The Letters of Shirley Jackson

De: Shirley Jackson, Laurence Jackson Hyman - editor, Bernice M. Murphy

Narrado por: Kirsten Potter, Gary Bennett, Linda Jones

A bewitchingly brilliant collection of never-before-published letters from the renowned author of “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House

i must stop writing letters and get to writing a novel.

Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American authors of the last hundred years and among our greatest chroniclers of the female experience. This extraordinary compilation of personal correspondence has all the hallmarks of Jackson’s beloved fiction: flashes of the uncanny in the domestic, sparks of horror in the quotidian, and the veins of humor that run through good times and bad.

i am having a fine time doing a novel with my left hand and a long story—with as many levels as grand central station—with my right hand, stirring chocolate pudding with a spoon held in my teeth, and tuning the television with both feet.

Written over the course of nearly three decades, from Jackson’s college years to six days before her early death at the age of forty-eight, these letters become the autobiography Shirley Jackson never wrote. As well as being a bestselling author, Jackson spent much of her adult life as a mother of four in Vermont, and the landscape here is often the everyday: raucous holidays and trips to the dentist, overdue taxes and frayed lines of Christmas lights, new dogs and new babies. But in recounting these events to family, friends, and colleagues, she turns them into remarkable stories: entertaining, revealing, and wise. At the same time, many of these letters provide fresh insight into the genesis and progress of Jackson’s writing over nearly three decades.

The novel is getting sadder. It’s always such a strange feeling—I know something’s going to happen, and those poor people in the book don’t; they just go blithely on their ways.

Compiled and edited by her elder son, Laurence Jackson Hyman, in consultation with Jackson scholar Bernice M. Murphy, this intimate collection holds the beguiling prism of Shirley Jackson—writer and reader, mother and daughter, neighbor and wife—up to the light.

Outstanding

Highly recommended to all fans of Shirley Jackson. I read the biography first which I found helpful in appreciating her letters. The reader was excellent. One of the very best audible selections.

Family Life

When I realized that most of these letters were written to Jackson's parents I was disappointed. Where was the literary gossip you'd expect from a writer of her stature? Instead of recounting feuds, she wrote about her children, and her quiet life in Vermont. As the book progressed, I found myself entranced. It turned out that I liked keeping up with her four kids, each of whom was unique and interesting. Jackson was a good mother--an all-time great one, maybe-- and that's what the book is ultimately about.

Heartbreaking and Insightful.

From her abusive mother to her abusively jealous of her gifts husband, Shirley Jackson broke my heart so many times in these letters. Even a kindred spirited pen pal and assumed friend dumped her. I wish I could have told her how wonderful and talented she is. I would have been honored if she had given me the time of day.

a complimentary addition to the wonderful biography about her

I love Shirley Jackson and her stories since whenever I first started reading them. After readin her biography, this book gives a great ucut view of things from Jackson herself. It's heartbreaking to hear about her troubled marriage to Stanley, and heartwarming to witness the love and care she has for her children. And not enough goes into her thoughts and ideas about writing.

Shirley Jackson was a force

Perhaps there will be a book with more letters from both sides of the conversation or her letters will be printed in their entirety but this book (and its narrator) brought her wit and charm and strength into my life and I am forever changed.

Edited by her son to exclude all marital strife

Shirley Jackson's abusive relationships with her husband and mother were massive contributing factor to her life and work, as well as her mental and physical health. All of that is omitted here, very much like reading the society column instead of the front page when world War III has been declared