Shirley Jackson

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' Donna Tartt, author of The Goldfinch Natalie Waite, daughter of a mediocre writer and a neurotic housewife, is increasingly unsure of her place in the world. In the midst of adolescence she senses a creeping darkness in her life, which will spread among nightmarish parties, poisonous college cliques and the manipulations of the intellectual men who surround her, as her identity gradually crumbles. This edition includes a Foreword by Francine Prose. Shirley Jackson's chilling tales have the power to unsettle and terrify unlike any other. She was born in California in 1916. When her short story The Lottery was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail; it has since become one of the greatest American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by five more: Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, widely seen as her masterpiece. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep at the age of 48. 'An amazing writer' Neil Gaiman 'The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable ... It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse' A. M. Homes 'Shirley Jackson is unparalleled as a leader in the field of beautifully written, quiet, cumulative shudders' Dorothy Parker

Hangsaman

dina

The gap between the poetry she wrote and the poetry she contained was, for Natalie, something unsolvable.

“You’ll find as you go on that they’ll pay less and less attention to you, and you get used to it. It’s because everyone here is so much interested in themselves and their own concerns, and no one cares about anyone else or education or teaching the young or helping anyone else, but all they care about is getting as much as they can as fast as they can.”

I spend most of my time just thinking about how nice things used to be and wondering if they’ll ever be nice again. If I should go on and on and die someday and nothing was ever nice again—wouldn’t that be a fine thing? Wouldn’t I have been cheated, don’t you think? I get to feeling like that and then I think I’ll make things be nice, and make him behave, and just make everything all happy and exciting again the way it used to be—but I’m too tired.

Perhaps you feel that you are doing badly these days because you do not perceive that you are, in fact, doing very well indeed, and only lack the perception of your own worth to know exactly how well.

Hangsaman quotes

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