Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life

Winner, 2016 Bram Stoker Award - Nonfiction; Winner, 2017 Edgar Award - Critical/Biographical

A genius of literary suspense, known to millions as the author of the “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson (1916–1965) plumbed the cultural anxiety of postwar America better than anyone. Based on a wealth of previously undiscovered correspondence and dozens of interviews, Shirley Jackson reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the author, firmly placing Jackson within the American Gothic tradition. In this “remarkable act of reclamation” (Neil Gaiman), Ruth Franklin demonstrates how Jackson's unique contribution to the canon “so uncannily channeled women’s nightmares and contradictions that it is ‘nothing less than the secret history of American women of her era’ ” (Washington Post).

"Franklin’s biography takes us beyond the chilling stories that made Shirley Jackson’s name into the dilemmas of a woman writer in the 1950s and ’60s, struggling to make a career between the pressures of childcare, domesticity, and her own demons. It’s a very modern story, and a terrific read.", Mary Beard