The Letters of Shirley Jackson by Shirley Jackson
One of the most significant American novelists of the past 100 years and one of our best female experience chroniclers is Shirley Jackson. This unique collection of private letters has all the characteristics of Jackson’s well-known fiction: glimmers of the eerie in the mundane, glimmers of terror in every day, and the veins of comedy that run through happy and unhappy times. These letters, which Jackson penned over the course of nearly three decades, from her college years until six days before her untimely death at the age of forty-eight, serve as the autobiography she never produced.
The Letters of Shirley Jackson by Shirley Jackson
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Jackson, a best-selling author in addition to being a mother of four, lived in Vermont for a large portion of her adult life. Here, the scenery is frequently the same: rowdy holidays and trips to the dentist, past-due taxes and fraying strands of Christmas lights, new dogs and new babies. But she transforms these incidents into extraordinary tales that are enlightening, instructive, and smart when she shares them with family, friends, and coworkers. In addition, several of these letters offer new perspectives on the development and evolution of Jackson’s writing over the course of nearly three decades.
Sadness is increasing in the book. I always have this peculiar sensation that something will happen, but those miserable characters in the novel don’t; they just carry on as usual. The Shirley book and movie, which looked to be a blatant attack and libel, frightened me to the core. This collection of letters confirmed to me that Shirley Jackson was someone I’d have delighted to have known in real life, even though I knew that she occasionally presented her parents with the best face of things. Her love for her children and her understanding of them as unique people to whom she attempted to give every chance for learning what They wanted to do in life, as opposed to what she received from her own mother, are two things that truly come out in the letters.
These letters span her entire life, from her teenage years to her passing. At the age of 48, she passed away very suddenly. We also get a sense of how she views herself as an author. There is a letter that she sent to herself lamenting how lonely it is to be a writer. In terms of the history of women’s writing, she offers some really fascinating reflections on how her work has been received. She reads for 30 minutes from her most recent book while describing how her husband’s coworkers were enthralled, but the very next day she is once more referred to as just Professor Hyman’s wife.
