And whatever walked there, had some cake

Happy Birthday, Shirley Jackson! Hey, I know a fun game: let’s juxtapose some of her most famous writing with an excerpt from her obituary, see if it gives us chills:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.

In 1965, Shirley Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington, at the age of 48. Jackson had suffered throughout her life from various neuroses and psychosomatic illnesses.

Yep, definitely got some chills. That’s what I love about her, she can always be counted on to provide those.

Some fans like to honor this day by buying a lottery ticket. Not me, though; I’m gonna go to a haunted house and watch chicks make out.

Okay, that’s a lie. I’m actually going to search online for the hardcover edition of The Haunting of Hill House I gave to a girlfriend years ago and see if it’s still going for an obscene amount of money. God damn I wish it’d been something easily replaceable, like an engagement ring.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/14/11 at 08:44 PM • Permalink

Categories: I Don't Know Much About Art, But I Know What I Like • Geek Speak • YouTubidity •

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Some fans like to honor this day by buying a lottery ticket.

Others prefer to get stoned.

Comment by Big Bad Bald Bastard on 12/14/11 at 09:25 PM

I would vote for We Have Always Lived in the Castle as being spookier than either of the above. I would not care to have Merricat Blackwood anywhere in my neighbourhood, thank you. Or her neighbours either.

But her spookiest book to me is Life Among the Savages, a work that Erma Bombeck might have written had she been the wife of a professor at Bennington. Or actually one of the stories from it, excerpted in a mildewy Reader’s Digest at the family cottage. I was too young to take it at anything but face value, as a mildly humorous sketch of a suburban family. Now that I know she was struggling to keep her sanity and the mild-mannered dad was not only emotionally distant but was cheating on her with a series of Bennington co-eds ... reading this again is more painful than one of her horror stories.

Comment by MaryRC on 12/14/11 at 09:29 PM

Haunting of Hill House was in the days when horror films were written for plot and character rather than special effects. The writing (i.e.the story and people are always so much more interesting than the effects.