book-reviews

Fantastic Find at the Bookstore #14: Two Sides of Shirley Jackson

~ Becky Ross Michael ~ 4 Comments

I picked up this book in a used bookstore in Michigan about 25 years ago. It was the charming artwork on the dust jacket that drew me in. Such a lovely family scene. It wasn’t until later that I put “two and two together” about the author, Shirley Jackson!

My first experience with media related to Shirley Jackson was watching the black-and-white movie version of her book The Haunting of Hill House. I was in high school and had come home early from a weekend date with a high temperature. I lay on the couch and watched the only thing that looked interesting on our two available TV stations. The movie, The Haunting, was definitely creepy, and I usually like non-bloody scary movies. Or was it just my temperature and fatigue making me feel somewhat delirious? No, my mom thought it was too creepy, and she went to bed. I watched through my fingers until the sinister ending.

Years later, in college, I read her famous story, “The Lottery,” and wrote a paper (on an old standard typewriter) about The Haunting of Hill House. I also sampled other stories from her collections. Psychological horror and literary suspense at their finest! I loved her writing. So where did Life Among the Savages fit in? I needed to know more!

I discovered that Shirley Jackson was married to a college professor, and they raised four children, with much of that time spent in the house depicted in the stylized art on the dust jacket. Shirley Jackson was a not-so-typical mother of the 50s, trying to raise kids AND to contribute significantly to the family income. It wasn’t all “fun and games.” Just beneath the surface of her amusing tales, we sense a woman on the edge who struggles to reach her writing goals while caring for a home and children, with a husband who offers little help or true emotional support. Shirley Jackson certainly had a dark side. She often dealt with anxiety and a sense of exclusion. But she wrote delightfully about the chaos of family life. For me, she’s right up there with close contemporaries, such as Betty MacDonald, Jean Kerr, and Erma Bombeck.

One of Shirley Jackson’s well-known stories, titled “Charles,” is incorporated into Life Among the Savages, and I used that story when I taught middle school language arts as a wonderful example of irony and foreshadowing. If you haven’t read it, you can check that out here! Her children are shown below on the back of the book’s dust jacket. I have since learned that she also wrote a follow-up book called Raising Demons.

Over the years, I was always on the lookout for anything by Shirley Jackson. One summer, I went to the annual library used book sale in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and was excited to find the book Come Along With Me. Pictured below, it contains lectures about writing, an unfinished novel at her death, and short stories, including “The Lottery.” It was edited by her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman. What a find! The other book, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin, is a new, exceptional biography that my sister gave me, knowing my interest in the author. When I reached the last page, I felt that I knew this complex, eccentric, and often misunderstood woman. And I could see how this talented author delved into malice, cruelty, and terror while also skillfully spinning humorous stories about everyday life!

Fantastic Find at the Bookstore #13: Humor in Daily Life

~ Becky Ross Michael ~ 47 Comments

When I came across this cute vintage paperback by Betty MacDonald at the used bookstore, I recognized the author’s name right away. But this was a “new” story and a new husband! The $3.00 price tag was well worth it, and I snapped this one up without a second thought.

I became familiar with Betty MacDonald’s humorous writing through her first book, The Egg and I, years ago, in high school. I was one of the students chosen in my senior English class to take part in a regional forensics competition. Assigned to do humorous readings (not sure why), I had no clue what to present. The Egg and I had rested on my parents’ bookshelf for years without tempting me. It no longer had the dust jacket pictured below, and with just a plain green cover, it never called to me.

My mom wisely suggested I check it out for some humorous chapters. I thoroughly enjoyed the funny book about a newly married couple who lived on a chicken ranch in Washington State. Imagine my surprise when I discovered this was the origin of the Ma and Pa Kettle characters I had seen in movies! I did well in the competition, advancing several rounds, and even had to read in front of my entire (small) school at an assembly. I was very nervous, but Betty MacDonald’s entertaining words gave me much-needed confidence.

Years later, I enjoyed watching the movie on either AMC or TCM. Claudette Colbert played Betty, and Fred MacMurray played her first husband, Bob.

When I came across Onions in the Stew, I realized there was a lot more to Betty MacDonald (1907-1958) than I had ever known, and I needed to dig deeper! I soon discovered that she wrote Anybody Can Do Anything about raising her daughters as a single parent during the Depression and also The Plague and I about surviving tuberculosis. All told through humor, of course. Onions in the Stew tells about moving to Vashon Island in the Pacific Northwest’s Puget Sound with her two daughters and new husband, Don. For a taste of the humor, I’ll mention that their washing machine floats away into the Sound their first night there!

Although Betty MacDonald died much too young, from cancer at age 49, she packed a lot of living and writing into her life. She is also the author of the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle series, in addition to Nancy and Plum.

My research prompted by this fantastic find at the bookstore also placed another book in my sights, this biography by Paula Becker. I can hardly wait!