Shirley Jackson
A Rather Haunted Life
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Narrated by:
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Bernadette Dunne
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By:
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Ruth Franklin
About this listen
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Biography, 2016
This historically relevant biography establishes Shirley Jackson as a towering figure in American literature and revives the life and work of a neglected master.
Known to millions mainly as the author of the "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson 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. Ruth Franklin reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the author of The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
Placing Jackson within an American Gothic tradition stretching 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.
Here Jackson emerges as a ferociously talented, determined, and prodigiously creative writer when it was unusual for a woman to have both a family and a profession. Mother of four and wife of a prominent New Yorker critic and academic, Jackson lived a seemingly bucolic life in Vermont. Yet, much like her stories, which explored the claustrophobia of marriage and motherhood, Jackson's creativity 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. Franklin insightfully details the effects of Jackson's upbringing, hypercritical mother, and relationship with her husband.
Based on previously undiscovered correspondence and dozens of new interviews, this book explores an astonishing talent shaped by a damaging childhood and turbulent marriage and becomes the definitive biography of a generational avatar and American literary giant.
©2016 Ruth Franklin (P)2016 Blackstone AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power.
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Reading Gatsby as an adult reveals its greatness!
- By Mark on 10-06-14
By: Maureen Corrigan
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Butterfly in the Typewriter
- The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of a Confederacy of Dunces
- By: Cory MacLauchlin
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The saga of John Kennedy Toole is one of the greatest stories of American literary history. In Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin draws on scores of new interviews with friends, family, and colleagues as well as full access to the extensive Toole archive at Tulane University, capturing his upbringing in New Orleans, his years in New York City, his frenzy of writing in Puerto Rico, his return to his beloved city, and his descent into paranoia and depression.
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Worth it! Good biography. Informative.
- By French Quarter on 07-09-13
By: Cory MacLauchlin
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Ayn Rand and the World She Made
- By: Anne C. Heller
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Ayn Rand is the author of two phenomenally best-selling ideological novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, which have sold over 12 million copies in the United States alone. Through them, she built a right-wing cult following in the late 1950s and became the guiding light of Libertarianism and of White House economic policy in the 1960s and '70s. Her defenses of radical individualism and of selfishness as a "capitalist virtue" have permanently altered the American cultural landscape.
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Great history of both Rand and her era
- By Mark on 08-07-10
By: Anne C. Heller
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Ted Hughes
- The Unauthorized Life
- By: Jonathan Bate
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 25 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Ted Hughes, poet laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. With an equal gift for poetry and prose, and with a soul as capacious as any poet in history, he was also a prolific children's writer and has been hailed as the greatest English letter writer since John Keats. His magnetic personality and insatiable appetite for friendship, love, and life also attracted more scandal than any poet since Lord Byron.
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Phenomenal thanks to narrator!
- By equinox14 on 06-26-16
By: Jonathan Bate
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Georgette Heyer
- Biography of a Bestseller
- By: Jennifer Kloester
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
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Georgette Heyer remains an enduring international best seller, read and loved by four generations of readers and extolled by today's best-selling authors. Despite her enormous popularity, she never gave an interview or appeared in public. Georgette Heyer wrote her first novel, The Black Moth, when she was 17 in order to amuse her convalescent brother. It was published in 1921 to instant success, and 90 years later it has never been out of print.
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Heyer as a person
- By Jerri C on 06-15-15
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Emily Post
- Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners
- By: Laura Claridge
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 18 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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From the excesses of the late 19th-century Gilded Age, through the horrors of World War I, to the transformations of the Roaring 20s that gave birth to her magisterial Etiquette, Emily Post unfailingly took the measure of her era. A Baltimore blue blood with a populist heart, she helped the masses live the American dream with her hugely popular book, which has been continuously in print for over 85 years.
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Typical for Emily Post
- By Stephanie on 01-07-19
By: Laura Claridge
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City Boy
- My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In the New York of the 1970s, in the wake of Stonewall and in the midst of economic collapse, you might find the likes of Jasper Johns and William Burroughs at the next cocktail party, and you were as likely to be caught arguing Marx at the New York City Ballet as cruising for sex in the warehouses and parked trucks along the Hudson. This is the New York that Edmund White portrays in City Boy: a place of enormous intrigue and artistic tumult.
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Pretense upon pretense.
- By Shalin Desai on 06-01-15
By: Edmund White
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My Life with Bob
- Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues
- By: Pamela Paul
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens, Pamela Paul
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Pamela Paul has kept a single book by her side for 28 years - carried throughout high school and college, hauled from Paris to London to Thailand, from job to job, safely packed away and then carefully removed from apartment to house to its current perch on a shelf over her desk - reliable if frayed, anonymous-looking yet deeply personal. This book has a name: Bob. Bob is Paul's Book of Books, a journal that records every book she's ever read.
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An uncanny mirror and a celebration of book love
- By Cherilyn Parsons on 07-28-19
By: Pamela Paul
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Libertarians on the Prairie
- Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane, and the Making of the Little House Books
- By: Christine Woodside
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Generations of children have fallen in love with the pioneer saga of the Ingalls family, of Pa and Ma, Laura and her sisters, and their loyal dog. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books have taught millions of Americans about frontier life, giving inspiration to many and in the process becoming icons of our national identity. Yet few realize that this best-selling series wandered far from the actual history of the Ingalls family and from what Laura herself understood to be central truths about pioneer life.
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Very Interested!!
- By ME00625 on 01-16-17
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The Sisters
- The Saga of the Mitford Family
- By: Mary S. Lovell
- Narrated by: Annie Wauters
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the story of a close, loving family splintered by the violent ideologies of Europe between the wars. Jessica was a Communist; Debo became the Duchess of Devonshire; Nancy was one of the best-selling novelists of her day; the ethereally beautiful Diana was the most hated woman in England; and Unity Valkyrie, born in Swastika, Alaska, would become obsessed with Adolf Hitler.
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Great story, terrible reader
- By Victoria on 02-27-14
By: Mary S. Lovell
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Careless People
- Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby
- By: Sarah Churchwell
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby has become one of the world's best-loved books, delighting audiences across the world. Careless People tells the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, exploring in newly rich detail the relation of Fitzgerald's classic to the chaotic world he in which he lived. Fitzgerald set his novel in 1922, and Careless People carefully reconstructs the crucial months during which Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald returned to New York in the autumn of 1922.
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Fascinating study of the Fitzgeralds and Jazz Age
- By Sand on 06-11-14
By: Sarah Churchwell
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Acclaimed in her own time for her short story “The Lottery” and her novel The Haunting of Hill House - classics ranking with the work of Edgar Allan Poe - Shirley Jackson blazed a path for contemporary writers with her explorations of evil, madness, and cruelty. Soon after her untimely death in 1965, Jackson’s children discovered a treasure trove of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, many of which are brought together in this remarkable collection.
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After the publication of her short story “The Lottery” in the New Yorker in 1948 received an unprecedented amount of attention, Shirley Jackson was quickly established as a master horror storyteller. This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides listeners with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the “The Possibility of Evil” and “The Summer People”.
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Pepper Street is a really nice, safe California neighborhood. The houses are tidy, and the lawns are neatly mowed. Of course, the country club is close by, and lots of pleasant folks live there. The only problem is they knocked down the wall at the end of the street to make way for a road to a new housing development. Now, that’s not good - it’s just not good at all. Satirically exploring what happens when a smug suburban neighborhood is breached by awful, unavoidable truths, The Road Through the Wall is the tale that launched Shirley Jackson’s heralded career.
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Ugh
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"The Lottery," one of the most terrifying stories of the twentieth century, created a sensation when it was first published in the New Yorker. "Powerful and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery" with 24 equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate her remarkable range - from the hilarious to the truly horrible - and power as a storyteller.
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Title List:
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In her celebrated fiction, Shirley Jackson explored the darkness lurking beneath the surface of small-town America. But in Life Among the Savages, she takes on the lighter side of small-town life. In this witty and warm memoir of her family's life in rural Vermont, she delightfully exposes a domestic side in cheerful contrast to her quietly terrifying fiction. With a novelist's gift for character, an unfailing maternal instinct, and her signature humor, Jackson turns everyday family experiences into brilliant adventures.
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Acclaimed in her own time for her short story “The Lottery” and her novel The Haunting of Hill House - classics ranking with the work of Edgar Allan Poe - Shirley Jackson blazed a path for contemporary writers with her explorations of evil, madness, and cruelty. Soon after her untimely death in 1965, Jackson’s children discovered a treasure trove of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, many of which are brought together in this remarkable collection.
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Elizabeth is a demure 23-year-old wiling her life away at a dull museum job, living with her neurotic aunt, and subsisting off her dead mother’s inheritance. When Elizabeth begins to suffer terrible migraines and backaches, her aunt takes her to the doctor, then to a psychiatrist. But slowly, and with Jackson’s characteristic chill, we learn that Elizabeth is not just one girl - but four separate, self-destructive personalities.
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Ugh
- By MishiB on 03-27-24
By: Shirley Jackson, and others
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"The Lottery," one of the most terrifying stories of the twentieth century, created a sensation when it was first published in the New Yorker. "Powerful and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery" with 24 equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate her remarkable range - from the hilarious to the truly horrible - and power as a storyteller.
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Title List:
- By CK on 10-28-19
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In her celebrated fiction, Shirley Jackson explored the darkness lurking beneath the surface of small-town America. But in Life Among the Savages, she takes on the lighter side of small-town life. In this witty and warm memoir of her family's life in rural Vermont, she delightfully exposes a domestic side in cheerful contrast to her quietly terrifying fiction. With a novelist's gift for character, an unfailing maternal instinct, and her signature humor, Jackson turns everyday family experiences into brilliant adventures.
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Seventeen-year-old Natalie Waite longs to escape home for college. Her father is a domineering and egotistical writer who keeps a tight rein on Natalie and her long-suffering mother. When Natalie finally does get away, however, college life doesn’t bring the happiness she expected. Little by little, Natalie is no longer certain of anything - even where reality ends and her dark imaginings begin. Chilling and suspenseful, Hangsaman is loosely based on the real-life disappearance of a Bennington College sophomore in 1946.
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Julia Whelan’s narration in sweet perfection …
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Let Me Tell You
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Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American writers of the last hundred years. Since her death in 1965, her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more exalted. As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this astonishing compilation of fifty-six pieces—more than forty of which have never been published before. Two of Jackson’s children co-edited this volume, culling through the vast archives of their mother’s papers at the Library of Congress, selecting only the very best for inclusion.
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Surprise!
- By Donea Clancy on 02-02-23
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We Have Always Lived in the Castle
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Six years after four family members died of arsenic poisoning, the three remaining Blackwoods—elder, agoraphobic sister Constance; wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian; and 18-year-old Mary Katherine, or, Merricat—live together in pleasant isolation. Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic to guard the estate against intrusions from hostile villagers. But one day a stranger arrives—cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune.
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The narration changed my interpretation
- By jaspersu on 10-28-12
By: Shirley Jackson
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It Can't Happen Here
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Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor, is dismayed to find that many of the people he knows support presidential candidate Berzelius Windrip. The suspiciously fascist Windrip is offering to save the nation from sex, crime, welfare cheats, and a liberal press. But after Windrip wins the election, dissent soon becomes dangerous for Jessup. Windrip forcibly gains control of Congress and the Supreme Court and, with the aid of his personal paramilitary storm troopers, turns the United States into a totalitarian state.
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The Rise of American Authoritarianism
- By David S. Mathew on 11-21-16
By: Sinclair Lewis
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The Haunting of Hill House
- By: Shirley Jackson
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- Unabridged
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Four seekers have come to the ugly, abandoned old mansion: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of the psychic phenomenon called haunting; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a lonely, homeless girl well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the adventurous future heir of Hill House.
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Well written horror tale
- By C K White on 02-11-14
By: Shirley Jackson
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Kubrick
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The enigmatic and elusive filmmaker Stanley Kubrick has not been treated to a full-length biography in over twenty years. Stanley Kubrick: An Odyssey fills that gap. This definitive book is based on access to the latest research, especially Kubrick's archive at the University of the Arts, London, as well as other private papers plus new interviews with family members and those who worked with him. It offers comprehensive and in-depth coverage of Kubrick's personal, private, public, and working life.
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What listeners say about Shirley Jackson
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- uforic
- 08-10-24
Typical biography
A bit long winded. Didn’t need to know so much about the husband. But the rest of the story was very good.
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- Michelle
- 07-25-22
Fascinating and depressing
I'm pretty sure the only story I have ever read of Shirley Jackson's is The Lottery. And that was in a public high school - a rather terrible setting to discuss it's meaning. And I never really knew anything anything about her life. I found this book both depressing and fascinating the whole way through - which given the author it is about, I guess that is fitting. I really felt for Shirley and hated how some of the people in her life hurt her self esteem so terribly. Overall I am glad I read this but it was not a happy experience.
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- Lesley
- 10-08-16
An incredible writer; a courageous woman
Millions of Americans have read "The Lottery"--if you've ever wondered about the mind behind it, you will love this biography.
Using new interviews and new correspondence, Ruth Franklin has produced a vivid yet nuanced portrait of Jackson, both as a writer and as a woman leading what was a very unconventional life for a member of The Greatest Generation. Her marriage was "mixed": her husband, critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, was Jewish at a time of widespread anti-semitism. Amid the racial bias of that era, some of the couple's friends, like novelist Ralph Ellison, were not white. Her more frightening works, like "The Lottery" and "The Haunting of Hill House," caused sensations when they were printed, and Jackson herself read tarot cards, claiming the label of "practicing amateur witch."
Coexisting with all that, however, was a more conventional person, a writer whose funny family stories frequently appeared in magazines for "ladies," like Good Housekeeping and Mademoiselle. A mother of four herself, she produced a book of advice for new mothers.
At the same time, neither version of Shirley Jackson was definitive--and neither was happy. The only daughter of a viciously critical mother who essentially rejected her, Jackson was self-conscious and anxious to extremes, suffering from agoraphobia and nightmares. Her marriage was not happy: Hyman, too, was over-critical, and she felt he lavished attention on his students and friends (including female friends), while paying less attention to her and the children.
Franklin observes the tension between the two unhappy Shirleys, drawing sharp parallels to Jackson's fiction. She is usually kind, even toward the womanizing Hyman, but she's never condescending as she shows us everything that Jackson was up against in post-war America: the idea that writing was men's work meant her writing often didn't get the attention it deserved. Small-town prejudice created constant nuisance in her daily life. The expectations for women of her era were difficult for any woman to embody--let alone a brilliant creative like Jackson.
I came away with a feeling that Jackson would have been happier if she were born later in history, and the simultaneous knowledge that a later Jackson would not have been the same writer. Like all the best biographers, Franklin concentrates on the personal while never overwhelming us with too much detail. Bernadette Dunne's smooth narration makes this book an excellent listen. Five stars all around--recommended for anyone who loves Jackson, even those who've read only "The Lottery."
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38 people found this helpful
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- s.miller
- 07-22-19
Poignant and enigmatic life
Having read the majority of Jackson's works since I was in college in 1963, I am indulging myself once again with the pleasures of re-reading them now in my senior years. I was terribly disappointed when I heard of her death, being content that I had found my favorite author and would look forward to reading her books for years to come. Well, I'm totally satisfied with re-reading them and enjoying them over again. Her style is brilliant. This biography of a literary giant was a window into who Shirley Jackson actually was. I'll probably reread this one, too.
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2 people found this helpful
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- T. Ray
- 09-24-21
Shirley Jackson love her!!
The narrator is lovely. Her voice is crisp, clear and nice. Loved it! thank you
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1 person found this helpful
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- Lcairn
- 09-30-24
Such talent and sorrow
Very thorough and organized. Points reader to reading Jackson’s works, which are so superior in every way.
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- James Reed McGhee II
- 01-11-19
I feel I really know her now!
Ruth Franklin should be applauded for her thorough and insightful biography of Shirley Jackson. I knew Shirley Jackson as the author of the lottery, I saw the film The Haunting before I knew that Shirley Jackson was the author of the Haunting of Hill House.
Although Daphne du Maurier was not mentioned in this biography, I find that Jackson and du Maurier have a way of bringing the reader into the inner life of their female protagonists, and of drawing the reader into the protagonists’ struggle with the mysterious and unsettling nature of the mind, of the perception of reality and time, and the struggle between the individual and society, as well as between individuals, that these two authors are linked together in my mind.
Bernadette Dunne is an excellent narrator, her voice is clear and her pace and emphasis are precise and appropriate. I look forward to hearing her voice again on another audiobook very soon.
I look forward to reading the other works by Shirley Jackson mentioned in this biography. Literary criticism is not my cup of tea, so I will not be reading the work of Stanley Hyman anytime soon, but I thought the biographer provided the needed amount of detail about Hyman’s work, for us to understand the marital, intellectual and professional relationship between Jackson and her husband. Also it is clear that Hyman was a source of frustration and pain for Jackson, often demanding and uncaring, but also supportive of her and encouraging of her talent, as he was of Ralph Ellison and other writers whom he admired.
The author also paints a picture of Shirley Jackson as a woman who bucked convention, who was a woman ahead of her time; a mother, wife, career woman, a creative person, highly successful in creating true art, and in doing so with great productivity, so that she was also financially successful in her profession.
Finally, I have never before learned so much about the development of an author, and how an author develops his or her work, and pursues a career, in the face of personal and professional challenges. For all of this, I am grateful to Ruth Franklin for writing this biography of Shirley Jackson.
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16 people found this helpful
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- David
- 10-22-17
The story of one of my favorite authors.
Franklin delivers one of the most thorough biographies of one of my favorite authors. She documents all of Jackson's life, her beginnings, her rise, her challenges, and her unfortunate early death. Franklin provides excellent sources and wonderful depth to the life of Jackson. My only serious critique is that Dunne does not distinguish between some of the 'characters' in this book well. However her pacing is solid, her pronunciation is easy to understand, and she does a decent enough job between switching her normal voice for the voice of Jackson when she reads sources directly attributed to Jackson. If you are a fan of Jackson's works, this biography is a must a listen.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Erin
- 01-22-19
Fantastic contribution!
Incredibly impressive in its scope, the value of this biography cannot be overstated. Franklin has worked tirelessly to synthesize the vast material record of Shirley Jackson into a readable and comprehensible work. And it's almost perfect. I felt that at times, there was too much repetition in the descriptions of Jackson and Hyman -- too much attention paid to the same cyclical problems faced by the couple without enough reflection. So much so that it was hard to keep track of time and space. Jackson was always struggling and Hyman was always chasing girls -- exiting and entering Bennington College, always writing this good thing for the New Yorker or this bad thing for the New Yorker. Shortening and condensing would have done this work some good. While the first half was absolutely riveting, I had to power through the last three hours or so -- unfortunately turns into a bit of a slog. Franklin's brilliant ideas and keen observations hidden amongst the humdrum onslaught of the everyday trials of Jackson and Hyman.
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- Lynn Maudlin
- 06-01-21
Fascinating and Frustrating
Sometimes I just wanted to shake Shirley, "wake up!" there were so many life choices she made which compounded her problems (imho, of course). Clearly brilliant and very talented, it's an interesting account of how she came to be the writer and the woman she was.
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