“The Lottery” (1948) is Shirley Jackson‘s best-known short story; it could be argued it’s her most famous classic — even more widely read than The Haunting of Hill House or We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
Once published, the story quickly catapulted her to fame— or, more accurately, notoriety. Its most potent theme — scapegoating —is all too relevant in today’s world, and so, the story continues to resonate.
Jackson, just in her early thirties, wrote it only three weeks before its publication in The New Yorker (full text as it appeared in 1948),“on a bright summer morning as I was pushing my daughter up the hill in her stroller.” And the story begins, rather benignly: Read More→
Françoise Sagan (1935 – 2004), the French novelist, playwright, and screenwriter, was always best know for her debut novel, Bonjour Tristesse, published when she was just 18. Following is a selection of quotes by François Sagan on love, life, and writing.
Sagan went on to have an incredibly prolific career after her freshman effort, coupled with a wild and turbulent life that featured fast cars, drugs, and many love affairs.
Her turbulent life eventually caught up with her health; she spent her last few years ill and and she died in 2004 of a pulmonary embolism at the age of sixty-nine. Read More→
Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan (1954) is the story of Cecile, an amoral seventeen-year-old, who goes on vacation to the south of France with her father, Raymond.
Raymond is a widower who leads a life revolving around multiple affairs with women, usually short-lived. Cecile, despite her age, is fully aware of her father’s love life.
Raymond has rented a well appointed villa, and Cecile, her father, and her father’s mistress of the moment, Elsa, depart for a month of sun and relaxation. Read More→
Gone With the Wind — the book — was a publishing phenomenon. Not within memory had an American novel been so long (1,037 pages, a half-million words) or weighed so much (3.5 pounds).
The following narrative was originally published in The Story of Gone With the Wind by Bob Thomas, © 1967 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., National Publishers, Inc., New York.
MacMillan published GWTW at a time when the book industry, like all others in the U.S., was still suffering from the results of the Depression. At least one person was concerned about the enterprise: Margaret Mitchell. Read More→
Shirley Jackson’s haunting classic short story “The Lottery” made her famous in 1948, and subsequent books cemented her brand of psychological terror. So when she came out with Life Among the Savages in 1953, reviewers were delighted and surprised by her cheery and wry observations of life with four children and husband in a shabby, rambling house in Vermont.
It turns out that Life Among the Savages, and its follow-up, Raising Demons, were idealized (and somewhat-to-fairly fictionalized) portrayals of the family’s chaotic life and individual eccentricities. Read More→
Shirley Jackson (1916 – 1965) occasionally turned to true crime news stories as jumping off points for her novels of psychological terror and suspense. This was apparently the case for her second novel, Hangsaman (1951).
Jackson, her husband Stanley Edgar Hyman, and their four children were living in North Bennington when 18-year-old Bennington College freshman Paula Jean Weldon disappeared. She went out for a hike on December 1, 1946, and simply never returned.
There were, and have since been, theories about what might have happened to Weldon, but neither she —nor her body — were ever found. Read More→
Martha Gellhorn was a fearless war correspondent who reported on nearly every major conflict at a time when such female journalists were a rarity.
Her debut as a novelist wasn’t auspicious. What Mad Pursuit was generally panned by critics, if it got any attention at all. One called it “palpable juvenilia;” another stated that it was “a rather futile book.
The story of three college friends seeking fulfillment, meaning, and sexual adventure meet mostly with disappointment — and an STD. Read More→
