The Everyday Madness of Shirley Jackson

Exploring Her Classic Novels: ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle,’ ‘The Haunting of Hill House,’ Others

Shirley Jackson is probably most famous for her 1948 New Yorker short story, “The Lottery.” It instantly went viral and, as writer Ruth Franklin says, it’s still stoking conversations all these years later. But we’ve done Jackson a disservice.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Jackson’s work described as scary, presumably playing off the shock c…