41 Comments
User's avatar
Hollis Robbins (@Anecdotal)'s avatar

Love love this. Have to put a plug in for "Life Among the Savages," which is described as a 'charming domestic memoir' but is also really smart. If I had a child-rearing manual, it was that, which I recently gave to my (adult) daughter. Perhaps there is a relationship between psychological horror and child-rearing: both are about keeping your composure when you have declining control over events and small people, who are always turning into strangers. If you are lucky, your children will be delightfully alien to you. Shirley Jackson taught me that.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/318211/life-among-the-savages-by-shirley-jackson/

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

I’m going to have to check that one out. I purchased the LOA volumes of her work. Seems like a missed opportunity on their part—they should have included “Savages” and “Demons.” They’re on my list now. It really is amazing to deal daily with how “other” our kids are from ourselves. I’m often surprised. It calls out the best in me as a dad, learning how to accommodate what I think is best to what they individually need. None of my five kids is like me or my wife or like each other; it’s kind of hilarious sometimes.

Expand full comment
Matthew Morgan's avatar

I rushed to the comments to reply in favour of "Life Among the Savages", and I'm happy you beat me to it. The more of us raving about how wonderful (and sadly under-read) it is, the better. The year I read it was a year of some great reading, but I never had more fun than with Jackson's memoir. And though the comedy and insight are its big selling points, I've never forgotten the gut-punch of the moment she gives her occupation as "writer" when checking in at a hospital, and the receptionist says, "I'll just put down housewife."

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

Ouch.

I’ve got to jump on “Savages” soon.

Expand full comment
Hollis Robbins (@Anecdotal)'s avatar

Oh yes that killed me. Thank you for the reminder! I'm so glad to meet another fan!!

Expand full comment
Matthew Morgan's avatar

Me too, and I'm glad to have subsequently found your substack. It looks fascinating, I'm looking forward to reading it!

Expand full comment
ESO's avatar

Yes! Also here to put in a plug for LATS (hee). So much gold there, for parents and writers both.

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

Another vote! I’m looking forward to it.

Expand full comment
Lapachet’75's avatar

She also wrote "Raising Demons," continuing the story of her family.

Expand full comment
Matthew Morgan's avatar

Also a fantastic read. I always think of them as one book, although I have them in two separate, and very attractive, editions. Thanks for mentioning "Raising Demons"!

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

I’m stoked to explore these memoirs.

Expand full comment
Lisa Morrow's avatar

In a similar vein, I recently read many of Jackson's pieces in a collection called "Let Me Tell You", which has some short fiction but also just a lot of essays/fun pieces she wrote about writing, life, child-rearing, day-to-day life (and all of these things combined), for--I think--various magazines. They were SO delightfully funny and sharp (in her signature dark way) I couldn't stop reading them and being astonished at their wit. I've never read "Savages", but several of the pieces in "Let Me Tell You" sound similar to what's described here. Anyway, I recommend it to Jackson fans!

Expand full comment
David Perlmutter's avatar

She was one of those authors who was a genre unto herself.

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

Agreed. A real talent and a treat to read.

Expand full comment
Marnie Ginsberg's avatar

Thanks for inspiring me to go read more of her stories! I recall reading a clever, not horrifying, story of hers, “Charles,” when I was in middle school. I can still recall the plot twist decades later. We also had “The Lottery” in our anthology in high school. I didn’t forget that one either and remembered it again when Suzanne Collins released a certain best-selling series…

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

You can find “Charles” in “The Lottery and Other Stories.” It’s a wonderful collection. That story is hilarious.

Expand full comment
Lapachet’75's avatar

"Charles" was from either "Life Among the Savages" or "Raising Demons." My high school anthology had her short story "An Ordinary Day, With Peanuts." Clever, with an "O. Henry" type twist and often overshadowed by "The Lottery."

Expand full comment
Matthew Long's avatar

Never read her but am interested to do so now.

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

She’s excellent! You’ll love it.

Expand full comment
Holly A.J.'s avatar

I recently read 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle's. I can slightly see the Wes Anderson connection - the instructive cousin in 'We Have Always' could be someone from 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'. But I think that Jackson's work could qualify as a subgenre of horror - quiet horror? plausible horror? I saw the twist in 'We Have Always' very early on, but seeing it only increased the sense of horror, of wondering whether anyone else would cause the thread to snap again. I detected the twist so early because Jackson gave clear pictures of pathologic psychology. Each character is a case study in one or another disorder, but only one showed the patterns of a psychopath.

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

One of my favorite movies is The Royal Tenenbaums. That and Grand Budapest are the two that came to mind as I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Sundial. There’s such an absurdist, comic undercurrent in them both, I couldn’t entertain the idea they were any kind of horror; that’s when I realized they were really stories about mental derangement.

Expand full comment
John's avatar

Her flair and talent, prodigious and sustained, have always impressed me greatly. Thank you for your review.

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

My pleasure. What a great joy in discovering her work and getting to share it here.

Expand full comment
Natalie McGlocklin's avatar

I think all the "frightening" marketing does Ms. Jackson a disservice because new readers come in with the wrong mindset (early 20's me included). She is more of a Susanna Clarke than a Stephen King and i LOVE her for it.

Expand full comment
Tash's avatar

Thank you for this post Joel. I LOVE Shirley Jackson so it's a real joy to see gathered in your comment section a bunch of Jackson fans! I don't see much of a connection between Wes Anderson's films and WHALC. WA's films are so twee and mannered. Jackson is often funny and wry and socially astute (I love that aspect of her writing) but she is also tuned into the thinness of the veneer between civilised society and the unnameable beneath; her writing strikes holes in the veneer and gives us glimpses of the unstable, the absurd, the madness vibrating below. WA strikes no holes. He lays a trowel of extra veneer on the veneer. (Can you tell I'm not a fan? haha).

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

I totally get that, especially with some of Anderson’s more confectionery projects. The two movies that made the connection for me were The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Expand full comment
Tash's avatar

Well, I do have a soft spot for The Royal Tenenbaums. All of Anderson's films have amazing ensemble casts, but the Royal Tenenbaum casting is absolutely pitch perfect.

Expand full comment
Victoria Hopkins's avatar

Love Shirley Jackson! One of my favorites of hers is the short story "The Summer People".

Expand full comment
Victoria McCargar's avatar

Hmm. I’ll need to reread Hill House for traces of humor, because I’ve missed them in the first twenty-seven or -eight readings.

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

LOL. I think it’s mostly in the pompous attitude of Mrs. Montague. She’s ridiculous and basically misdiagnoses every situation she encounters.

Expand full comment
Lucy S. R. Austen's avatar

Have you read her biography by Ruth Franklin? If not, I highly recommend it.

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

I haven’t but should. I never encountered her work until late last year (November). But the minute I started We Have Always Lived in the Castle, I knew I would love it. I think all of her novels are worth the time with them. She’s very insightful about how people go off the rails and what it’s like to (a) deal with that personally and (b) deal with it as an onlooker and caretaker. I was surprised by that—as well as her insights about the general pettiness we nurture and inflict on each other.

Expand full comment
Lucy S. R. Austen's avatar

Also, I really appreciate your "read" of her themes in this post!

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

Thanks! Reading the novels in quick succession made it stand out in bright colors.

Expand full comment
ThinkPieceOfPie's avatar

So pleased to see a favorite author spotlighted. In recent years the town of North Bennington, VT has held Shirley Jackson Day (on June 27, Lottery Day), with readings, lectures, exhibits, etc. Her son has donated papers, books, and mementos to the Bennington Museum. Her house, and the house which was the inspiration for Hill House are still standing.

One thing not mentioned here in regards to "The Lottery" is that it was published two years after the House Un-American Activities Committee was made permanent.

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

Thanks for adding that detail—and how wonderful to have a day like that to celebrate Jackson and her work! What a gift.

Expand full comment
Word Carver's avatar

According to Jackson's biographer, she was raised in Christian Science, the cult that my family was in for several generations. Dark humor is a way of coping for kids raised in 'science'. The cult requires its members to live in a distorted reality which will eventually kill them -- rich and fertile ground for novelists. As I've done my own work on leaving the cult, I've had many dreams about houses and garbage perhaps because they represent that closed state of mind and repressed emotions. Thanks for talking about Jackson and showing a different side to her work.

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

Thank you for sharing a bit about your past. I would think Jackson’s books would have a lot to say for people in environments where free thought was controlled or constrained.

Expand full comment
Word Carver's avatar

Yes, when you read her work from the perspective of someone who shared a background in CS, much of it makes (very unsettling) sense. Two books really helped me when I left the cult: FatherMotherGod (which features my aunt as a character) and God's Perfect Child. They were life-changing experiences and helped me to see how my family, and myself, had been manipulated. Shirley Jackson's biographer shows how Jacksons mother tried to manipulate her -- in ways I also recognized.

Expand full comment
Debbie Hitziger's avatar

I was introduced to Shirley Jackson like most people through the short story, “The Lottery”. It was in my college lit class. This was over thirty years ago. I do disagree with the comment made about the short story still causing some controversy. I think in comparison, I think that the short story has lost much of its shock value with today’s youth, which is sad. The violence that today’s youth see almost instantly all over the world I believe makes, “The Lottery” almost blasé. .

Expand full comment
Joel J Miller's avatar

The violence isn’t the shock for me; it’s the way the community ritually turns on one of its members. Of course, Jackson having surfaced that theme, many others have taken it up and elaborated on it. But even though I knew the ending (it’s hard not to encounter spoilers), I was still surprised by it. It’s a fantastic story.

Expand full comment