Member Review

Five stars for Ruth Franklin's new biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life. Jackson was known for her frightening stories, including "The Lottery," "The Haunting of Hill House," and "We Have Always Lived in the Castle." With Franklin's book, we follow Jackson from youth into adulthood, and her marriage to a man who supported and admired her work, while repeating betraying their vows and causing her severe distress and anguish. We see Jackson as mother, wife, and author, and how her various roles meshed or conflicted with what society expected from women of that era. I'm now eager to read or re-read Jackson's stories, and I'll be a better reader for having learned how her sense of "home" informed her work. I highly recommend this book, not only for Jackson fans, but for anyone who wants to know what it was like for women in the 50s and 60s.