The Lottery (and other stories) - Shirley Jackson
I chalked up Shirley Jackson as a one-hit wonder until I read this collection. I am so glad that I was able to read more of her stories! Many of them are actually unusual and hilarious slices of life, while others begin as a portrait of life in traditional America... and then gradually take a menacing, sinister turn. (Of course, it's those stories that reel me in.)
Shirley Jackson subtly blurs the line between reality and a surreal nightmare. Instead of dealing with in-your-face slasher gore, I found myself unsettled with things in my own home because they reminded me of the creepy things that happened in other people's homes in her stories. Her stories don't have monsters or bloody ghosts. Instead, there are unhinged neighbors, overly aggressive dogs, strange dolls, and abnormal reflections in the mirror. She writes in a way that makes these things horrifying because they are facets of daily life and are inescapable.
My favorite story in the book was "The Witch", where a charming little boy, his mother, and his little baby sister find themselves sitting next to an elderly man with a pleasant face. All goes well as they introduce themselves and the old man mentions he has a sister. But then he says:
"I bought her a rocking-horse and a doll and a million lolli-pops... and then I took her and I put my hands around her neck and I pinched her and I pinched her until she was dead."
The little boy gasped and the mother turned around, her smile fading...
"and then I took and I cut her head off.. and her hands and her feet and her hair and her nose" the man said "and I hit her with a stick... and I put her head in a cage with a bear and the bear ate it all up"
... this is the genius of Shirley Jackson. Nothing is scarier than the ordinary world and the unpredictable strangers walking the earth.
I feel like maybe this isn't the best place to admit this, but I have never read The Lottery.
ReplyDeleteHOWEVER, I just finished a very good short story collection called Almost Famous Women, and there was an homage to The Lottery as the last story there.
Off to read it now...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link. I read it earlier tonight, and though this may sound sacrilegious, I prefer the story that I read first. Largely because the element of surprise was no longer there, but also because the story that I read first provided a teensy bit more background. But still -- what a story!
ReplyDeleteThat's always the thing about plot twists. If you anticipate them, things do seem anticlimactic because your mind goes haywire trying to anticipate the shocker. I do like the nice touch at the beginning, when the boys are horsing around and collecting smooth flat stones and you think "that's nice, they're going to skip them out on the lake". HA.
ReplyDeleteYes, do it! But word of caution: this is definitely not horror; they're more like weird Twilight Zone-type of stories.
ReplyDeleteI am totally on board for some Twilight Zone-y stories!
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