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The Lottery and Other Stories
This is the definitive collection of Shirley Jackson's short stories, including 'The Lottery' - one of the most terrifying and iconic stories of the twentieth century, and an influence on writers such as Neil Gaiman and Stephen King.
'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna Tartt
In these stories an excellent host finds himself turned out of home by his own guests; a woman spends her wedding day frantically searching for her husband-to-be; and in Shirley Jackson's best-known story, a small farming village comes together for a terrible annual ritual. The creeping unease of lives squandered and the bloody glee of lives lost is chillingly captured in these tales of wasted potential and casual cruelty by a master of the short story.
Shirley Jackson's chilling tales have the power to unsettle and terrify unlike any other. She was born in California in 1916. When her short story The Lottery was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail; it has since become one of the greatest American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by five more: Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, widely seen as her masterpiece. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep at the age of 48.
'An amazing writer ... if you haven't read any of her short stories ... you have missed out on something marvellous' Neil Gaiman
'Her stories are stunning, timeless - as relevant and terrifying now as when they were first published ... 'The Lottery' is so much an icon in the history of the American short story that one could argue it has moved from the canon of American twentieth-century fiction directly into the American psyche, our collective unconscious' A. M. Homes
'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna Tartt
In these stories an excellent host finds himself turned out of home by his own guests; a woman spends her wedding day frantically searching for her husband-to-be; and in Shirley Jackson's best-known story, a small farming village comes together for a terrible annual ritual. The creeping unease of lives squandered and the bloody glee of lives lost is chillingly captured in these tales of wasted potential and casual cruelty by a master of the short story.
Shirley Jackson's chilling tales have the power to unsettle and terrify unlike any other. She was born in California in 1916. When her short story The Lottery was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail; it has since become one of the greatest American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by five more: Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, widely seen as her masterpiece. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep at the age of 48.
'An amazing writer ... if you haven't read any of her short stories ... you have missed out on something marvellous' Neil Gaiman
'Her stories are stunning, timeless - as relevant and terrifying now as when they were first published ... 'The Lottery' is so much an icon in the history of the American short story that one could argue it has moved from the canon of American twentieth-century fiction directly into the American psyche, our collective unconscious' A. M. Homes
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
About the author
Shirley Jackson
292 books9,238 followersShirley Jackson was an influential American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years. She has influenced such writers as Stephen King, Nigel Kneale, and Richard Matheson.
She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."
Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb", to mirror humanity's Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned The Lottery', and she felt that they at least understood the story".
In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.
She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."
Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb", to mirror humanity's Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned The Lottery', and she felt that they at least understood the story".
In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.
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January 14, 2021
my becoming-a-genius project, part 4!
in case you somehow missed parts one and two and three clogging your feed for the past 2 months, here's the situation:
i have decided to become a genius.
to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collected stories of various authors, reading + reviewing 1 story every day until i get bored / lose every single follower / am struck down by a vengeful deity.
this one, by my creepy queen shirley jackson, is one i have been worryingly excited about. also i want to give her a hug (both because i love her writing and because she seems like she needs one)
PROJECT 1: THE COMPLETE STORIES BY FLANNERY O'CONNOR
PROJECT 2: HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES BY CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
PROJECT 3: 18 BEST STORIES BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
PROJECT 4: THE LOTTERY AND OTHER STORIES BY SHIRLEY JACKSON
DAY 1: THE INTOXICATED
it is honestly and truly the scariest thing in the world that this story was written in the 1940s, when it not only could have been written now but believably happened today.
rating: 4.5
DAY 2: THE DAEMON LOVER
the real monsters, scarier than those in any horror story, are among us every day. Straight Men
rating: 4
DAY 3: LIKE MOTHER USED TO MAKE
there is something so SCARY about this story...i am rattled. count me rattled. i need a hug and a kiss on the forehead and also to give the main character of this a hug and a kiss on the forehead.
rating: 4.5
DAY 4: TRIAL BY COMBAT
i regret to inform you the rumors are true: i did spill an entire cup of water on my nightstand while trying to shut off my alarm this morning, wreaking havoc on my floor, the corner of my mattress, the edge of my laptop, and, most significantly and unfortunately, this book.
so this was an unusually damp but still pleasant reading experience.
rating: 4.25
DAY 5: THE VILLAGER
i gotta tell ya, this book has been the gift that keeps on giving. thematically apt for christmas.
rating: 4.25
DAY 6: MY LIFE WITH R.H. MACY
took the weekend off because i forgot how to read.
another genuinely and yet inexplicably spooky one.
rating: 4
DAY 7: THE WITCH
shirley jackson is amazing. this is so scary. also i want a lollipop.
rating: 4.5
DAY 8: THE RENEGADE
"Feeling like this at nine-thirty in the morning, she thought, it's a feeling that belongs with eleven o'clock at night."
eek.
rating: 4
DAY 9: AFTER YOU, MY DEAR ALPHONSE
this is a pretty cool story about how racial stereotypes aren't often true, until you consider that this whole collection is made up of things that are supposed to be subtly unsettling.
then it's less cool.
rating: 3
DAY 10: CHARLES
kids are scary as hell.
rating: 3.75
DAY 11: AFTERNOON IN LINEN
this started out with an Alice reference, which obviously is the best way any story can start for me, but it was kind of meh from there.
kids really are scary as hell, though.
rating: 3.25
DAY 12: FLOWER GARDEN
really it's still day 11, but i skipped two days earlier and was in the mood to keep reading and...i don't have to justify myself to you, person i'm imagining reading this!
all i have to say is that Mrs Maclane is a queen and i can't figure out whether this story is on her side or not.
rating: ?
DAY 13: DOROTHY AND MY GRANDMOTHER AND THE SAILORS
it's weird to read stories like this that just...what is this even? like that john mulaney bit about when your grandmother starts telling stories about playing marbles at the soda fountain and you're like NO ONE KNOWS WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, YOU IDIOT!
except i would never call shirley jackson an idiot.
rating: 3
DAY 14: COLLOQUY
treating myself to another two-story day!
this one is possibly the most relatable 2.5 pages of all time.
rating: 4.25
DAY 15: ELIZABETH
this one just made me sad.
rating: 3
DAY 16: A FINE OLD FIRM
how does shirley jackson make the most innocuous interaction seem spooky!!!
rating: 3.5
DAY 17: THE DUMMY
dating a ventriloquist who makes his dummy talk to me is the worst fate i can imagine, so needless to say this story scared the living daylights out of me.
rating: 4
DAY 18: SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY
this is set in a bookstore (dreamy) and is about how people are the worst (true).
rating: 3.75
DAY 19: COME DANCE WITH ME IN IRELAND
just some classic irish shenanigans here
rating: 3
DAY 20: OF COURSE
people are weirdddddd. always have been, always will be.
trying, also, not to realize that these stories have taken a significant downturn in quality for me.
(increased by half a star on day 21 for title reasons.)
rating: 3.5
DAY 21: PILLAR OF SALT
as a city person this didn't quite do it for me.
rating: 3
DAY 22: MEN WITH THEIR BIG SHOES
this is a fun one. and i do love a good grifter. a scheme. a scam.
rating: 4
DAY 23: THE TOOTH
this is scary beyond reason.
rating: 4.75 or 5
DAY 24: GOT A LETTER FROM JIMMY
"Sometimes, she thought, stacking the dishes in the kitchen, sometimes I wonder if men are quite sane, any of them. Maybe they're all just crazy and every other woman knows it but me, and my mother never told me and my roommate just didn't mention it and all the other wives think I know..."
one of the great story openers of all time, probably.
rating: 4
DAY 25: THE LOTTERY
nothing will ever beat this story, which is so creepy and f*cked up that hundreds of New Yorker readers (already creepy and f*cked up individuals) literally sat down to write shirley jackson actual, physical hate mail.
unparalleled.
rating: 5
OVERALL
this collection definitely dipped in quality for me for what felt like a hundred years, but overall i love Shirley Jackson very much and i think she should be granted immortality - for reasons of talent, spookiness, and my love for her.
rating: 4.25
in case you somehow missed parts one and two and three clogging your feed for the past 2 months, here's the situation:
i have decided to become a genius.
to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collected stories of various authors, reading + reviewing 1 story every day until i get bored / lose every single follower / am struck down by a vengeful deity.
this one, by my creepy queen shirley jackson, is one i have been worryingly excited about. also i want to give her a hug (both because i love her writing and because she seems like she needs one)
PROJECT 1: THE COMPLETE STORIES BY FLANNERY O'CONNOR
PROJECT 2: HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES BY CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
PROJECT 3: 18 BEST STORIES BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
PROJECT 4: THE LOTTERY AND OTHER STORIES BY SHIRLEY JACKSON
DAY 1: THE INTOXICATED
it is honestly and truly the scariest thing in the world that this story was written in the 1940s, when it not only could have been written now but believably happened today.
rating: 4.5
DAY 2: THE DAEMON LOVER
the real monsters, scarier than those in any horror story, are among us every day. Straight Men
rating: 4
DAY 3: LIKE MOTHER USED TO MAKE
there is something so SCARY about this story...i am rattled. count me rattled. i need a hug and a kiss on the forehead and also to give the main character of this a hug and a kiss on the forehead.
rating: 4.5
DAY 4: TRIAL BY COMBAT
i regret to inform you the rumors are true: i did spill an entire cup of water on my nightstand while trying to shut off my alarm this morning, wreaking havoc on my floor, the corner of my mattress, the edge of my laptop, and, most significantly and unfortunately, this book.
so this was an unusually damp but still pleasant reading experience.
rating: 4.25
DAY 5: THE VILLAGER
i gotta tell ya, this book has been the gift that keeps on giving. thematically apt for christmas.
rating: 4.25
DAY 6: MY LIFE WITH R.H. MACY
took the weekend off because i forgot how to read.
another genuinely and yet inexplicably spooky one.
rating: 4
DAY 7: THE WITCH
shirley jackson is amazing. this is so scary. also i want a lollipop.
rating: 4.5
DAY 8: THE RENEGADE
"Feeling like this at nine-thirty in the morning, she thought, it's a feeling that belongs with eleven o'clock at night."
eek.
rating: 4
DAY 9: AFTER YOU, MY DEAR ALPHONSE
this is a pretty cool story about how racial stereotypes aren't often true, until you consider that this whole collection is made up of things that are supposed to be subtly unsettling.
then it's less cool.
rating: 3
DAY 10: CHARLES
kids are scary as hell.
rating: 3.75
DAY 11: AFTERNOON IN LINEN
this started out with an Alice reference, which obviously is the best way any story can start for me, but it was kind of meh from there.
kids really are scary as hell, though.
rating: 3.25
DAY 12: FLOWER GARDEN
really it's still day 11, but i skipped two days earlier and was in the mood to keep reading and...i don't have to justify myself to you, person i'm imagining reading this!
all i have to say is that Mrs Maclane is a queen and i can't figure out whether this story is on her side or not.
rating: ?
DAY 13: DOROTHY AND MY GRANDMOTHER AND THE SAILORS
it's weird to read stories like this that just...what is this even? like that john mulaney bit about when your grandmother starts telling stories about playing marbles at the soda fountain and you're like NO ONE KNOWS WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, YOU IDIOT!
except i would never call shirley jackson an idiot.
rating: 3
DAY 14: COLLOQUY
treating myself to another two-story day!
this one is possibly the most relatable 2.5 pages of all time.
rating: 4.25
DAY 15: ELIZABETH
this one just made me sad.
rating: 3
DAY 16: A FINE OLD FIRM
how does shirley jackson make the most innocuous interaction seem spooky!!!
rating: 3.5
DAY 17: THE DUMMY
dating a ventriloquist who makes his dummy talk to me is the worst fate i can imagine, so needless to say this story scared the living daylights out of me.
rating: 4
DAY 18: SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY
this is set in a bookstore (dreamy) and is about how people are the worst (true).
rating: 3.75
DAY 19: COME DANCE WITH ME IN IRELAND
just some classic irish shenanigans here
rating: 3
DAY 20: OF COURSE
people are weirdddddd. always have been, always will be.
trying, also, not to realize that these stories have taken a significant downturn in quality for me.
(increased by half a star on day 21 for title reasons.)
rating: 3.5
DAY 21: PILLAR OF SALT
as a city person this didn't quite do it for me.
rating: 3
DAY 22: MEN WITH THEIR BIG SHOES
this is a fun one. and i do love a good grifter. a scheme. a scam.
rating: 4
DAY 23: THE TOOTH
this is scary beyond reason.
rating: 4.75 or 5
DAY 24: GOT A LETTER FROM JIMMY
"Sometimes, she thought, stacking the dishes in the kitchen, sometimes I wonder if men are quite sane, any of them. Maybe they're all just crazy and every other woman knows it but me, and my mother never told me and my roommate just didn't mention it and all the other wives think I know..."
one of the great story openers of all time, probably.
rating: 4
DAY 25: THE LOTTERY
nothing will ever beat this story, which is so creepy and f*cked up that hundreds of New Yorker readers (already creepy and f*cked up individuals) literally sat down to write shirley jackson actual, physical hate mail.
unparalleled.
rating: 5
OVERALL
this collection definitely dipped in quality for me for what felt like a hundred years, but overall i love Shirley Jackson very much and i think she should be granted immortality - for reasons of talent, spookiness, and my love for her.
rating: 4.25
October 30, 2020
“Grace Paley once described the male-female writer phenomenon to me by saying,’Women have always done men the favor of reading their work, but the men have not returned the favor.’”
I do believe that Miss Jackson was making a very pointed comment about male readers. I don’t consciously think about reading a male or female writer, but I know that I do read more male writers. I went back and looked at the last thirty books I’ve read:
22 male writers 73%
8 female writers 27%
I wasn’t expecting to find a 50/50 split or anything, but I was still shocked to see that my ratio was so extremely out of balance. Thank goodness I had just read an Ursula Le Guin and this Shirley Jackson, or my ratio would have been even more skewed. So maybe I’m not consciously selecting books due to the gender of the writer, but maybe I should be more conscious about selecting more women writers for my reading queue.
Oh no, I have to read more Virginia Woolf! Oh yes!
These stories are all nicely tied together by a single thread of cruelty. Maybe cruelty is too strong a word. Maybe describing it as a meanness, or an unkindness, with how people treat other people would be more accurate. In these stories, there are jilted lovers, racism, unreasonable fears, con men, lost souls, a book thief, petty judgments, aspersions cast recklessly, and with the final story, there is a community of people trapped by their own insidious customs.
We are surrounded by inhumanity.
Jackson sets each of these stories up with perfectly normal scenarios, and then a spear appears out of the darkness and stabs through your vitals. The spear is barbed with wicked spikes so that it hooks into your skin and requires a careful, painful removal before you can move onto the next story. I couldn’t help but think of some of the barbs I’ve had hit me unexpectedly over the years.
I’m a pincushion.
The final story, The Lottery, was quite the sensation when it was published in The New Yorker in 1948. People cancelled their subscriptions. They flooded the offices of the publisher with angry phone calls. Jackson herself received over 300 letters of which only 13 were positive. Even her parents didn’t like the story.
It is always interesting to see how people react to things. Occasionally, our editorial team at the publication of which I am a part owner will publish a story that will irritate some readers. We are in the age of FOX NEWS and MSNBC where people are spoon fed a view of the world that is exactly like their own. People now have even less tolerance for reading or hearing anything that deviates from their own beliefs than people did in 1948. They can agree with 99% of what a publication chooses to share with them, but if they read one article out of several hundred that they don’t like,...they cancel their subscription.
Does that make any sense?
Jackson and her publisher were shocked and, frankly, astounded at the vehement reaction to her story. It certainly stirred up a lot of powerful emotions in people. After the dust settled, I’m sure that Jackson had to be privately pleased that something she wrote scared people or certainly inspired them to action. Most writers prefer adoration to loathing or anger, but there had to be this moment where Jackson thought... Wow, I touched a nerve, and I think I like it.
South Africa banned it.
Looking at the story through a 2016 lense instead of a 1948 lense, I was not at all offended by the story, nor was I as shocked by the story as I certainly would have been 68 years ago, but it is still an unsettling concept. There is the growing unease as you realize what is about to happen. There is a welling of frustration with a group of people who continue to support an event that is trapped in ignorance and superstition. I kept thinking to myself, Someone needs to take an ax to the black box that holds the community hostage. ”The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.” The box’s condition reflects the outdated concepts that inspired its creation in the first place.
Shirley Jackson may not have had the most endearing view of people. She peels her characters like an onion, revealing them layer by layer. We see the deceitfulness and the unscrupulousness that lurks at the center of so many people. Jackson herself suffered from several psychosomatic illnesses and neuroses. She was overweight and chain smoked. I think she was all too aware of her own weaknesses. She passed away in her sleep from a heart attack at 48 years old. I have a feeling she was too hyper aware of the critical nature of life and ultimately crumbled piece by piece under the burden of this awareness. R.I.P.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
I do believe that Miss Jackson was making a very pointed comment about male readers. I don’t consciously think about reading a male or female writer, but I know that I do read more male writers. I went back and looked at the last thirty books I’ve read:
22 male writers 73%
8 female writers 27%
I wasn’t expecting to find a 50/50 split or anything, but I was still shocked to see that my ratio was so extremely out of balance. Thank goodness I had just read an Ursula Le Guin and this Shirley Jackson, or my ratio would have been even more skewed. So maybe I’m not consciously selecting books due to the gender of the writer, but maybe I should be more conscious about selecting more women writers for my reading queue.
Oh no, I have to read more Virginia Woolf! Oh yes!
These stories are all nicely tied together by a single thread of cruelty. Maybe cruelty is too strong a word. Maybe describing it as a meanness, or an unkindness, with how people treat other people would be more accurate. In these stories, there are jilted lovers, racism, unreasonable fears, con men, lost souls, a book thief, petty judgments, aspersions cast recklessly, and with the final story, there is a community of people trapped by their own insidious customs.
We are surrounded by inhumanity.
Jackson sets each of these stories up with perfectly normal scenarios, and then a spear appears out of the darkness and stabs through your vitals. The spear is barbed with wicked spikes so that it hooks into your skin and requires a careful, painful removal before you can move onto the next story. I couldn’t help but think of some of the barbs I’ve had hit me unexpectedly over the years.
I’m a pincushion.
The final story, The Lottery, was quite the sensation when it was published in The New Yorker in 1948. People cancelled their subscriptions. They flooded the offices of the publisher with angry phone calls. Jackson herself received over 300 letters of which only 13 were positive. Even her parents didn’t like the story.
It is always interesting to see how people react to things. Occasionally, our editorial team at the publication of which I am a part owner will publish a story that will irritate some readers. We are in the age of FOX NEWS and MSNBC where people are spoon fed a view of the world that is exactly like their own. People now have even less tolerance for reading or hearing anything that deviates from their own beliefs than people did in 1948. They can agree with 99% of what a publication chooses to share with them, but if they read one article out of several hundred that they don’t like,...they cancel their subscription.
Does that make any sense?
Jackson and her publisher were shocked and, frankly, astounded at the vehement reaction to her story. It certainly stirred up a lot of powerful emotions in people. After the dust settled, I’m sure that Jackson had to be privately pleased that something she wrote scared people or certainly inspired them to action. Most writers prefer adoration to loathing or anger, but there had to be this moment where Jackson thought... Wow, I touched a nerve, and I think I like it.
South Africa banned it.
Looking at the story through a 2016 lense instead of a 1948 lense, I was not at all offended by the story, nor was I as shocked by the story as I certainly would have been 68 years ago, but it is still an unsettling concept. There is the growing unease as you realize what is about to happen. There is a welling of frustration with a group of people who continue to support an event that is trapped in ignorance and superstition. I kept thinking to myself, Someone needs to take an ax to the black box that holds the community hostage. ”The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.” The box’s condition reflects the outdated concepts that inspired its creation in the first place.
Shirley Jackson may not have had the most endearing view of people. She peels her characters like an onion, revealing them layer by layer. We see the deceitfulness and the unscrupulousness that lurks at the center of so many people. Jackson herself suffered from several psychosomatic illnesses and neuroses. She was overweight and chain smoked. I think she was all too aware of her own weaknesses. She passed away in her sleep from a heart attack at 48 years old. I have a feeling she was too hyper aware of the critical nature of life and ultimately crumbled piece by piece under the burden of this awareness. R.I.P.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
April 27, 2020
People are never quite what they seem, are they? There are loads of oddities, secrets, turmoil, prejudices, obsessions, hysteria, and perhaps even evil lurking just below the surface. I don’t think anyone understood this better than Shirley Jackson. I’d even go so far as to say Shirley Jackson didn’t have much faith in humanity. She exposes all of us and our shortcomings in one way or another in this haunting collection of twenty-five short stories.
One character from the story titled “Elizabeth” sets out for a day at the office:
“Funny thing, she thought, a clerk in a drugstore, he gets up in the morning and eats and walks around and writes a play just like it was real, just like the rest of us, like me.”
I have a suspicion Jackson is telling us that we are all a part of some grand deception as we go about our own days. Not one of us could have fooled her!
If you are seeking typical ‘horror’ stories, you might want to give this a pass. You may be disappointed. Jackson doesn’t write ‘horror’ like other writers. Instead, she tells disturbing and weird tales; ones that will make your skin crawl just the same. But don’t expect to be hiding under the covers and jumping at the slightest tap on the window or creak in the floorboard. Do expect to look at your partner, your neighbor, your friend, your dentist, your florist, your hair stylist, and the guy sitting next to you on the subway and wonder what is actually going on in the darkest recesses of their minds. When they speak, are they really conveying what they truly mean? Are you yourself becoming slightly unhinged by thinking about it overly much? Perhaps you won’t even recognize yourself any longer.
“Then she realized that at the wash-basin she was in the way of the women in a hurry so she dried her face quickly. It was when she stepped a little aside to let someone else get to the basin and stood up and glanced into the mirror that she realized with a slight stinging shock that she had no idea which face was hers!”
There are an abundance of stories in this collection, and naturally some are better than others. There are several that I forgot by the next day, and others that will stay with me for a long time, creeping into my head at unexpected and unwelcome moments. I’m a poor sleeper and always have been. I toss and turn and am prone to frequent, vivid and bizarre dreams. Some, thankfully not all, are nightmarish in quality. As I read these stories, I couldn’t help but think that many of them had this surreal, unnerving quality to them – almost as if I was recalling some long ago, deeply buried dream. But I believe that was Jackson’s gift. Her unique storytelling abilities and her keen penetration of the depths of our psyches force you to sense a recognition or remembrance of something that has already happened or could come to pass when you least expect it. Nothing is ever as it appears. Take a peek underneath and what you see will leave you wishing someone would just pinch you and wake you up from this hell.
“Things will be different afterward. Everything that makes the world like it is now will be gone. We’ll have new rules and new ways of living.”
One character from the story titled “Elizabeth” sets out for a day at the office:
“Funny thing, she thought, a clerk in a drugstore, he gets up in the morning and eats and walks around and writes a play just like it was real, just like the rest of us, like me.”
I have a suspicion Jackson is telling us that we are all a part of some grand deception as we go about our own days. Not one of us could have fooled her!
If you are seeking typical ‘horror’ stories, you might want to give this a pass. You may be disappointed. Jackson doesn’t write ‘horror’ like other writers. Instead, she tells disturbing and weird tales; ones that will make your skin crawl just the same. But don’t expect to be hiding under the covers and jumping at the slightest tap on the window or creak in the floorboard. Do expect to look at your partner, your neighbor, your friend, your dentist, your florist, your hair stylist, and the guy sitting next to you on the subway and wonder what is actually going on in the darkest recesses of their minds. When they speak, are they really conveying what they truly mean? Are you yourself becoming slightly unhinged by thinking about it overly much? Perhaps you won’t even recognize yourself any longer.
“Then she realized that at the wash-basin she was in the way of the women in a hurry so she dried her face quickly. It was when she stepped a little aside to let someone else get to the basin and stood up and glanced into the mirror that she realized with a slight stinging shock that she had no idea which face was hers!”
There are an abundance of stories in this collection, and naturally some are better than others. There are several that I forgot by the next day, and others that will stay with me for a long time, creeping into my head at unexpected and unwelcome moments. I’m a poor sleeper and always have been. I toss and turn and am prone to frequent, vivid and bizarre dreams. Some, thankfully not all, are nightmarish in quality. As I read these stories, I couldn’t help but think that many of them had this surreal, unnerving quality to them – almost as if I was recalling some long ago, deeply buried dream. But I believe that was Jackson’s gift. Her unique storytelling abilities and her keen penetration of the depths of our psyches force you to sense a recognition or remembrance of something that has already happened or could come to pass when you least expect it. Nothing is ever as it appears. Take a peek underneath and what you see will leave you wishing someone would just pinch you and wake you up from this hell.
“Things will be different afterward. Everything that makes the world like it is now will be gone. We’ll have new rules and new ways of living.”
October 26, 2020
After reading all these seemingly disconnected tales of hush-hush Terror, evidently some pattern arises. This chain of stories is where I found the masterpiece existing at the very core of the "novel."
Never before has subtlety been used so effectively. In a "masterpiece of the macabre", a few corpses, ghosts, demons should make cameos, surely. Nah-ah. Not true here.
Shirley Jackson is also the author of "The Haunting of Hill House," a haunted house tale that suggests rather than shows... like all the "good ole" horror movies. I don't quite know how to approach a review about something I fell head over heels with (move over Barker [and, therefore, S. King]). The tiny details is what enthralls readers of Jackson... all the moments of dread that announce themselves only when one's in that sort of type of gothic mood.
I suppose the title, "The Lottery" is much more than just the final story in this collection-- which is also the best known, most popular of the bunch. It also implies that to all these people, though some threads unite them (most protagonists are female, have slight-to-severe OCD, live in New York City or the country... there are tales with children and mothers in them, with slight transference of evil between them; people turning against each other in a lesser degree of violence than in the culminating climax of the title story, an almost poetic announcement of the apocalypse written in code), even though there are sure fire connections (Mr. Harris is the name of almost every single male character found scattered in the stories), what occurs to these people, tragedy or sudden revulsion or deep depression or severe psychosis, is almost as if by a mystical collective lottery, one everyone plays in because everyone is... alive. You play it because you live. Fate chooses you. If you get picked, then it's your turn to experience something that makes the skin crawl.
Never before has subtlety been used so effectively. In a "masterpiece of the macabre", a few corpses, ghosts, demons should make cameos, surely. Nah-ah. Not true here.
Shirley Jackson is also the author of "The Haunting of Hill House," a haunted house tale that suggests rather than shows... like all the "good ole" horror movies. I don't quite know how to approach a review about something I fell head over heels with (move over Barker [and, therefore, S. King]). The tiny details is what enthralls readers of Jackson... all the moments of dread that announce themselves only when one's in that sort of type of gothic mood.
I suppose the title, "The Lottery" is much more than just the final story in this collection-- which is also the best known, most popular of the bunch. It also implies that to all these people, though some threads unite them (most protagonists are female, have slight-to-severe OCD, live in New York City or the country... there are tales with children and mothers in them, with slight transference of evil between them; people turning against each other in a lesser degree of violence than in the culminating climax of the title story, an almost poetic announcement of the apocalypse written in code), even though there are sure fire connections (Mr. Harris is the name of almost every single male character found scattered in the stories), what occurs to these people, tragedy or sudden revulsion or deep depression or severe psychosis, is almost as if by a mystical collective lottery, one everyone plays in because everyone is... alive. You play it because you live. Fate chooses you. If you get picked, then it's your turn to experience something that makes the skin crawl.
Read
May 29, 2023A precisely written collection from a writer with a firm place in the horror genre's pedigree. These closely observed stories are more dreadful (in the sense of invoking dread) than horrific (in the sense of the modern horror genre), with most of their uneasy power coming from a razor-sharp portrayal of the mundane. I didn't love any of these stories, just as I didn't love her novel-length WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, but I can see how she landed a place in canon.
It's worth noting that this collection ends with "The Lottery," a story everyone except for me seems to have read in school. I see why it's assigned; the tale of how we all participate in perpetuating small horrors in the name of tradition is still gruesomely true today. Humans, man. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.
It's worth noting that this collection ends with "The Lottery," a story everyone except for me seems to have read in school. I see why it's assigned; the tale of how we all participate in perpetuating small horrors in the name of tradition is still gruesomely true today. Humans, man. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.
March 9, 2024
“The Lottery and Other Stories” by Shirley Jackson is a solid collection by the Queen of Horror. Ever since I read “The Haunting of Hill House” in 2022 I’ve been forever hooked on anything Jackson writes. Needless to say, that is the greatest haunted house novel ever written and when I saw this unique collection of short stories she wrote before it, I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into this.
Before I begin my review, I found a few trigger warnings while reading. They were…
- Death of animals (dog and chicken)
- Violence and cruelty against animals (dogs)
If either of these triggers you, please do not read this collection. Moving along, I was beyond excited to read this mostly because I’ve never read “The Lottery” which everyone in the horror community speaks so highly of. This collection leaves that short story for last so the buildup and tension are real if you’re reading this just to read it finally.
All these stories are written well and it was pure joy reading this collection of Jackson’s short stories. Now, the only thing I have to stress and give a heads up to is that this entire collection is NOT entirely horror. It has a few horror-ish stories but these are all over the place dealing with various topics besides creepiness and horror. I was a bit disappointed at this but going into this collection with an open mind and appreciating Jackson’s amazing style of writing will make it a better read.
I was hoping there would be a final macabre ending or crazy twist to many of these short stories but they never came. The good news is there were a few creepy, weird, and awesome stories I loved which were...
- The Witch
- The Renegade
- Charles
- Pillar of Salt
- The Tooth
- The Lottery
The way I see it, I just wanted to read “The Lottery” and I got all these additional stories to add more to my reading experience. Once I realized not every single story here was going to be full-on horror, I started to enjoy it even more. As I said, reading anything written by Jackson is a delight and you’ll see exactly what I mean as you read these stories.
It should also be noted this collection came out in 1949 and “The Haunting of Hill House” didn’t come out until 1959. “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” also didn’t come out until 1962 so this was a nice early glimpse of Jackson before she solidified herself as the Queen of Horror later on in her legendary career.
This entire collection is worth it since each story eventually leads to the very last entry of “The Lottery” and my goodness, that was so creepy! I loved the little twist at the end since I thought it was literally about a lottery with money and boy, was I wrong. I won’t spoil anything for you but I can see why it’s considered an iconic horror short story. It was the perfect way to end this collection and it was so awesome.
Reading Jackson's incredible range as an author and not just entirely in horror was such a rewarding experience. It was new for me since I’ve only read her horror books but wow, she truly is an all-around brilliant author who was ahead of her time. She has made an everlasting impact in the horror genre by inspiring countless authors, including my all-time favorite, Stephen King. Her legacy will stand the test of time.
I give “The Lottery and Other Stories” by Shirley Jackson a 5/5 for being another outstanding read by the Queen of Horror. There are a lot of great stories in here but as I said, it’s important to go into this not expecting every single story to be scary but knowing there are a few that will satisfy all the horror readers out there. I got more than a handful of horror stories here on top of “The Lottery” which lived up to the hype and then some. I’d highly recommend this for any fan of Jackson or if you’ve never read her work, give this a whirl because you will not be disappointed.
Before I begin my review, I found a few trigger warnings while reading. They were…
- Death of animals (dog and chicken)
- Violence and cruelty against animals (dogs)
If either of these triggers you, please do not read this collection. Moving along, I was beyond excited to read this mostly because I’ve never read “The Lottery” which everyone in the horror community speaks so highly of. This collection leaves that short story for last so the buildup and tension are real if you’re reading this just to read it finally.
All these stories are written well and it was pure joy reading this collection of Jackson’s short stories. Now, the only thing I have to stress and give a heads up to is that this entire collection is NOT entirely horror. It has a few horror-ish stories but these are all over the place dealing with various topics besides creepiness and horror. I was a bit disappointed at this but going into this collection with an open mind and appreciating Jackson’s amazing style of writing will make it a better read.
I was hoping there would be a final macabre ending or crazy twist to many of these short stories but they never came. The good news is there were a few creepy, weird, and awesome stories I loved which were...
- The Witch
- The Renegade
- Charles
- Pillar of Salt
- The Tooth
- The Lottery
The way I see it, I just wanted to read “The Lottery” and I got all these additional stories to add more to my reading experience. Once I realized not every single story here was going to be full-on horror, I started to enjoy it even more. As I said, reading anything written by Jackson is a delight and you’ll see exactly what I mean as you read these stories.
It should also be noted this collection came out in 1949 and “The Haunting of Hill House” didn’t come out until 1959. “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” also didn’t come out until 1962 so this was a nice early glimpse of Jackson before she solidified herself as the Queen of Horror later on in her legendary career.
This entire collection is worth it since each story eventually leads to the very last entry of “The Lottery” and my goodness, that was so creepy! I loved the little twist at the end since I thought it was literally about a lottery with money and boy, was I wrong. I won’t spoil anything for you but I can see why it’s considered an iconic horror short story. It was the perfect way to end this collection and it was so awesome.
Reading Jackson's incredible range as an author and not just entirely in horror was such a rewarding experience. It was new for me since I’ve only read her horror books but wow, she truly is an all-around brilliant author who was ahead of her time. She has made an everlasting impact in the horror genre by inspiring countless authors, including my all-time favorite, Stephen King. Her legacy will stand the test of time.
I give “The Lottery and Other Stories” by Shirley Jackson a 5/5 for being another outstanding read by the Queen of Horror. There are a lot of great stories in here but as I said, it’s important to go into this not expecting every single story to be scary but knowing there are a few that will satisfy all the horror readers out there. I got more than a handful of horror stories here on top of “The Lottery” which lived up to the hype and then some. I’d highly recommend this for any fan of Jackson or if you’ve never read her work, give this a whirl because you will not be disappointed.
January 19, 2023
One of my bucket-list reads has been Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. The great Stephen King was inspired by the story. I downloaded the audible audio of “The Lottery and Seven Other Stories” by Shirley Jackson, narrated by Carol Jordan Steward. It’s a bit over 3 hours, and the time goes by quickly. Her prose, even when listened to, are beautiful. She writes with economy and the astuteness of the human condition. The stories involve everyday moments; yet under her keen eye, we see the insecurities, the tension involved in maintaining appearances.
The short stories include “The Lottery”, “Flower Garden”, “Come Dance with Me in Ireland”, “Men with Their Big Shoes”, “Trial by Combat”, “Pillar of Salt”, “Like Mother Used to Make”, and Colloquy”.
“The Lottery” was disturbing, as expected. “Flower Garden” was my favorite. Jackson captured small town living in the Jim Crow era so well. “Come Dance with Me in Ireland” left me scratching my head. “Men with Their Big Shoes” is a new mother’s nightmare. “Trial by Combat” is a single woman’s nightmare. “Pillar of Salt” is a small town girl dealing with big city crime. “Like Mother Used to Make” is strange. “Colloquy” went right over my head.
Glad I checked off a bucket-list item!!
The short stories include “The Lottery”, “Flower Garden”, “Come Dance with Me in Ireland”, “Men with Their Big Shoes”, “Trial by Combat”, “Pillar of Salt”, “Like Mother Used to Make”, and Colloquy”.
“The Lottery” was disturbing, as expected. “Flower Garden” was my favorite. Jackson captured small town living in the Jim Crow era so well. “Come Dance with Me in Ireland” left me scratching my head. “Men with Their Big Shoes” is a new mother’s nightmare. “Trial by Combat” is a single woman’s nightmare. “Pillar of Salt” is a small town girl dealing with big city crime. “Like Mother Used to Make” is strange. “Colloquy” went right over my head.
Glad I checked off a bucket-list item!!
October 23, 2017
The one thing that really stands out about this collection of Shirley Jackson stories is this: the subtlety.
It's not over the top horror in any shape or fashion. Rather, it's regular folk doing regular things and as we peel back layers and layers to their surroundings or their individual psyches, everything twists subtly. The normal quickly becomes a twilight zone nightmare even if it's only a tiny little thing that's changed.
A dog caught killing chickens. *shiver* My goodness, that one killed me. Dead.
Some, like the Witch, was totally awesome and people of my generation would have just found it great fun, but I can see why the mommy freaked the hell out. Of course, the little kid was rocking hard to it and why wouldn't he?
I loved the Tooth. It was damn surreal and I was thinking along the lines of all the similar kinds of tales and novels to come after it. Body-hopping tales, indeed. :)
But more than that, I was really impressed and fascinated at the look into '40's racism, subtle or not, how badly women were treated and how badly they treated each other, and the general miasma of inhumanity everywhere.
Some tales were all about the unspoken silence that surrounded mental illness and the insane pressure to keep a lid on it and remain "normal". Things like this may not be completely horror as the genre but the tension was definitely all horror.
Shirly Jackson's stories were absolutely macabre, quite brilliant, and completely understated. It's all about looking through the darkened mirror, seeing our normal lives, living them, and then seeing just how horrible we really are. :)
Great stuff!
It's not over the top horror in any shape or fashion. Rather, it's regular folk doing regular things and as we peel back layers and layers to their surroundings or their individual psyches, everything twists subtly. The normal quickly becomes a twilight zone nightmare even if it's only a tiny little thing that's changed.
A dog caught killing chickens. *shiver* My goodness, that one killed me. Dead.
Some, like the Witch, was totally awesome and people of my generation would have just found it great fun, but I can see why the mommy freaked the hell out. Of course, the little kid was rocking hard to it and why wouldn't he?
I loved the Tooth. It was damn surreal and I was thinking along the lines of all the similar kinds of tales and novels to come after it. Body-hopping tales, indeed. :)
But more than that, I was really impressed and fascinated at the look into '40's racism, subtle or not, how badly women were treated and how badly they treated each other, and the general miasma of inhumanity everywhere.
Some tales were all about the unspoken silence that surrounded mental illness and the insane pressure to keep a lid on it and remain "normal". Things like this may not be completely horror as the genre but the tension was definitely all horror.
Shirly Jackson's stories were absolutely macabre, quite brilliant, and completely understated. It's all about looking through the darkened mirror, seeing our normal lives, living them, and then seeing just how horrible we really are. :)
Great stuff!
December 14, 2018
Today, December 14, is Shirley Jackson's birthday, and ever since Shirley came into my life this year and KNOCKED ME OUT with her fiction, I have invented a little fantasy about what her average morning might have looked like, when she was alive. It's a complete fiction, of course, but it always manages to cheer me up, every time I think of it (or find myself disliking men, overly much):
So, it goes. . .
It's morning at the Jackson/Hyman household, circa 195-, and Shirley Jackson's standing in her kitchen, tossing a dirty skillet into the sink with one hand, pulling up the back of her waistband with the other. It's autumn and she has an old pink robe pulled loosely over her pajamas and a ratty pair of slippers on her feet. A mess of curlers and bobby pins stick out like a bird's nest at the top of her head.
Shirley burps a little, gives her belly a scratch, then leans against the counter as she lights a cigarette, watching her four kids in the kitchen nook make a mess of their abandoned scrambled eggs. “Get on then, will ya?” she says firmly to her kids, causing a ruckus of pushed back chairs and dishes tossed into the sink and loud footfalls on the stairs. She makes a satisfied grunt then hacks up a mess of her own and spits it loudly into the sink.
She turns to the four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that are awaiting her approval on the counter and squints through the smoke to inspect her handiwork. She continues to pull on her cigarette, held by her right hand, while she does a clumsy job of enclosing each sandwich with wax paper with her left. Some ash falls down onto one final slice of the bread, and Shirley leans over and blows it away before forming the last sloppy package.
The kids run down the stairs now with a great commotion and fill the kitchen with chaos, grabbing their bagged lunches, stopping to receive a kiss on their heads from their mother, then making more noise by the front door as they cover their bodies with jackets and boots. Shirley shouts her goodbyes and they echo hers as they loudly push out the door, into the morning air.
Silence follows the slammed door and only then does husband Stanley emerge from his bedroom, freshly shaven and dressed in a suit, ready to start his day. He walks down the stairs, humming, and sails up to the disheveled Shirley, who has lit a new cigarette with the old one and is now staring out the window above the sink. He walks up behind her, greeting her by placing one hand on her hip and reaching his other hand, playfully, up under her shirt, to paw at one of her breasts.
He acts the vampire, taking small bites at his wife's neck, then puts his mouth to her ear to sing, “Who's gonna make us all richer today, eh, Shirley? Who's my golden girl?” He pinches her right nipple for effect and his wife, still staring out the window, rolls her eyes.
In a voice almost as deep as a man's, Shirley growls, “Aw, for fuck's sake, Stan. Settle down.”
Stan laughs loudly and gives a hard slap to Shirley's generous bottom as he shouts, “Back to work, golden girl!” then grabs his briefcase and makes his own departure, humming as he walks out the door.
Shirley, grunting, crushes her cigarette out in the sink, then shuffles slowly in her slippers to the front door. She puts pressure on the stubborn door with one large hip then dramatically turns the lock. . . and shuffles away.
When she gets to the base of the stairs, she takes off one slipper, slowly, leaning on the wall as she lifts her leg to remove it. She focuses on the door, then chucks the slipper, hard, at just the right spot. She takes off the other slipper and does it again.
Shirley climbs the steps, barefooted, up to her writing desk.
She's smiling.
Stacking the dishes in the kitchen, she thought, Maybe he means it, maybe he could kill himself first, maybe he really wasn't curious and even if he were he'd drive himself into a hysterical state trying to read through the envelope, locked in the bathroom. Or maybe he just got it and said, Oh, from Jimmy, and threw it in his brief case and forgot it. I'll murder him if he did, she thought. I'll bury him in the cellar. (from “Got a Letter from Jimmy”)
So, it goes. . .
It's morning at the Jackson/Hyman household, circa 195-, and Shirley Jackson's standing in her kitchen, tossing a dirty skillet into the sink with one hand, pulling up the back of her waistband with the other. It's autumn and she has an old pink robe pulled loosely over her pajamas and a ratty pair of slippers on her feet. A mess of curlers and bobby pins stick out like a bird's nest at the top of her head.
Shirley burps a little, gives her belly a scratch, then leans against the counter as she lights a cigarette, watching her four kids in the kitchen nook make a mess of their abandoned scrambled eggs. “Get on then, will ya?” she says firmly to her kids, causing a ruckus of pushed back chairs and dishes tossed into the sink and loud footfalls on the stairs. She makes a satisfied grunt then hacks up a mess of her own and spits it loudly into the sink.
She turns to the four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that are awaiting her approval on the counter and squints through the smoke to inspect her handiwork. She continues to pull on her cigarette, held by her right hand, while she does a clumsy job of enclosing each sandwich with wax paper with her left. Some ash falls down onto one final slice of the bread, and Shirley leans over and blows it away before forming the last sloppy package.
The kids run down the stairs now with a great commotion and fill the kitchen with chaos, grabbing their bagged lunches, stopping to receive a kiss on their heads from their mother, then making more noise by the front door as they cover their bodies with jackets and boots. Shirley shouts her goodbyes and they echo hers as they loudly push out the door, into the morning air.
Silence follows the slammed door and only then does husband Stanley emerge from his bedroom, freshly shaven and dressed in a suit, ready to start his day. He walks down the stairs, humming, and sails up to the disheveled Shirley, who has lit a new cigarette with the old one and is now staring out the window above the sink. He walks up behind her, greeting her by placing one hand on her hip and reaching his other hand, playfully, up under her shirt, to paw at one of her breasts.
He acts the vampire, taking small bites at his wife's neck, then puts his mouth to her ear to sing, “Who's gonna make us all richer today, eh, Shirley? Who's my golden girl?” He pinches her right nipple for effect and his wife, still staring out the window, rolls her eyes.
In a voice almost as deep as a man's, Shirley growls, “Aw, for fuck's sake, Stan. Settle down.”
Stan laughs loudly and gives a hard slap to Shirley's generous bottom as he shouts, “Back to work, golden girl!” then grabs his briefcase and makes his own departure, humming as he walks out the door.
Shirley, grunting, crushes her cigarette out in the sink, then shuffles slowly in her slippers to the front door. She puts pressure on the stubborn door with one large hip then dramatically turns the lock. . . and shuffles away.
When she gets to the base of the stairs, she takes off one slipper, slowly, leaning on the wall as she lifts her leg to remove it. She focuses on the door, then chucks the slipper, hard, at just the right spot. She takes off the other slipper and does it again.
Shirley climbs the steps, barefooted, up to her writing desk.
She's smiling.
Stacking the dishes in the kitchen, she thought, Maybe he means it, maybe he could kill himself first, maybe he really wasn't curious and even if he were he'd drive himself into a hysterical state trying to read through the envelope, locked in the bathroom. Or maybe he just got it and said, Oh, from Jimmy, and threw it in his brief case and forgot it. I'll murder him if he did, she thought. I'll bury him in the cellar. (from “Got a Letter from Jimmy”)
March 20, 2022
The Lottery is a brilliant, iconic story, and most of us read it as young people and therefore it (along with the innocently laughing Bobby, collecting stones which will soon become weapons) was permanently seared in our brains.
The rest of these stories, however, were unfamiliar to me. I wasn't surprised at how engaging they were, how easily I was drawn in. I was a little surprised at how some of them petered, though, leaving the stories hacked off halfway, unresolved, as though the author had lost interest or realized there wasn't much more to do.
Most of the stories have a very strong female point of view. A female who is chained to her gender - a mother, a housewife, and not a very attractive one, and a disillusioned one, one that is probably smoking, and aching for something more. The jilted fiancée, the woman mistaken for the lady of the house, the woman who worked at Macy's just for one day.
Sometimes the stories feature men, like one who talks with a teenage girl at a party and is disturbed by her insights on the bad state of the world, or the one who recounts to a boy on a train that he chopped up his sister into pieces and fed her head to a lion.
There's often something quite unknown slithering through these pages. Anything could happen, like in a Flannery O'Connor story. I know I'll return to this collection again, and find something hidden that I didn't see on the first pass.
As I mentioned, not all the stories are strong, but they all are sewn together with the same deft, nicotine stained fingers, and those fingers beckon, ominously.
It ends with The Lottery, the story Jackson was meant to write, the story that drew me to the collection in the first place. "It isn't fair, it isn't right," her character famously declares, and I turn that final page, in full agreement, and admiration.
The rest of these stories, however, were unfamiliar to me. I wasn't surprised at how engaging they were, how easily I was drawn in. I was a little surprised at how some of them petered, though, leaving the stories hacked off halfway, unresolved, as though the author had lost interest or realized there wasn't much more to do.
Most of the stories have a very strong female point of view. A female who is chained to her gender - a mother, a housewife, and not a very attractive one, and a disillusioned one, one that is probably smoking, and aching for something more. The jilted fiancée, the woman mistaken for the lady of the house, the woman who worked at Macy's just for one day.
Sometimes the stories feature men, like one who talks with a teenage girl at a party and is disturbed by her insights on the bad state of the world, or the one who recounts to a boy on a train that he chopped up his sister into pieces and fed her head to a lion.
There's often something quite unknown slithering through these pages. Anything could happen, like in a Flannery O'Connor story. I know I'll return to this collection again, and find something hidden that I didn't see on the first pass.
As I mentioned, not all the stories are strong, but they all are sewn together with the same deft, nicotine stained fingers, and those fingers beckon, ominously.
It ends with The Lottery, the story Jackson was meant to write, the story that drew me to the collection in the first place. "It isn't fair, it isn't right," her character famously declares, and I turn that final page, in full agreement, and admiration.
September 8, 2019
I am not persuaded any of these qualify as horror. Good enough stories, readable, lukewarm writing, not much more. !!!BEWARE of SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!
There's this story about some weird guy telling a young neurotical kid with an even younger sister gruesome tales about his own (hypothetical) sister. The mother chases him away.
There's a story about a woman running around looking for her fiance and asking a bunch of random geezers about him. It's painstakingly described how she's over 30 and how it's disadvantageing her to no end and how difficult it is to look presentable at this ripe old age... *eyeroll* We get a view of her 2 pocketbooks dilemma, 2 dress dilemma, all kinds of dillemas of this kind. We even get a view of her fantasy of how she would talk to the police, trying to explain to them that she has a right to a fiance because she's not just this shabby body/face (at her ripe old age of 30! *eyeroll*) but that there's also something beneath the surface that makes her worthy of this great honour. *eyeroll*
There's another story about a dancer become secretary who tries to buy secondhand furniture and pretends for a bit she's the one selling it to another customer.
The Lottery, of course. So, the winner gets stoned by their neighbours (young kids included), once per year.
Another story is about a girl talking to a grownup about the approaching end of the world, the said grownup gets his panties in a twist about it.
Yet another story is about Laurie telling stories about Charlie (I hope I'm not mistaken about the names). L. goes to a kindergarten and comes home regaling everyone with stories about a wilder kid in there, C. These stories 'become an institution' with the family who start calling anything wild or unfortunate or nasty 'a Charlie'. Then, after ages, they learn that there's no Charlie (and that it was likely/maybe L. doing all the acting up and then referring to himself in the 3d person and another name). Taudry? Maybe. I liked this one for its weirdness but then again, it's not too unusual a situation. And not a horror, definitely. Kids (and grownups) have been known to do far more horrible stuff than misbehaving in a kindergarten and then trying to make up an alter ego.
Another one is about marines and a whole flock of females of a family who think marines are dirty or deranged or are gonna jump them all on sight or something. And yes, it's boring.
Another story is about an Afroamerican kid invited to dinner to a White family and the mother of the family being very obtuse about his life circumstances. She's very determined to have her foot in her mouse for the duration of the story. And she succeeds in that with flying colours.
Actually, all over there are lots of women portrayed in here who are shown how they are over 30 and how it's difficult to be over 30 compared to being over 20. All these women live either for men or for kids or for something just behind the horizon. They don't do things just for themselves. And it's all damn tiresome and it might have been a social horror or writing horror or bored-out-of-my-mind horror but not horror-horror. I hope the author was trying to achive some kind of social satire or irony and was illustrating all this shit for the purpose of showing the reader just how bothersome these attitudes can get. Or else, these stories would be worthless altogether.
And bothersome this whole stuff is! Seriously, men, meeting such women, how did they not manage to run really fast away so as not to immediately become the center of someone else's universe? Is it even pleasant for anyone when the people's worlds are so very much skewed? I wouldn't want to be in any society where any social group is obliged to revolve around the interest of any other social group. I think both would be incredibly boring.
Mind it, these stories might have been ground-breaking in their time (including the miracle of a woman, no, A WOMAN putting her pen to paper and getting some results recognisable as writing!) but at this time, today, these are more of a jaw-breaking-from-yawning kind. Mildly interesting. Only mildly.
There's this story about some weird guy telling a young neurotical kid with an even younger sister gruesome tales about his own (hypothetical) sister. The mother chases him away.
There's a story about a woman running around looking for her fiance and asking a bunch of random geezers about him. It's painstakingly described how she's over 30 and how it's disadvantageing her to no end and how difficult it is to look presentable at this ripe old age... *eyeroll* We get a view of her 2 pocketbooks dilemma, 2 dress dilemma, all kinds of dillemas of this kind. We even get a view of her fantasy of how she would talk to the police, trying to explain to them that she has a right to a fiance because she's not just this shabby body/face (at her ripe old age of 30! *eyeroll*) but that there's also something beneath the surface that makes her worthy of this great honour. *eyeroll*
There's another story about a dancer become secretary who tries to buy secondhand furniture and pretends for a bit she's the one selling it to another customer.
The Lottery, of course. So, the winner gets stoned by their neighbours (young kids included), once per year.
Another story is about a girl talking to a grownup about the approaching end of the world, the said grownup gets his panties in a twist about it.
Yet another story is about Laurie telling stories about Charlie (I hope I'm not mistaken about the names). L. goes to a kindergarten and comes home regaling everyone with stories about a wilder kid in there, C. These stories 'become an institution' with the family who start calling anything wild or unfortunate or nasty 'a Charlie'. Then, after ages, they learn that there's no Charlie (and that it was likely/maybe L. doing all the acting up and then referring to himself in the 3d person and another name). Taudry? Maybe. I liked this one for its weirdness but then again, it's not too unusual a situation. And not a horror, definitely. Kids (and grownups) have been known to do far more horrible stuff than misbehaving in a kindergarten and then trying to make up an alter ego.
Another one is about marines and a whole flock of females of a family who think marines are dirty or deranged or are gonna jump them all on sight or something. And yes, it's boring.
Another story is about an Afroamerican kid invited to dinner to a White family and the mother of the family being very obtuse about his life circumstances. She's very determined to have her foot in her mouse for the duration of the story. And she succeeds in that with flying colours.
Actually, all over there are lots of women portrayed in here who are shown how they are over 30 and how it's difficult to be over 30 compared to being over 20. All these women live either for men or for kids or for something just behind the horizon. They don't do things just for themselves. And it's all damn tiresome and it might have been a social horror or writing horror or bored-out-of-my-mind horror but not horror-horror. I hope the author was trying to achive some kind of social satire or irony and was illustrating all this shit for the purpose of showing the reader just how bothersome these attitudes can get. Or else, these stories would be worthless altogether.
And bothersome this whole stuff is! Seriously, men, meeting such women, how did they not manage to run really fast away so as not to immediately become the center of someone else's universe? Is it even pleasant for anyone when the people's worlds are so very much skewed? I wouldn't want to be in any society where any social group is obliged to revolve around the interest of any other social group. I think both would be incredibly boring.
Mind it, these stories might have been ground-breaking in their time (including the miracle of a woman, no, A WOMAN putting her pen to paper and getting some results recognisable as writing!) but at this time, today, these are more of a jaw-breaking-from-yawning kind. Mildly interesting. Only mildly.
March 13, 2023
Shirley Jackson's best short story is not 'The Lottery' (have you read 'Flower Garden'?) and it's almost a shame that it's her most well-known. Reading this collection, it isn't long before you start to feel the prying eyes of a Mrs Burton or a Mrs Walpole burning into your skull. What have I done wrong? you ask. Oh, nothing, they answer, even though you've clearly stepped on someone's toes. I'll take domestic rebel Shirley Jackson over 'horror' Shirley Jackson any day, even if she does have a tendency to spiral into the utterly mundane. 'The Tooth'--ugh. Maybe I just didn't get what I was supposed to get out of some of them but sometimes I wonder if some of these stories aren't interpreted as 'creepy' merely because of Shirley Jackson's reputation. Oh, and anybody who has ever worked retail, please do me the favor of enjoying 'My Life with RH Macy.'
The Intoxicated - 3
The Daemon Lover - 4
Like Mother Used to Make - 5
Trial by Combat - 5
The Villager - 4
My Life with RH Macy - 5
The Witch - 4
The Renegade - 4
After You, My Dear Alphonse - 3
Charles - 5
Afternoon in Linen - 3
Flower Garden - 5
Dorothy and My Grandmother and the Sailors - 4
Colloquy - 3
Elizabeth - 4
A Fine, Old Firm - 3
The Dummy - 4
Seven Types of Ambiguity - 3
Come Dance with Me in Ireland - 4
Of Course - 4
Pillar of Salt - 2
Men with their Big Shoes - 4
The Tooth - 2
Got a Letter from Jimmy - 3
The Lottery - 4
The Intoxicated - 3
The Daemon Lover - 4
Like Mother Used to Make - 5
Trial by Combat - 5
The Villager - 4
My Life with RH Macy - 5
The Witch - 4
The Renegade - 4
After You, My Dear Alphonse - 3
Charles - 5
Afternoon in Linen - 3
Flower Garden - 5
Dorothy and My Grandmother and the Sailors - 4
Colloquy - 3
Elizabeth - 4
A Fine, Old Firm - 3
The Dummy - 4
Seven Types of Ambiguity - 3
Come Dance with Me in Ireland - 4
Of Course - 4
Pillar of Salt - 2
Men with their Big Shoes - 4
The Tooth - 2
Got a Letter from Jimmy - 3
The Lottery - 4
September 24, 2022
A los pies de Shirley Jackson y su alto nivel para contar relatos.
Jackson en algunas de las historias describe escenas mundanas en la vida suburbana o rural y la insatisfacción del día a día de la ciudad, mientras que otros cuentos muestran la perversidad humana y la brutalidad inesperada de una sociedad inquietante. Hay una fuerte mezcla de lo cotidiano irrumpido por una maldad inherente de entornos corrompidos o deformados por comportamientos extraños, morbosos y/o muy cruentos con los nuevos visitantes. Lo sobrenatural, lo absurdo, lo fantástico y lo surrealista muy pocas veces asoma o apenas se percibe (es casi inexistente en casi todos ellos)pero cuándo lo hace, queda uno con más preguntas que respuestas.
Los personajes están traumatizados o directamente no se puede confiar en ellos porque no sabemos hasta qué punto están cuerdos o nos cuentan solo lo que quieren para engañar, mientras que hay otros tan sinceros que no hay nada entre líneas que no te quede claro con cada una de sus conversaciones o acciones. Demasiado psicológicos y complejos, hay relatos que parecen necesitar más de dos lecturas para encontrar más detalles que nutran una mejor comprensión. ¿Qué es lo real y qué es lo fantástico? Shirley Jackson demuestra que a veces no necesitas de ese tono maravilloso o sobrenatural para darte cuenta que la realidad puede ser mucho más cruda de lo que en apariencia es. La falsa amabilidad de vecinos y personas del entorno esconden mucho más debajo, cosa que se demuestra con los punzantes diálogos de los personajes.
Las casas son importantes para Jackson porque demuestran un buen signo de identidad que da forma a los protagonistas. Los pueblos y las ciudades también son en cierto grado un buen punto sin retorno para mostrar las incertidumbres de lo suburbano o las tradiciones y rituales pueblerinas que llevan los habitantes por muy siniestras o malignas que no parezcan al principio. Como dicen por ahí, las apariencias engañan y pueden haber más que solo comportamientos idílicos que traen por detrás intenciones perversas y malignas. Y por último, la presencia de cierta figura masculina (te hablo a ti Jim Harris) que aparece de manera física, a veces solo nombrado por otros, fantaseado y/o imaginado pone sobre la mesa a un agente del caos en su creación cuentista de lo más interesante.
El machismo, el racismo, el clasismo, el ostracismo, la condescendencia masculina (paternalismo), el sexismo, las convenciones sociales, los prejuicios, los estereotipos y luego están temáticas como la locura, la soledad, el miedo, la crueldad, la violencia, la maldad de la naturaleza humana y su irracionalidad, la fragmentación del yo, alter egos, etc., son características imprescindibles de su creación cuentista y que sin duda hacen su aparición. Igualmente considero que esto es sólo para seguidores fieles de la autora que reconocen su pluma y el nivel de detalles sutiles en sus historias.
Jackson en algunas de las historias describe escenas mundanas en la vida suburbana o rural y la insatisfacción del día a día de la ciudad, mientras que otros cuentos muestran la perversidad humana y la brutalidad inesperada de una sociedad inquietante. Hay una fuerte mezcla de lo cotidiano irrumpido por una maldad inherente de entornos corrompidos o deformados por comportamientos extraños, morbosos y/o muy cruentos con los nuevos visitantes. Lo sobrenatural, lo absurdo, lo fantástico y lo surrealista muy pocas veces asoma o apenas se percibe (es casi inexistente en casi todos ellos)pero cuándo lo hace, queda uno con más preguntas que respuestas.
Los personajes están traumatizados o directamente no se puede confiar en ellos porque no sabemos hasta qué punto están cuerdos o nos cuentan solo lo que quieren para engañar, mientras que hay otros tan sinceros que no hay nada entre líneas que no te quede claro con cada una de sus conversaciones o acciones. Demasiado psicológicos y complejos, hay relatos que parecen necesitar más de dos lecturas para encontrar más detalles que nutran una mejor comprensión. ¿Qué es lo real y qué es lo fantástico? Shirley Jackson demuestra que a veces no necesitas de ese tono maravilloso o sobrenatural para darte cuenta que la realidad puede ser mucho más cruda de lo que en apariencia es. La falsa amabilidad de vecinos y personas del entorno esconden mucho más debajo, cosa que se demuestra con los punzantes diálogos de los personajes.
Las casas son importantes para Jackson porque demuestran un buen signo de identidad que da forma a los protagonistas. Los pueblos y las ciudades también son en cierto grado un buen punto sin retorno para mostrar las incertidumbres de lo suburbano o las tradiciones y rituales pueblerinas que llevan los habitantes por muy siniestras o malignas que no parezcan al principio. Como dicen por ahí, las apariencias engañan y pueden haber más que solo comportamientos idílicos que traen por detrás intenciones perversas y malignas. Y por último, la presencia de cierta figura masculina (te hablo a ti Jim Harris) que aparece de manera física, a veces solo nombrado por otros, fantaseado y/o imaginado pone sobre la mesa a un agente del caos en su creación cuentista de lo más interesante.
El machismo, el racismo, el clasismo, el ostracismo, la condescendencia masculina (paternalismo), el sexismo, las convenciones sociales, los prejuicios, los estereotipos y luego están temáticas como la locura, la soledad, el miedo, la crueldad, la violencia, la maldad de la naturaleza humana y su irracionalidad, la fragmentación del yo, alter egos, etc., son características imprescindibles de su creación cuentista y que sin duda hacen su aparición. Igualmente considero que esto es sólo para seguidores fieles de la autora que reconocen su pluma y el nivel de detalles sutiles en sus historias.
September 30, 2012
Recently, I've read a number of short stories with the intention of cutting down my huge reading pile and I've been largely disappointed. Particularly by common favourites like Edgar Allan Poe and his many famous horror tales - I was surprised to find them rather lacking.
The Lottery, however, is one of the best short stories I've read. It's very rare that I would give five stars to a short story because I reserve the top rating for meaty, well-rounded, often complex and/or clever novels, so a four star rating means a lot in this case. Jackson's tale is undeniably creepy and tells a story that, though seemingly unknown to us, draws parallels with our world and the ridiculous way people are prone to behave at times. Her story is pure fiction, it is not about any world from the present or at any time in history... but it's meaning is something that applies still today.
It all comes down to one simple three-syllable word: tradition. Oh, what silly nonsense has been committed in the name of tradition. How often progress has been halted in favour of an outdated practice that remains simply because "that's the way it's always been". In Jackson's short story, every person in the town where this novel finds its setting is forced to draw a ticket in The Lottery. In the end, only one person can be the "winner", but this game has a sinister twist. Will you see it coming?
As the story builds up to its climax, we see the town citizens discussing the tradition of The Lottery. We are told that other towns nearby have started to ban the practice, that there has even been talk of banning it in this town. But everyone brushes this off with distaste - how can you ban something that has been going on for so long? How will people cope without this routine that they've come to rely on? I found this story fascinating. Both simple and clever and, ultimately, very effective.
If you'd like to read The Lottery for yourself you can find it here: http://www.d.umn.edu/~csigler/PDF%20f...
The Lottery, however, is one of the best short stories I've read. It's very rare that I would give five stars to a short story because I reserve the top rating for meaty, well-rounded, often complex and/or clever novels, so a four star rating means a lot in this case. Jackson's tale is undeniably creepy and tells a story that, though seemingly unknown to us, draws parallels with our world and the ridiculous way people are prone to behave at times. Her story is pure fiction, it is not about any world from the present or at any time in history... but it's meaning is something that applies still today.
It all comes down to one simple three-syllable word: tradition. Oh, what silly nonsense has been committed in the name of tradition. How often progress has been halted in favour of an outdated practice that remains simply because "that's the way it's always been". In Jackson's short story, every person in the town where this novel finds its setting is forced to draw a ticket in The Lottery. In the end, only one person can be the "winner", but this game has a sinister twist. Will you see it coming?
As the story builds up to its climax, we see the town citizens discussing the tradition of The Lottery. We are told that other towns nearby have started to ban the practice, that there has even been talk of banning it in this town. But everyone brushes this off with distaste - how can you ban something that has been going on for so long? How will people cope without this routine that they've come to rely on? I found this story fascinating. Both simple and clever and, ultimately, very effective.
If you'd like to read The Lottery for yourself you can find it here: http://www.d.umn.edu/~csigler/PDF%20f...
October 22, 2017
My 1949 Avon paperback - it originally sold for 35 cents! - seems to be pushing Shirley Jackson as H.P. Lovecraft with ovaries. The cover proclaims 'A study in nightmares-by the most haunting writer of this generation' It's even subtitled 'Adventures of the Demon Lover'. Anyone who's ever read that story knows the lover in that tale is more scoundrel than demon. Whatever it takes to sell books, I suppose.
Jackson's characters do more than throw stones at one another. Their cutting, thoughtless remarks have the power to wound and leave scars. Cruelty runs rampant as women snub and snipe at other women, and men bury themselves in their newpapers.
The author proves to be a keen observer of human nature, picking up on all the little details that bring her mini-masterpieces to life.
From The Villager:
She went into Whelan's and sat at the counter, putting her copy of the Villager down on the counter next to her pocketbook and The Charterhouse of Parma, which she had read enthusiastically up to page fifty and only carried now for effect.
Am I the only one who's done this? Waving around a copy of a book that I was not particularly fond of but wanted to show off in public so as to appear to be an intellectual... Surely, I can't be. Shirley must have done it too.
So, there you have it. Horror stories? No. Wonderful stories about sad and lonely people who seldom get their heart's desires? Oh, yes!
Jackson's characters do more than throw stones at one another. Their cutting, thoughtless remarks have the power to wound and leave scars. Cruelty runs rampant as women snub and snipe at other women, and men bury themselves in their newpapers.
The author proves to be a keen observer of human nature, picking up on all the little details that bring her mini-masterpieces to life.
From The Villager:
She went into Whelan's and sat at the counter, putting her copy of the Villager down on the counter next to her pocketbook and The Charterhouse of Parma, which she had read enthusiastically up to page fifty and only carried now for effect.
Am I the only one who's done this? Waving around a copy of a book that I was not particularly fond of but wanted to show off in public so as to appear to be an intellectual... Surely, I can't be. Shirley must have done it too.
So, there you have it. Horror stories? No. Wonderful stories about sad and lonely people who seldom get their heart's desires? Oh, yes!
August 10, 2021
“We are in the Dark to one another’s Purposes and Intendments; and there are a thousand Intrigues in our little Matters, which will not presently confess their Design, even to sagacious Inquisitors.”
—Joseph Glanvil, Sadducismus Triumphatus
My mind is blown.
If you think, because you’ve read “The Lottery”, you don’t need to read this collection, please think again. If you think because Shirley Jackson wrote one (iconic) haunted house novel, that this will be a book full of ghost stories and quote unquote :::horror::: please let me try to disabuse you of that notion too. Here are 25 deliciously subversive little nuggets, skewering mid-century conceptions of womanhood, domesticity, and conformity... try not to cut yourself on their jagged edges.
These stories feel freshly written more than 70 years after publication. It’s eerie to the point of unnerving how up to date some of them seem. I can just imagine Eileen from the opener, “The Intoxicated”, has a poster of Greta Thunberg on her bedroom wall. “After You, My Dear Alphonse” is a perfect miniature of white saviour ‘I'm not a racist’ condescension and unconscious bias. Often the collection has a 1940s Mad Men vibe, city ennui competing with suburban oppression, with vicious characters who smoke indoors and drink at least two martinis at lunch.
The title story is evergreen of course but it is newly chilling in the context of the pandemic—how many people have now been revealed as willing to engage in a little human sacrifice when it suits them?
The stories, individually, are brilliant. But the collection as a whole is on another level again. Read them all, in order, ideally in quick succession. If you’re on the lookout you might notice connections between three or four stories, character names that recur, and feel a bit clever for spotting them. But it’s not until the antepenultimate story, “The Tooth”, that it becomes clear something much bigger has been building beneath the surface here. And then the Epilogue—not a Jackson story at all, but a 17th century Scottish ballad—delivers the coup de grâce that recasts the entire collection.
Because it turns out there aren’t just links between a few stories. At least ten stories and as many as sixteen or more are connected: ribboned through with a seam of malevolence that is totally invisible until you know to look for it. In a manoeuvre too subtle and gradual to be called a twist, the :::horror::: materialises. It was there all along.
Maybe Shirley Jackson really was a witch.
—Joseph Glanvil, Sadducismus Triumphatus
My mind is blown.
If you think, because you’ve read “The Lottery”, you don’t need to read this collection, please think again. If you think because Shirley Jackson wrote one (iconic) haunted house novel, that this will be a book full of ghost stories and quote unquote :::horror::: please let me try to disabuse you of that notion too. Here are 25 deliciously subversive little nuggets, skewering mid-century conceptions of womanhood, domesticity, and conformity... try not to cut yourself on their jagged edges.
These stories feel freshly written more than 70 years after publication. It’s eerie to the point of unnerving how up to date some of them seem. I can just imagine Eileen from the opener, “The Intoxicated”, has a poster of Greta Thunberg on her bedroom wall. “After You, My Dear Alphonse” is a perfect miniature of white saviour ‘I'm not a racist’ condescension and unconscious bias. Often the collection has a 1940s Mad Men vibe, city ennui competing with suburban oppression, with vicious characters who smoke indoors and drink at least two martinis at lunch.
The title story is evergreen of course but it is newly chilling in the context of the pandemic—how many people have now been revealed as willing to engage in a little human sacrifice when it suits them?
The stories, individually, are brilliant. But the collection as a whole is on another level again. Read them all, in order, ideally in quick succession. If you’re on the lookout you might notice connections between three or four stories, character names that recur, and feel a bit clever for spotting them. But it’s not until the antepenultimate story, “The Tooth”, that it becomes clear something much bigger has been building beneath the surface here. And then the Epilogue—not a Jackson story at all, but a 17th century Scottish ballad—delivers the coup de grâce that recasts the entire collection.
Because it turns out there aren’t just links between a few stories. At least ten stories and as many as sixteen or more are connected: ribboned through with a seam of malevolence that is totally invisible until you know to look for it. In a manoeuvre too subtle and gradual to be called a twist, the :::horror::: materialises. It was there all along.
Maybe Shirley Jackson really was a witch.
May 23, 2019
My membership to the Gothic Appreciation Society has been revoked. I have been disowned by all my Jackson-loving book friends. I'm sorry, but I just could not find it in me to love this one.
The Lottery and Other Stories is, surprisingly, I know, a collection of Jackson's short tales. I have previously read a portion of her Dark Tales anthology before casting it aside but I was so eager to give more of her renowned work a go, given that The Haunting of Hill House is my favourite ever horrors.
I so wanted to love this one! I really did! Unfortunately, it affected me in precisely the same way as her last anthology. Every story began as compulsively readable as the last and I became repeatedly sure that THIS ONE was going to be the winner but then every story stuttered to a close without me ever being aware of what the actual point was. I am undoubtedly missing the literary merit or overlooking the true moral or meaning hidden between the lines, however, reading them proved increasingly frustrating when I failed to grasp the most basic of reason for their creation.
There were a handful of stories I loved, The Lottery being one of them, but most were one-star failures for me. I'm still interested in reading more of Jackson's full-length work, but will give her shorter creations a miss, from now on.
The Lottery and Other Stories is, surprisingly, I know, a collection of Jackson's short tales. I have previously read a portion of her Dark Tales anthology before casting it aside but I was so eager to give more of her renowned work a go, given that The Haunting of Hill House is my favourite ever horrors.
I so wanted to love this one! I really did! Unfortunately, it affected me in precisely the same way as her last anthology. Every story began as compulsively readable as the last and I became repeatedly sure that THIS ONE was going to be the winner but then every story stuttered to a close without me ever being aware of what the actual point was. I am undoubtedly missing the literary merit or overlooking the true moral or meaning hidden between the lines, however, reading them proved increasingly frustrating when I failed to grasp the most basic of reason for their creation.
There were a handful of stories I loved, The Lottery being one of them, but most were one-star failures for me. I'm still interested in reading more of Jackson's full-length work, but will give her shorter creations a miss, from now on.
May 11, 2016
Very rarely does one find a short story collection where all stories are above average. Kudos to Ms. Jackson for producing a collection where all are excellent, and some really outstanding. I wonder whether it is possible to fall in love with a lady who passed away when one was scarcely two years old? If so, I'm in love with Shirley.
The title story needs no introduction: in fact, this is the one which first led me to Shirley Jackson (and The Haunting of Hill House, which so far I've not been able to read). It must be one of the most discussed stories in American literature. You can find my review here .
However, The Lottery is an exception in this collection - none of the other stories are actual shockers, though the suggestion of violence in some of them is really disturbing. In The Renegade, various methods to "cure" a dog of her chicken-killing tendencies are discussed, some of them right out of a medieval torturer's manual. In The Witch, a casual story told to a boy by a stranger takes an ugly turn. Always, the humdrum suddenly metamorphoses into the bizarre - never quite letting go of strong undercurrent of black humour.
Shirley never lets us forget that behind the mask of civilisation, the caveman is still very much present - even though the mask is removed fully only in The Lottery. However, it leads to a permanent undercurrent of tension which would be unbearable had it also not been so humorous. People are always at loggerheads, arms akimbo, ready to draw and shoot - though they never actually do. We can see this tension among social situations most palpably in Trial by Combat, Afternoon in Linen, Like Mother Used to Make, Men with Their Big Shoes and The Intoxicated, and also in stories where the antagonism is not so evident. In some stories, this results in the total emotional domination of one human being by another, leading to virtual slavery (Like Mother Used to Make, Men with Their Big Shoes). Perhaps not surprisingly, children in Ms. Jackson's fictional universe take it in their stride.
------------------------------------------
In Kerala, we have a movement called "Pennezhuthu" (Woman-writing). It is coined by feminists to indicate the deconstructed language they use to subvert traditional masculine bias in literature. I have never been able to understand what they mean by this, but it cannot be denied that talented women bring a certain individual touch to language, themes and narrative. Shirley's female protagonists, lost in the labyrinthine city jungles, are a case in point.
In Pillar of Salt, New York becomes a virtual trap for a country woman who is reduced to a wreck who cannot cross the street by the end of the tale. In Flower Garden, the younger Mrs. Winning of Vermont Manor House becomes a prisoner of her own snobbish values. In Elizabeth, a lonely woman stuck in a stagnating business dreams of a demon lover in a sunlit garden and waits for him. In the The Tooth, a woman in the grip of a bad tooth has a dreamlike bus trip with a mysterious stranger.
But it is in The Daemon Lover that this mysterious male, a representation of the female animus perhaps, is taken to its logical extreme.
It is not coincidence that all these elusive men are named Jim Harris. James Harris is the daemon lover of Scottish ballad, the Devil himself in the guise of a man who comes to seduce a carpenter's wife and ultimately lures her to her death in a burning ship: the ballad is quoted as epilogue to this collection. However, it seems that Jackson's heroines go to their devils willingly - maybe this was a form of liebestod they craved unknowingly all their lives.
Very highly recommended!
The title story needs no introduction: in fact, this is the one which first led me to Shirley Jackson (and The Haunting of Hill House, which so far I've not been able to read). It must be one of the most discussed stories in American literature. You can find my review here .
However, The Lottery is an exception in this collection - none of the other stories are actual shockers, though the suggestion of violence in some of them is really disturbing. In The Renegade, various methods to "cure" a dog of her chicken-killing tendencies are discussed, some of them right out of a medieval torturer's manual. In The Witch, a casual story told to a boy by a stranger takes an ugly turn. Always, the humdrum suddenly metamorphoses into the bizarre - never quite letting go of strong undercurrent of black humour.
Shirley never lets us forget that behind the mask of civilisation, the caveman is still very much present - even though the mask is removed fully only in The Lottery. However, it leads to a permanent undercurrent of tension which would be unbearable had it also not been so humorous. People are always at loggerheads, arms akimbo, ready to draw and shoot - though they never actually do. We can see this tension among social situations most palpably in Trial by Combat, Afternoon in Linen, Like Mother Used to Make, Men with Their Big Shoes and The Intoxicated, and also in stories where the antagonism is not so evident. In some stories, this results in the total emotional domination of one human being by another, leading to virtual slavery (Like Mother Used to Make, Men with Their Big Shoes). Perhaps not surprisingly, children in Ms. Jackson's fictional universe take it in their stride.
------------------------------------------
In Kerala, we have a movement called "Pennezhuthu" (Woman-writing). It is coined by feminists to indicate the deconstructed language they use to subvert traditional masculine bias in literature. I have never been able to understand what they mean by this, but it cannot be denied that talented women bring a certain individual touch to language, themes and narrative. Shirley's female protagonists, lost in the labyrinthine city jungles, are a case in point.
In Pillar of Salt, New York becomes a virtual trap for a country woman who is reduced to a wreck who cannot cross the street by the end of the tale. In Flower Garden, the younger Mrs. Winning of Vermont Manor House becomes a prisoner of her own snobbish values. In Elizabeth, a lonely woman stuck in a stagnating business dreams of a demon lover in a sunlit garden and waits for him. In the The Tooth, a woman in the grip of a bad tooth has a dreamlike bus trip with a mysterious stranger.
But it is in The Daemon Lover that this mysterious male, a representation of the female animus perhaps, is taken to its logical extreme.
It is not coincidence that all these elusive men are named Jim Harris. James Harris is the daemon lover of Scottish ballad, the Devil himself in the guise of a man who comes to seduce a carpenter's wife and ultimately lures her to her death in a burning ship: the ballad is quoted as epilogue to this collection. However, it seems that Jackson's heroines go to their devils willingly - maybe this was a form of liebestod they craved unknowingly all their lives.
Very highly recommended!
July 22, 2023
Admittedly, I am not a fan of short stories. It simply takes longer for me to become invested in a tale, and after a few start and end before I care about the characters or their plights, I grow bored and frustrated.
But short stories are a part of a challenge I'm participating in and I figured Shirley Jackson would be the best I could hope for. Which is probable true. I loved her Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Live in the Castle. I'd also read and loved The Lottery when I younger, but the "Other Stories" weren't my favorite. I hope others who like shorts will read and love it though.
But short stories are a part of a challenge I'm participating in and I figured Shirley Jackson would be the best I could hope for. Which is probable true. I loved her Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Live in the Castle. I'd also read and loved The Lottery when I younger, but the "Other Stories" weren't my favorite. I hope others who like shorts will read and love it though.
October 30, 2021
The Lottery is one of my favorite short stories. I read it when I was an impressionable girl in grammar school, and it froze my soul. I have read it many times since then, and it never fails to chill me again.
But, I picked up this collection in hopes of reading another of Jackson's stories, The Witch, that I had come across a description of and thought fitting for a Halloween read. I couldn't stop with that story, of course, I needed to devour the entire meal Jackson had set before me.
There are a couple of mediocre stories here that left so little impression that I imagine I will have forgotten them by this time next week. Ah, but there are gems here as well.
The Tooth is eerily frightening, making me take my breath in with an irregular rhythm. Seven Types of Ambiguity made me cringe and grit my teeth, it depicted a certain type of thoughtless human being so well. After You, My Dear Alphonse shows up the way a horrible prejudice can be veiled in soft words. And then the humor of Like Mother Used To Make and Charles, showing another side of Jackson entirely.
Shirley Jackson is a master, so there is something for everyone. Partake!
But, I picked up this collection in hopes of reading another of Jackson's stories, The Witch, that I had come across a description of and thought fitting for a Halloween read. I couldn't stop with that story, of course, I needed to devour the entire meal Jackson had set before me.
There are a couple of mediocre stories here that left so little impression that I imagine I will have forgotten them by this time next week. Ah, but there are gems here as well.
The Tooth is eerily frightening, making me take my breath in with an irregular rhythm. Seven Types of Ambiguity made me cringe and grit my teeth, it depicted a certain type of thoughtless human being so well. After You, My Dear Alphonse shows up the way a horrible prejudice can be veiled in soft words. And then the humor of Like Mother Used To Make and Charles, showing another side of Jackson entirely.
Shirley Jackson is a master, so there is something for everyone. Partake!
April 1, 2023
Unsettling and fantastic.
September 17, 2016
I
--The Intoxicated
--The Daemon Lover
--Like Mother Used To Make
--Trial By Combat
--The Villager
--My Life With R. H. Macy
II
--The Witch
--The Renegade
--After You, My Dear Alphonse
--Charles
--Afternoon In Linen
--Flower Garden
--Dorothy And My Grandmother And The Sailors
III
--Colloquy
--Elizabeth
--A Fine Old Firm
--The Dummy
--Seven Types Of Ambiguity
--Come Dance With Me In Ireland
IV
--Of Course
--Pillar Of Salt
--Men With Their Big Shoes
--The Tooth
--Got A Letter From Jimmy
--The Lottery
V
--Epilogue
--The Intoxicated
--The Daemon Lover
--Like Mother Used To Make
--Trial By Combat
--The Villager
--My Life With R. H. Macy
II
--The Witch
--The Renegade
--After You, My Dear Alphonse
--Charles
--Afternoon In Linen
--Flower Garden
--Dorothy And My Grandmother And The Sailors
III
--Colloquy
--Elizabeth
--A Fine Old Firm
--The Dummy
--Seven Types Of Ambiguity
--Come Dance With Me In Ireland
IV
--Of Course
--Pillar Of Salt
--Men With Their Big Shoes
--The Tooth
--Got A Letter From Jimmy
--The Lottery
V
--Epilogue
February 27, 2023
Reread, with Howard (July, 2020)
I'd read this last year, so I wasn't sure if it might be too soon to read it again. It wasn't.
Despite the horror-genre label that's foisted on Jackson, I know--and came away from this reading even more convinced--that Jackson's so-called horror arises from what human beings do to each other. Evil is everywhere, but it doesn't arrive from the supernatural. Anyone who wants to tell you Jackson believes the opposite hasn't read her.
Reread (July, 2019)
I remembered almost none of this from my first read, just the title story, which I’ve read a few times. Perhaps I didn’t ‘get’ the other stories the first time or I didn’t have enough references during my first read, though I’ve loved Jackson’s novels for a long time before first reading these.
The collection has been published under a few similar-sounding titles and I don’t think I knew before that its title at one time was The Lottery, or The Adventures of James Harris. Knowing the secondary title helped my understanding, besides the fun of scoping out the instances of the name and the uses the ‘character’ of James Harris is put to, most especially in perhaps the best story, “The Tooth.” In a Muriel Spark-ish way, Jackson is ruthless toward her main characters, almost exclusively women.
But before I thought of Spark, I thought of Welty, odd as that might seem. Their styles are different, but Jackson’s “My Life with R.H. Macy” is almost as humorous as Welty’s “Why I Live at the P.O.” And in more than one story Jackson denounces racial stereotypes (as does Welty) while bluntly skewering the racism of her white, middle-to-upper class, entrenched villagers. If Welty is a chronicler of the Deep South in her short stories, Jackson’s ‘postage stamp of soil’ (my apologies to Faulkner) is the New England villages her characters inhabit, a world still influenced by the Puritanism Hawthorne abhorred, a world in which the Devil of intolerance and conformity thrives.
I read the collection this second time in this edition: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
I'd read this last year, so I wasn't sure if it might be too soon to read it again. It wasn't.
Despite the horror-genre label that's foisted on Jackson, I know--and came away from this reading even more convinced--that Jackson's so-called horror arises from what human beings do to each other. Evil is everywhere, but it doesn't arrive from the supernatural. Anyone who wants to tell you Jackson believes the opposite hasn't read her.
Reread (July, 2019)
I remembered almost none of this from my first read, just the title story, which I’ve read a few times. Perhaps I didn’t ‘get’ the other stories the first time or I didn’t have enough references during my first read, though I’ve loved Jackson’s novels for a long time before first reading these.
The collection has been published under a few similar-sounding titles and I don’t think I knew before that its title at one time was The Lottery, or The Adventures of James Harris. Knowing the secondary title helped my understanding, besides the fun of scoping out the instances of the name and the uses the ‘character’ of James Harris is put to, most especially in perhaps the best story, “The Tooth.” In a Muriel Spark-ish way, Jackson is ruthless toward her main characters, almost exclusively women.
But before I thought of Spark, I thought of Welty, odd as that might seem. Their styles are different, but Jackson’s “My Life with R.H. Macy” is almost as humorous as Welty’s “Why I Live at the P.O.” And in more than one story Jackson denounces racial stereotypes (as does Welty) while bluntly skewering the racism of her white, middle-to-upper class, entrenched villagers. If Welty is a chronicler of the Deep South in her short stories, Jackson’s ‘postage stamp of soil’ (my apologies to Faulkner) is the New England villages her characters inhabit, a world still influenced by the Puritanism Hawthorne abhorred, a world in which the Devil of intolerance and conformity thrives.
I read the collection this second time in this edition: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
March 29, 2021
When I started listening to these stories I felt right at home. I felt like I was in NYC amongst New Yorkers on the street. When NYC was finally named I was not in the least surprised. Each story starts out with a seemingly normal situation but eventually the protagonist's behavior morphs into something beyond what the average reader would consider "normal." At times, the protagonist doesn't change but the reader's understanding of s/he changes. Their behavior is a bit or more than a bit "off,"or quirky. The "off-ness/quirkiness" ranges from very subtle to not at all subtle, or, out of touch with reality. A good example of the latter is that of a young woman who is waiting and then looking all over her neighborhood for her fiancé because they are supposed to get married today. It soon becomes clear that there is no fiancé.
I was surprised by The Lottery. It was the last story in this collection. It doesn't have the same feel as the other stories because it's about group/collective psychosis as opposed to all of the other stories which are about individuals. Also,
I would not call these horror stories or even scary stories. I think Jackson is showing that a range of quirkiness and "realities" exist in people. Perhaps in all of us.
I was surprised by The Lottery. It was the last story in this collection. It doesn't have the same feel as the other stories because it's about group/collective psychosis as opposed to all of the other stories which are about individuals. Also,
I would not call these horror stories or even scary stories. I think Jackson is showing that a range of quirkiness and "realities" exist in people. Perhaps in all of us.
November 12, 2016
My personal favourites of this collection:
The Intoxicated
Like Mother Used to Make
The Witch
Charles
Flower Garden
Seven Types of Ambiguity
Come Dance with Me in Ireland
Of Course
Men with Their Big Shoes
and of course
The Lottery (it still stuns)
Every one of the stories in this collection is well worth your time, but of course we all have our favourites. Wonder what yours will be.
December 17, 2015
Let us speak of the Lottery.
Let us speak of the Lottery in such a way that the conversation here will "age badly", because lo and behold another legality will indict those who destroy property and declare innocent those who destroy lives and render this specific commentary out of date. Let us speak of a very US-centric issue of race and murder and the hallowed halls of police brutality and of Justice founded on the single principle of the Lottery. Let us speak of a time where the laws may have been more overt but the mentality was ever the same, the mythos of the infamous 50's of the United States and how much farther we US citizens have come since then except, of course, last night 6 o'clock Pacific Time or hearabouts due to the prosecutor's insistence on spending time blaming the protests, the social media, any and all publicizing of dissent not intimately processed by corporation and incorporated, proved that was not the case.
I have full faith in the capabilities of the average US city equipped with a white majority to partake in the human sacrifice of the Lottery. Those of you who have read it, notice how the chosen did not run. Those of you who have read it, notice how the chosen cooperatively entered the noose of the group's making. Those of you who have read it, be aware that it is legal to burn a US flag on US soil, be aware that a white policeman was recently fired for killing the dog of a white family while the murderer of a black man got away scot-free, and ultimately be aware that any institution in this country that violates this country's Amendments in order to "do its job", especially one that is and was never legally obligated to protect said country's citizens, partakes not in justice, but in terrorism.
If the first word out of your mouth in reaction to social justice protests is "looting", you value a handbag more than the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of your fellow human beings. If you complain about feeling "left out" of the current social justice movement due to your white privilege, keep in mind the US media would value your death more than the massacre of the US population of black people in its entirety. If you cheer at the Hunger Games franchise or any other commodified rebellion composed of white people encouraged to violence in reaction to an unjust government and deified thereon out, then turn around and boo the protesters of Ferguson and their allies worldwide, your values are based on Entertainment, not Truth. Should you read this book, you'll find yourself in good company with those Jackson reveals with a turning over of the society stone to the seething sadism beneath.
I look at the short stories in this book and I look at the news broadcasts on cable television and I see nothing has changed. By rights I, white privilege intact, should not be speaking at all, for I am able to safely feel rage while others must deal with overwhelming terror. However, Goodreads is not the greatest when it comes to interweaving the strength of literature with the struggles of life. Until someone comes along who is more fit to speak of these issues than I will ever be due to reasons of biology and of luck, I will begin the conversation. It's the least I can do.
P.S. The KKK supports Darren Wilson, North Korea is calling the US a graveyard for human rights, and neo-lynching is still going strong. How's that for progress.
P.S.S. The only issue I have with Jackson is that she's not Flannery O'Connor. She did, however, get the groupthink issue down pat, so kudos to her.
Let us speak of the Lottery in such a way that the conversation here will "age badly", because lo and behold another legality will indict those who destroy property and declare innocent those who destroy lives and render this specific commentary out of date. Let us speak of a very US-centric issue of race and murder and the hallowed halls of police brutality and of Justice founded on the single principle of the Lottery. Let us speak of a time where the laws may have been more overt but the mentality was ever the same, the mythos of the infamous 50's of the United States and how much farther we US citizens have come since then except, of course, last night 6 o'clock Pacific Time or hearabouts due to the prosecutor's insistence on spending time blaming the protests, the social media, any and all publicizing of dissent not intimately processed by corporation and incorporated, proved that was not the case.
I have full faith in the capabilities of the average US city equipped with a white majority to partake in the human sacrifice of the Lottery. Those of you who have read it, notice how the chosen did not run. Those of you who have read it, notice how the chosen cooperatively entered the noose of the group's making. Those of you who have read it, be aware that it is legal to burn a US flag on US soil, be aware that a white policeman was recently fired for killing the dog of a white family while the murderer of a black man got away scot-free, and ultimately be aware that any institution in this country that violates this country's Amendments in order to "do its job", especially one that is and was never legally obligated to protect said country's citizens, partakes not in justice, but in terrorism.
If the first word out of your mouth in reaction to social justice protests is "looting", you value a handbag more than the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of your fellow human beings. If you complain about feeling "left out" of the current social justice movement due to your white privilege, keep in mind the US media would value your death more than the massacre of the US population of black people in its entirety. If you cheer at the Hunger Games franchise or any other commodified rebellion composed of white people encouraged to violence in reaction to an unjust government and deified thereon out, then turn around and boo the protesters of Ferguson and their allies worldwide, your values are based on Entertainment, not Truth. Should you read this book, you'll find yourself in good company with those Jackson reveals with a turning over of the society stone to the seething sadism beneath.
I look at the short stories in this book and I look at the news broadcasts on cable television and I see nothing has changed. By rights I, white privilege intact, should not be speaking at all, for I am able to safely feel rage while others must deal with overwhelming terror. However, Goodreads is not the greatest when it comes to interweaving the strength of literature with the struggles of life. Until someone comes along who is more fit to speak of these issues than I will ever be due to reasons of biology and of luck, I will begin the conversation. It's the least I can do.
P.S. The KKK supports Darren Wilson, North Korea is calling the US a graveyard for human rights, and neo-lynching is still going strong. How's that for progress.
P.S.S. The only issue I have with Jackson is that she's not Flannery O'Connor. She did, however, get the groupthink issue down pat, so kudos to her.
January 26, 2015
3.5 stars!
It's no secret that I love Shirley Jackson. I have been known to engage reviewers about what I consider to be less than awesome ratings for The Haunting of Hill House and/or We Have Always Lived in the Castle. One of the things I'm always honest about is books, and despite the fact that this book was written by Shirley, I wasn't crazy about it.
I was aware going in that this was not a collection of horror tales, though certainly, some of them are horrific. Even so, I didn't find a point to a lot of these tales. I liken them to someone peeking into the window of a normal American family-it's mostly boring. One or two of them (The Tooth, for sure), were just plain weird.
However, a few of these tales have serious subjects without seeming to-a few of them are outright diatribes on racism-without stating the word and without personal commentary. The fact that some of these families were so racist and didn't even realize it was commentary enough. I also found that a few stories seemed to be about the place of women in society, which was quite different in the 40s as compared to now. Lastly, a few of these stories were horror, in my opinion, The Lottery the most well known and the most horrific.
There is a whole 'nother thing going on with James Harris, a character that is featured in some of these stories. There's some talk in blogging communities about who he is, exactly, and what his presence symbolized. I don't pretend to have a complete handle on the whole thing, but it deserves a mention.
Overall, this was a well written collection, (from Shirley Jackson we would expect no less), but I found it to be slightly confusing at times and overall, I was not completely satisfied with this collection.
It's no secret that I love Shirley Jackson. I have been known to engage reviewers about what I consider to be less than awesome ratings for The Haunting of Hill House and/or We Have Always Lived in the Castle. One of the things I'm always honest about is books, and despite the fact that this book was written by Shirley, I wasn't crazy about it.
I was aware going in that this was not a collection of horror tales, though certainly, some of them are horrific. Even so, I didn't find a point to a lot of these tales. I liken them to someone peeking into the window of a normal American family-it's mostly boring. One or two of them (The Tooth, for sure), were just plain weird.
However, a few of these tales have serious subjects without seeming to-a few of them are outright diatribes on racism-without stating the word and without personal commentary. The fact that some of these families were so racist and didn't even realize it was commentary enough. I also found that a few stories seemed to be about the place of women in society, which was quite different in the 40s as compared to now. Lastly, a few of these stories were horror, in my opinion, The Lottery the most well known and the most horrific.
There is a whole 'nother thing going on with James Harris, a character that is featured in some of these stories. There's some talk in blogging communities about who he is, exactly, and what his presence symbolized. I don't pretend to have a complete handle on the whole thing, but it deserves a mention.
Overall, this was a well written collection, (from Shirley Jackson we would expect no less), but I found it to be slightly confusing at times and overall, I was not completely satisfied with this collection.
September 22, 2014
"25 Demonic Stories", my arse!
I am so utterly disappointed!
I picked up this book because I expected it to contain a bunch of creepy short stories, as the subtitle suggests. I was in the right mood for something slightly scary, but what I got was just a collection of short stories of almost normal everyday life:
- Two little girls who get talked into believing that sailors on shore leave are bad guys - not creepy!
- A man who invites his neighbor over for dinner, and when another visitor appears, the neighbor suddenly pretends that it is her appartment they are in, in order to impress the other visitor - not scary!
- A woman who waits for the man who has promised to marry her, and when he does not show up, she tries to trace him - totally not scary!
- etc.
There may be two or three mildly creepy stories, but to promote this book by saying it was 25 of them, is simply wrong. The publisher had better stuck to the truth. I am so frustrated now that I will delete "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" ("Wir haben schon immer im Schloß gelebt") by the same author, that has been on my wish list for a while.
Way to go, Diogenes Verlag!
I am so utterly disappointed!
I picked up this book because I expected it to contain a bunch of creepy short stories, as the subtitle suggests. I was in the right mood for something slightly scary, but what I got was just a collection of short stories of almost normal everyday life:
- Two little girls who get talked into believing that sailors on shore leave are bad guys - not creepy!
- A man who invites his neighbor over for dinner, and when another visitor appears, the neighbor suddenly pretends that it is her appartment they are in, in order to impress the other visitor - not scary!
- A woman who waits for the man who has promised to marry her, and when he does not show up, she tries to trace him - totally not scary!
- etc.
There may be two or three mildly creepy stories, but to promote this book by saying it was 25 of them, is simply wrong. The publisher had better stuck to the truth. I am so frustrated now that I will delete "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" ("Wir haben schon immer im Schloß gelebt") by the same author, that has been on my wish list for a while.
Way to go, Diogenes Verlag!
November 8, 2020
As with most books of short stories, there were good ones, bad ones and some in-between.
Some were short, some were longer. Some ended nicely and some ended abruptly and left you curious.
The Lottery was one of the good ones that ended nicely.
Some were short, some were longer. Some ended nicely and some ended abruptly and left you curious.
The Lottery was one of the good ones that ended nicely.
November 7, 2020
Such beautifully, subtle writing. I really had to switch mental gears, I've been reading a lot of pulpy horror lately, and Jackson's stories are so finely written, so sharp, a completely different texture.
Looking at my individual scores of the stories, I think I also learnt while reading how to better read her work, which is interesting.
Most of her stories seem to be about women who feel disassociated in their lives (and in quite a few instances they actually dissociate from life), mostly by society's rules and expectations. The Lottery is of course fantastic, but it also feels quite different to the rest of the stories. It's the most straightforward, the least subtle, in a way.
The Intoxicated - 3.5 stars
The Daemon Lover - 4 stars
Like Mother Used To Make - 4 stars
Trial By Combat - 3 stars
The Villager - 3 stars
My Life With R.H. Macy - 4 stars
The Witch - 3 stars
The Renegade - 5 stars
After You, My Dear Alphonse - 3 stars
Charles - 4 stars
Afternoon In Linen - 3 stare
Flower Garden - 5 stars
Dorothy And My Grandmother And The Sailors
- 3 stars
Colloquy - 3.5 stars
Elizabeth - 4 stars
A Fine Old Firm - 3.5 stars
The Dummy - 4 stars
Seven Types Of Ambiguity - 4 stars
Come Dance With Me In Ireland - 3.5 stars
Of Course - 4 stars
Pillar Of Salt - 5 stars
Men With Their Big Shoes - 4 stars
The Tooth - 4 stars
Got A Letter From Jimmy - 3.5 stars
The Lottery - 5 stars
Looking at my individual scores of the stories, I think I also learnt while reading how to better read her work, which is interesting.
Most of her stories seem to be about women who feel disassociated in their lives (and in quite a few instances they actually dissociate from life), mostly by society's rules and expectations. The Lottery is of course fantastic, but it also feels quite different to the rest of the stories. It's the most straightforward, the least subtle, in a way.
The Intoxicated - 3.5 stars
The Daemon Lover - 4 stars
Like Mother Used To Make - 4 stars
Trial By Combat - 3 stars
The Villager - 3 stars
My Life With R.H. Macy - 4 stars
The Witch - 3 stars
The Renegade - 5 stars
After You, My Dear Alphonse - 3 stars
Charles - 4 stars
Afternoon In Linen - 3 stare
Flower Garden - 5 stars
Dorothy And My Grandmother And The Sailors
- 3 stars
Colloquy - 3.5 stars
Elizabeth - 4 stars
A Fine Old Firm - 3.5 stars
The Dummy - 4 stars
Seven Types Of Ambiguity - 4 stars
Come Dance With Me In Ireland - 3.5 stars
Of Course - 4 stars
Pillar Of Salt - 5 stars
Men With Their Big Shoes - 4 stars
The Tooth - 4 stars
Got A Letter From Jimmy - 3.5 stars
The Lottery - 5 stars
Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,086 reviews