Shirley Jackson

The Halloran family waits for the end of the world after Aunt Fanny is told its exact date in a vision

The Sundial

"When the Halloran clan gathers at the family home for a funeral, no one is surprised to see peculiar Aunt Fanny wander off into the garden. But she returns reporting an astonishing vision : her late father has appeared to her and given the exact date of an imminent apocalypse, from which only the Hallorans and their hangers-on will be spared. Soon the family is engulfed in growing madness, fear, and violence. Lost in machinations and belief in a coming paradise, they prepare for the terrible storm they are sure will bring this new world - beautiful and for them alone"--From back cover.

Laura Mauler

This one started off with a bang - pushed down the stairs, or fell? Ghost encounter or madness or lies? - but then slowed waaay down. At first I resented the change in tempo, but after finishing the book I understand how necessary that change was to the plot. And it works, it really works.

I love being able to step into Shirley Jackson's universe, and this book certainly let me. However, not my favorite of her books. 

Silje Løvli Lorentsen

Ryan LaFerney

In The Sundial, perhaps Shirley Jackson’s most comical novel, twelve rather disagreeable individuals are cooped together in a mansion waiting for the end of the world. 

When Aunt Fanny, a rather ditsy spinster is threatened out of her family home by her megalomaniac sister-in-law, she is quite rightfully distressed. Lucky for Aunt Fanny, on that very same day she happens to hear the disembodied voice of her deceased father. He warns Aunt Fanny of an impending apocalypse and tells her not to leave the Halloran estate: “Tell them in the house that they will be saved. Do not let them leave the house.”

What ensues is a comedy of sorts, as the family is engulfed in growing madness, fear, and violence. Lost in the thought of a coming paradise, their interior lives collide into utter madness.

The novel is packed with hilarious observations, and the characters act so strangely in their belief of the coming apocalypse. They create rules to abide by; they destroy books; they throw one last little party for the town. Like the mansion in The Haunting of Hill House, the Halloran estate is a character. Shirley writes:

 “THE CHARACTER OF THE HOUSE IS PERHAPS OF INTEREST. IT STOOD UPON A SMALL RISE IN GROUND, AND ALL THE LAND IT SURVEYED BELONGED TO THE HALLORAN FAMILY. THE HALLORAN LAND WAS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE REST OF THE WORLD BY A STONE WALL, WHICH WENT COMPLETELY AROUND THE ESTATE, SO THAT ALL INSIDE THE WALL WAS HALLORAN, ALL OUTSIDE WAS NOT.”

This is yet another novel by Jackson that explores the double function of houses: the Halloran mansion is both a fortress—a place of safety—and a prison.

And in the end, as the family awaits the coming paradise, in the midst of a storm, it surely seems like the mansion is more prison than a safe refuge.

The Sundial, written before Hill House, is a slowly haunting book, with no easy answers. Is it about the danger of belief? Is it about the danger of greed? Is it a critique of the privileged? 

Perhaps.

 It will leave you thinking like all great literature does, long after you close the pages.

Emmett

I have never thought of Shirley Jackson as an author of humour, but now have reason to change my opinion. That her brand of humour remains faithful to her chilling, unnerving style is to her great merit.

'From the sky and from the ground and from the sea there is danger; tell them in the house . . . ' Mrs Halloran has inherited the great Halloran house on the death of her son, much to the disgust of her daughter-in-law, the delight of her wicked granddaughter and the confusion of the rest of the household. But when the original owner - long dead - arrives to announce the world is ending and only the house and its occupants will be saved, they find themselves in a nightmare of strange marble statues, mysterious guests and the beautiful, unsettling Halloran sundial which seems to be at the centre of it all. Shirley Jackson blends sinister family politics and apocalyptic terror in a masterpiece of the macabre. 'A novel of gothic horror and shuddering suspense.' The New York Times With a Foreword by Victor LaValle

jana

probably my least favorite shirley jackson, unfortunately. i got the Point and i was invested in parts of it but i couldn’t make myself care for the rest (also in retrospect, reading it while experiencing brain fog might’ve been a bad idea...my bad). the chapter centered on julia was peak shirley jackson though and i Loved it!!

Jade Flynn

Faintly sinister. In hindsight this probably wasn't the best book to pick up after reading the excellent We Have Always Lived in the Castle because it's known to be one of Jackson's weaker reads which I didn't know whilst choosing. With that being said I'll remember the fog/statue scene for a long time and I'm definitely interested in reading more Jackson in the future.

Daryl Houston

Shea Newton

I love Shirley Jackson, but I love other books she wrote more than this one.

Molly M

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 Gaiman Mrs Halloran has inherited the great Halloran house on the death of her son, much to the disgust of her daughter-in-law, the delight of her wicked granddaughter and the confusion of the rest of the household. But when the original owner - long dead - arrives to announce the world is ending and only the house and its occupants will be saved, they find themselves in a nightmare of strange marble statues, mysterious house guests and the beautiful, unsettling Halloran sundial which seems to be at the centre of it all. 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. '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 'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna Tartt

The Sundial

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