31 Days of Halloween - Day 11

Shirley Jackson - A Rather Haunted Life  by Ruth Franklin

Live right Publishing Corporation. 2016.



When Shirley Jackson entered the hospital to give birth to her third child. a hospital clerk asked her her occupation. "Writer" she said. "I'll just put down housewife, the clerk replied. In her world, that's the role that women were expected to fulfill. The celebrated author of "The Lottery" and The House on Haunted Hill, spent her adult life trying to balance being a homemaker and a writer, while suffering the constant harsh criticism of her mother, and the demanding needs of her distant husband.

Franklin's examination of Jackson's life and career is rich and superb in her manner of relating it. This is an excellent biography about a very influential, if troubled, writer.