"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."
-Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

When I was 14 years old and in ninth grade I was made to read a short story in English class. That short story changed my life. It was called The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. We were told to read it to ourselves, then we had to fill out a worksheet. I read it twice. When the rocks rained down on Tessie, I felt understood. After class I went straight to the library and looked for any and all books by Shirley. I got "We Have Always Lived in The Castle" and "The Haunting of Hill House." I didn’t simply read those books. I lost myself in them and then found myself in them.

I was 14, I was hated, I was fat, I was ugly, covered in freckles and I was a bitch. I was my own person and I was scared. I saw people for what they were, not what I was told they were. I saw that most of my teachers were stuck in classrooms doing jobs they didn’t care about or do well. I also could tell when a teacher was perfectly content and well placed. Those teachers were the ones you really didn’t notice. You learned without realizing it and they came and left the school invisibly. I saw my fellow classmates as enemies. They were spoiled little rich kids who always did what they were told, or they rebelled the "normal" way, by smoking dope or drinking or staying out late. I didn’t have anywhere to go, I didn’t do drugs or drink. I rebelled the not so normal way, I told teachers what I thought of them and the job they were doing teaching, whether it was good or bad. I eventually dropped out of school altogether. They weren’t sad to see me go, I was their sore spot.

What I found in the real world didn’t satisfy me either. I started to realize that adults were just kids in bigger bodies. I saw them steal, lie and kill. I was surprised. I was so disappointed at how much it was like High School. I didn’t have any friends for a very long time. I remember going to an amusement park and seeing a movie on one of those huge screens. They were in outer space, showing the earth down below. I remember scanning the planet, wondering where on earth I might find someone like me, someone who’d understand me and appreciate me.

MerriCat in "We Have Always Lived in The Castle" would have been that person. Eleanor Vance in "The Haunting of Hill House" would have too. I found a friend in Shirley Jackson, long dead, but her words still talked to me. I didn’t have to read about how nice little girls were supposed to be, how refined and pretty. These fictional females felt deeply, they were misunderstood and alone. They were ugly and hated. They were bitches. I was home.

In Judy Oppenhiemer’s biography of Shirley Jackson, she states on page one, "[Shirley’s Mother] too would have liked a daughter who was beautiful and a fool; instead, she got Shirley, who would never for one instant be either." As close as I felt to the characters Shirley created, nothing could prepare me for how close I would feel to her personally as I read "Private Demons; The Life of Shirley Jackson." The book is an amazing look at a woman who was, herself, as remarkable as any character she created. She had a San Francisco socialite mother, who worried when Shirley married a Jewish writer. Shirley was never one to base her love on such things. She had four wonderful children, which she took care of during the day, and wrote her stories in her spare time. She was the opposite of what a normal 40’s housewife would have been.  Her stories usually centered on one troubled female, with the males in the story being either diseased, disabled or dead.  Shirley needed them only for backdrops in the lives of the richly divine female characters she created.

Not many people I have talk to about Shirley Jackson even know who she was.   Most who know her only know her one story "The Lottery."  Some others know her because of her novel "The Haunting of Hill House" which was turned into a move called "The Haunting" staring Julie Harris.  For this reason I decided to do a web page dedicated to her.  This is my playground and I plan to be adding a lot to the pages soon.  For now we have some links and photos.   Hope you enjoy.

 

http://www.rafayburnsappeal.com/