We Have Always Lived in the Castle  (1962) was the last published work by Shirley Jackson during her lifetime.  The narrator, Mary Katherine “Merricat” Blackwood, lives with her sister and uncle on an isolated estate in rural Vermont.

The Blackwoods have been shunned by the neighbors in the nearby village due to a tragedy — murder by poisoning — that occurred some years earlier.

This critically acclaimed novel is considered one of Jackson’s masterpieces; and it has been an inspiration to authors that came after who write in the thriller and mystery genres. Read More→

Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson is a 1957 memoir of motherhood and domestic tribulations. Wry and humorous, it serves up an idealized version of this author’s family’s life in North Bennington, Vermont, and is a departure from her fictional tales of psychological terror — notably, The Lottery (1949).

How much of the depiction of this family’s life reflects reality is an open question. Jackson’s husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman, a literary critic and professor, was chronically unfaithful, controlling, and belittling. 

Jackson herself was a heavy smoker, overweight, and may have been addicted to prescription barbiturates due to anxiety. She was only 48 when she died of heart failure in her sleep in 1965. Read More→