A Shirley Jackson Episode

[nicolecushing]

How about an episode reviewing the work of Shirley Jackson? (Perhaps best known for "The Lottery", but also the author of several novels, including The Haunting of Hill House, which was adapted into both the '63 and '99 versions of The Haunting.)

Jackson's work is pretty influential in terms of horror literature and each year the Shirley Jackson Awards honor some of the best that horror fic has to offer. (Visit www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/
for more information).

[yddy]

One of the book club episodes reminded me that I needed to read Shirley Jackson. I really love her work, because so much of her works contain subtle horror. It seems so much more realistic, because everything goes along much in the same way our lives do with these dark undercurrents running throughout.

[jamtomorrow]

"The Lottery"! I came across this story for the first time a year or so ago, in the form of a dramatisation that I heard on an old-time radio podcast ("The Horror!", for anyone who's interested). It was an incredibly controversial piece of fiction when it was first published. It's interesting to speculate why it touched such a raw nerve with mid-20th Century American readers; I dare say a deeply conformist and conservative society didn't like the image of itself that Jackson's story presented.

[darkfiction74]

I love Shirley Jackson. Very subtle horror but she was a master at creating character, tension, and atmosphere.

[nicolecushing]

Nov 5, 2012 6:19:17 GMT -5 jamtomorrow said:

It was an incredibly controversial piece of fiction when it was first published. It's interesting to speculate why it touched such a raw nerve with mid-20th Century American readers; I dare say a deeply conformist and conservative society didn't like the image of itself that Jackson's story presented.

I think that may have something to do with the reaction, but we also have to remember that "The Lottery" was first published only a few years after World War II. I think some of the backlash was due to the fact that many readers resented the possible implication that Americans were just as capable of mindlessly obeying authority and committing atrocities as the Nazis were.