Author of the Month: Shirley Jackson
Selected by the Bookshop
Our Author of the Month for July is the American novelist and memoirist Shirley Jackson.
She’s perhaps most famous for her 1948 short story ‘The Lottery’, first printed in the New Yorker, which generated a level of cancelled subscriptions and hate mail that baffled both author and publisher and managed to get itself banned in South Africa. Another Gothic masterpiece The Haunting of Hill House followed in 1959 and has been described by Stephen King as being ‘as nearly perfect a haunted-house tale as I have ever read’. But her range as a writer was extraordinary – her family memoirs, collected in two volumes as Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons are more reminiscent of Gerald Durrell or James Thurber than Bram Stoker, and are among the funniest, sharpest and most uplifting books you’re ever likely to read.
Start with The Lottery or The Haunting of Hill House, but if you’ve already read them, be prepared to be surprised by other books by an almost indecently talented writer.
From the publisher:
'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna TarttThis is the definitive collection of Shirley Jackson's short stories, including 'The Lottery' - one of the most terrifying and iconic stories of the …
From the publisher:
The best-known of Shirley Jackson's novels and a major inspiration for writers like Neil Gaiman and Stephen King as well as the hit Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House is a chilling story of the power of fear'Shirley Jackson's…
From the publisher:
A darkly funny account of family life from the author of The Haunting of Hill House and The Lottery'Sometimes, in my capacity as a mother, I find myself sitting open-mouthed and terrified before my own children'As well as being a master of…
From the publisher:
'Hilarious, subversive, sharp without being lethal, and loving without an ounce of sentiment, Shirley Jackson's more-or-less autobiographical account of life as a mother of four and faculty wife (and brilliant writer) is an eternal, comic…
From the publisher:
Step into the unsettling world of Shirley Jackson this autumn with a collection of her finest, darkest short stories, revealing the queen of American gothic at her mesmerising best.There's something nasty in suburbia. In these deliciously…
From the publisher:
Shirley Jackson's Hangsaman is a story of lurking disquiet and haunting disorientation, inspired by the real-life, unsolved disappearance of a female college student.'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' …
From the publisher:
A remarkable collection of dark, funny and haunting short stories from the inimitable author of 'The Lottery'.An anxious devil, an elderly writer of poison pen letters and a mid-century Jack the Ripper; a pursuit though a nightmarish city,…
From the publisher:
From the peerless author of The Lottery and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, this is a treasure trove of deliciously dark and funny stories, essays, lectures, letters and drawings.Let Me Tell You brings together the brilliantly eerie…
From the publisher:
The unsettling story of a young woman's descent into mental illness, from the author of The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived at the Castle. 'An amazing writer' Neil GaimanElizabeth Richmond is almost too quiet to be…
From the publisher:
'Her greatest book ... at once whimsical and harrowing, a miniaturist's charmingly detailed fantasy sketched inside a mausoleum ... the deeper we sink, the deeper we want to go' Donna TarttLiving in the Blackwood family home with only…
From the publisher:
In The Sundial Shirley Jackson, author of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, blends family politics and apocalyptic terror to create a disturbing world of sinister relations and the macabre.'An amazing writer' Neil GaimanMrs Halloran…
From the publisher:
Reminiscent of her classic story 'The Lottery', Jackson's disturbing and darkly funny first novel exposes the underside of American suburban life.'Her books penetrate keenly to the terrible truths which sometimes hide behind comfortable…
From the publisher:
A genius of literary suspense, known to millions as the author of the "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) plumbed the cultural anxiety of postwar America better than anyone. Based on a wealth of previously undiscovered correspondence…
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