"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality." So wrote author Shirley Jackson in The Haunting of Hill House. Shirley Jackson's reality was one of mental hardship and cruelty inflicted on her by those close to her. She chose to make that her millieu - that it is not monsters human should fear, but ordinary humans. Her works reflected a variety of societal ills and the need for natural separation from society.
Born December 14h, 1916 in San
Francisco, Shirley Jackson never fit in with other children. She preferred to read or write instead of pursuing friendships. Her mother became pregnant early in her marriage and resented Shirley for taking her focus away from her husband. She berated Shirley for her weight and appearance and for being an outcast. The family moved to New York when she was a senior in high school. After graduation in 1934, Shirley studied journalism at Syracuse. She met her future husband while they both wrote for the school literary magazine, and they married in 1940.
Her husband became a professor at Bennington College in Vermont. He often carried on affairs with his young female students. Shirley and her husband had four children and Shirley balanced her family, being a writer, being a faculty wife and being well read - their home library contained 25,000 books. In 1948 she published her short story The Lottery in the New Yorker. The magazine and Jackson received hate mail, as the story exposed a darker side of humanity. (I read the story for eighth grade 36 years ago and still can't shake it. )
Shirley wrote several novels and short story collections. She based her second book on the Paula Jean Weldon disappearance (still unsolved today.) Jackson's work continued into the 1950s. In 1959's The Haunting of Hill House, four people (a Paranormal Investigator, a wallflower young woman, a Bohemian artist, and a young man) must stay in a haunted house. The four experience supernatural events in the home. The Haunting of Hill House was made into a film in 1963 and 1999, and as a TV series in 2018.
Jackson wrote her final novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle in 1962. Two sisters live alone in a crumbling old mansion. One sister is suspected of murdering their family. When a long lost relative arrives, the sisters resent the intrusion. Jackson's health began to decline. She developed chronic asthma due to her smoking habit. She faced severe anxiety and agoraphobia exacerbated by her illnesses. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep in 1965 at 48 years old. Jackson was a master in fear and taught the world not to be afraid of outcasts - instead be afraid of those who cast out.
SOURCES ~
Shirley Jackson. Wikipedia.
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