Shirley Hardie Jackson (December 14, 1916 – August 8, 1965) was an American writer known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Over the duration of her writing career, which spanned over two decades, she composed six novels, two memoirs, and more than 200 short stories. [source]
In this video essay we investigate the life of Shirley Jackson and relate her life experiences to her novels and short stories. [49 minutes]
There's something nasty in suburbia. In these deliciously dark tales, the daily commute turns into a nightmarish game of hide-and-seek, the loving wife hides homicidal thought and the concerned citizen might just be an infamous serial killer. In the haunting world of Shirley Jackson, nothing is as it seems and nowhere is safe, from the city streets to the crumbling country pile, and from the small-town apartment to the dark, dark woods...
Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House interplays between supernatural and psychological horror where a twisted and sinister haunted house hellbent on isolation becomes a representation of a mind twisted by trauma and full of its own ghosts, and it is a truly remarkable and unsettling read.
In these stories an excellent host finds himself turned out of home by his own guests; a woman spends her wedding day frantically searching for her husband-to-be; and in Shirley Jackson's best-known story, a small farming village comes together for a terrible annual ritual. The creeping unease of lives squandered and the bloody glee of lives lost is chillingly captured in these tales of wasted potential and casual cruelty by a master of the short story.