror, Jackson struck directly at the cultural anxiety of postwar America more deeply than anyone. Ruth Franklin reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the author of The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

Placing Jackson in an American Gothic tradition that stretches back to Hawthorne and Poe, Franklin shows that her unique contribution to the genre comes from her focus on “domestic horror”. Nearly two decades before The Feminine Mystique sparked the women’s movement, Jackson’s non-fiction chronicles and stories explored the exploitation and desperate isolation of women, especially women. married, in American society.

Here, Jackson emerges as an exceptionally talented, determined and creative writer when it is unusual for a woman to have both a family and a career. A mother of four and the wife of a prominent New York scholar and critic, Jackson lived a country life in Vermont. As her career advances, her marriage becomes more fragile, her anxiety increases, and she becomes addicted to amphetamines and tranquilizers. Franklin detailed the impact of Jackson’s upbringing, overly demanding mother, and relationship with her husband.

I have never learned so much about the development of an author and how an author develops his or her work and pursues a career in the face of personal and professional challenges. For all of this, I am grateful to Ruth Franklin for writing this biography of Shirley Jackson.

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