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Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life

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This historically engaging and relevant biography establishes Shirley Jackson as a towering figure in American literature and revives the life and work of a neglected master.

Still known to millions primarily as the author of the "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson (1916–1965) has been curiously absent from the mainstream American literary canon. A genius of literary suspense and psychological horror, Jackson plumbed the cultural anxiety of postwar America more deeply than anyone. Now, biographer Ruth Franklin reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the author of such classics as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

Placing Jackson within an American gothic tradition that stretches back to Hawthorne and Poe, Franklin demonstrates how her unique contribution to this genre came from her focus on "domestic horror." Almost two decades before The Feminine Mystique ignited the women's movement, Jackson's stories and nonfiction chronicles were already exploring the exploitation and the desperate isolation of women, particularly married women, in American society. Franklin's portrait of Jackson gives us "a way of reading Jackson and her work that threads her into the weave of the world of words, as a writer and as a woman, rather than excludes her as an anomaly" (Neil Gaiman).

The increasingly prescient Jackson emerges as a ferociously talented, determined, and prodigiously creative writer in a time when it was unusual for a woman to have both a family and a profession. A mother of four and the wife of the prominent New Yorker critic and academic Stanley Edgar Hyman, Jackson lived a seemingly bucolic life in the New England town of North Bennington, Vermont. Yet, much like her stories, which channeled the occult while exploring the claustrophobia of marriage and motherhood, Jackson's creative ascent was haunted by a darker side. As her career progressed, her marriage became more tenuous, her anxiety mounted, and she became addicted to amphetamines and tranquilizers. In sobering detail, Franklin insightfully examines the effects of Jackson's California upbringing, in the shadow of a hypercritical mother, on her relationship with her husband, juxtaposing Hyman's infidelities, domineering behavior, and professional jealousy with his unerring admiration for Jackson's fiction, which he was convinced was among the most brilliant he had ever encountered.

Based on a wealth of previously undiscovered correspondence and dozens of new interviews, Shirley Jackson―an exploration of astonishing talent shaped by a damaging childhood and turbulent marriage―becomes the definitive biography of a generational avatar and an American literary giant.

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Grouping Information

Grouped Work IDd228ddc8-be40-d51a-d9bf-357b0cc310cf
Grouping Titleshirley jackson a rather haunted life
Grouping Authorruth franklin
Grouping Categorybook
Grouping LanguageEnglish (eng)
Last Grouping Update2023-11-29 04:09:06AM
Last Indexed2023-11-29 04:42:00AM

Solr Fields

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0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
auth_author2
Dunne, Bernadette
author
Franklin, Ruth
author2-role
Blackstone Audio, Inc
Dunne, Bernadette,narrator
Recorded Books, Inc
author_display
Franklin, Ruth
available_at_aacpl
Eastport-Annapolis Neck Library
Online OverDrive Collection
collection_aacpl
ADULT
detailed_location_aacpl
Eastport-Annapolis Neck Library - Audiobooks
Online OverDrive Collection
display_description

This historically engaging and relevant biography establishes Shirley Jackson as a towering figure in American literature and revives the life and work of a neglected master.

Still known to millions primarily as the author of the "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson (1916–1965) has been curiously absent from the mainstream American literary canon. A genius of literary suspense and psychological horror, Jackson plumbed the cultural anxiety of postwar America more deeply than anyone. Now, biographer Ruth Franklin reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the author of such classics as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

Placing Jackson within an American gothic tradition that stretches back to Hawthorne and Poe, Franklin demonstrates how her unique contribution to this genre came from her focus on "domestic horror." Almost two decades before The Feminine Mystique ignited the women's movement, Jackson's stories and nonfiction chronicles were already exploring the exploitation and the desperate isolation of women, particularly married women, in American society. Franklin's portrait of Jackson gives us "a way of reading Jackson and her work that threads her into the weave of the world of words, as a writer and as a woman, rather than excludes her as an anomaly" (Neil Gaiman).

The increasingly prescient Jackson emerges as a ferociously talented, determined, and prodigiously creative writer in a time when it was unusual for a woman to have both a family and a profession. A mother of four and the wife of the prominent New Yorker critic and academic Stanley Edgar Hyman, Jackson lived a seemingly bucolic life in the New England town of North Bennington, Vermont. Yet, much like her stories, which channeled the occult while exploring the claustrophobia of marriage and motherhood, Jackson's creative ascent was haunted by a darker side. As her career progressed, her marriage became more tenuous, her anxiety mounted, and she became addicted to amphetamines and tranquilizers. In sobering detail, Franklin insightfully examines the effects of Jackson's California upbringing, in the shadow of a hypercritical mother, on her relationship with her husband, juxtaposing Hyman's infidelities, domineering behavior, and professional jealousy with his unerring admiration for Jackson's fiction, which he was convinced was among the most brilliant he had ever encountered.

Based on a wealth of previously undiscovered correspondence and dozens of new interviews, Shirley Jackson―an exploration of astonishing talent shaped by a damaging childhood and turbulent marriage―becomes the definitive biography of a generational avatar and an American literary giant.

format_aacpl
Audio CD
eAudiobook
format_category_aacpl
Audio Books
eBook
id
d228ddc8-be40-d51a-d9bf-357b0cc310cf
isbn
9781504739030
9781504739092
itype_aacpl
Adult Audiobook on CD
last_indexed
2023-11-29T09:42:00.556Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
local_callnumber_aacpl
CD 921 JACKSON
Online OverDrive
owning_library_aacpl
Anne Arundel County Public Library
Anne Arundel County Public Library Online
owning_location_aacpl
Eastport-Annapolis Neck Library
Online OverDrive Collection
primary_isbn
9781504739030
publishDate
2016
publisher
Blackstone Audio
Blackstone Publishing
Distributed by Recorded Books
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Audiobooks (CD)
Authors, American -- 20th century -- Biography -- Audiobooks (CD)
Jackson, Shirley, -- 1916-1965
Women authors -- United States -- Biography -- Audiobooks (CD)
title_display
Shirley Jackson A Rather Haunted Life
title_full
Shirley Jackson A Rather Haunted Life
Shirley Jackson [sound recording] : a rather haunted life / Ruth Franklin
title_short
Shirley Jackson
title_sub
A Rather Haunted Life
topic_facet
Audiobooks (CD)
Authors, American
Biography & Autobiography
Jackson, Shirley
Nonfiction
Women authors

Solr Details Tables

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overdrive:7d2ce5fb-38cb-488b-b466-d107e848d3b11Online OverDrive CollectionOnline OverDriveeAudiobookAudio Books1falsetrueOverDriveAvailable Online

record_details

Bib IdFormatFormat CategoryEditionLanguagePublisherPublication DatePhysical DescriptionAbridged
ils:a1357099Audio CDAudio BooksUnabridgedEnglishBlackstone Audiop201616 audio discs (19 hr., 30 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
overdrive:7d2ce5fb-38cb-488b-b466-d107e848d3b1eAudiobookAudio BooksEnglishBlackstone Publishing2016

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Bib IdItem IdGrouped StatusStatusLocally OwnedAvailableHoldableBookableIn Library Use OnlyLibrary OwnedHoldable PTypesBookable PTypesLocal Url
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overdrive:7d2ce5fb-38cb-488b-b466-d107e848d3b11Available OnlineAvailable Onlinefalsetruetruefalsefalsetrue