The Lottery is a brilliant, iconic story, and most of us read it as young people and therefore it (along with the innocently laughing Bobby, collecting stones which will soon become weapons) was permanently seared in our brains.
The rest of these stories, however, were unfamiliar to me. I wasn't surprised at how engaging they were, how easily I was drawn in. I was a little surprised at how some of them petered, though, leaving the stories hacked off halfway, unresolved, as though the author had lost interest or realized there wasn't much more to do.
Most of the stories have a very strong female point of view. A female who is chained to her gender - a mother, a housewife, and not a very attractive one, and a disillusioned one, one that is probably smoking, and aching for something more. The jilted fiancée, the woman mistaken for the lady of the house, the woman who worked at Macy's just for one day.
Sometimes the stories feature men, like one who talks with a teenage girl at a party and is disturbed by her insights on the bad state of the world, or the one who recounts to a boy on a train that he chopped up his sister into pieces and fed her head to a lion.
There's often something quite unknown slithering through these pages. Anything could happen, like in a Flannery O'Connor story. I know I'll return to this collection again, and find something hidden that I didn't see on the first pass.
As I mentioned, not all the stories are strong, but they all are sewn together with the same deft, nicotine stained fingers, and those fingers beckon, ominously.
It ends with The Lottery, the story Jackson was meant to write, the story that drew me to the collection in the first place. It isn't fair, it isn't right, her character famously declares, and I turn that final page, in full agreement, and admiration. 224 Shirley Jackson's best short story is not 'The Lottery' (have you read 'Flower Garden'?) and it's almost a shame that it's her most well-known. Reading this collection, it isn't long before you start to feel the prying eyes of a Mrs Burton or a Mrs Walpole burning into your skull. What have I done wrong? you ask. Oh, nothing, they answer, even though you've clearly stepped on someone's toes. I'll take domestic rebel Shirley Jackson over 'horror' Shirley Jackson any day, even if she does have a tendency to spiral into the utterly mundane. 'The Tooth'--ugh. Maybe I just didn't get what I was supposed to get out of some of them but sometimes I wonder if some of these stories aren't interpreted as 'creepy' merely because of Shirley Jackson's reputation. Oh, and anybody who has ever worked retail, please do me the favor of enjoying 'My Life with RH Macy.'
The Intoxicated - 3
The Daemon Lover - 4
Like Mother Used to Make - 5
Trial by Combat - 5
The Villager - 4
My Life with RH Macy - 5
The Witch - 4
The Renegade - 4
After You, My Dear Alphonse - 3
Charles - 5
Afternoon in Linen - 3
Flower Garden - 5
Dorothy and My Grandmother and the Sailors - 4
Colloquy - 3
Elizabeth - 4
A Fine, Old Firm - 3
The Dummy - 4
Seven Types of Ambiguity - 3
Come Dance with Me in Ireland - 4
Of Course - 4
Pillar of Salt - 2
Men with their Big Shoes - 4
The Tooth - 2
Got a Letter from Jimmy - 3
The Lottery - 4 224 Today, December 14, is Shirley Jackson's birthday, and ever since Shirley came into my life this year and KNOCKED ME OUT with her fiction, I have invented a little fantasy about what her average morning might have looked like, when she was alive. It's a complete fiction, of course, but it always manages to cheer me up, every time I think of it (or find myself disliking men, overly much):
So, it goes. . .
It's morning at the Jackson/Hyman household, circa 195-, and Shirley Jackson's standing in her kitchen, tossing a dirty skillet into the sink with one hand, pulling up the back of her waistband with the other. It's autumn and she has an old pink robe pulled loosely over her pajamas and a ratty pair of slippers on her feet. A mess of curlers and bobby pins stick out like a bird's nest at the top of her head.
Shirley burps a little, gives her belly a scratch, then leans against the counter as she lights a cigarette, watching her four kids in the kitchen nook make a mess of their abandoned scrambled eggs. “Get on then, will ya?” she says firmly to her kids, causing a ruckus of pushed back chairs and dishes tossed into the sink and loud footfalls on the stairs. She makes a satisfied grunt then hacks up a mess of her own and spits it loudly into the sink.
She turns to the four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that are awaiting her approval on the counter and squints through the smoke to inspect her handiwork. She continues to pull on her cigarette, held by her right hand, while she does a clumsy job of enclosing each sandwich with wax paper with her left. Some ash falls down onto one final slice of the bread, and Shirley leans over and blows it away before forming the last sloppy package.
The kids run down the stairs now with a great commotion and fill the kitchen with chaos, grabbing their bagged lunches, stopping to receive a kiss on their heads from their mother, then making more noise by the front door as they cover their bodies with jackets and boots. Shirley shouts her goodbyes and they echo hers as they loudly push out the door, into the morning air.
Silence follows the slammed door and only then does husband Stanley emerge from his bedroom, freshly shaven and dressed in a suit, ready to start his day. He walks down the stairs, humming, and sails up to the disheveled Shirley, who has lit a new cigarette with the old one and is now staring out the window above the sink. He walks up behind her, greeting her by placing one hand on her hip and reaching his other hand, playfully, up under her shirt, to paw at one of her breasts.
He acts the vampire, taking small bites at his wife's neck, then puts his mouth to her ear to sing, “Who's gonna make us all richer today, eh, Shirley? Who's my golden girl?” He pinches her right nipple for effect and his wife, still staring out the window, rolls her eyes.
In a voice almost as deep as a man's, Shirley growls, “Aw, for fuck's sake, Stan. Settle down.”
Stan laughs loudly and gives a hard slap to Shirley's generous bottom as he shouts, “Back to work, golden girl!” then grabs his briefcase and makes his own departure, humming as he walks out the door.
Shirley, grunting, crushes her cigarette out in the sink, then shuffles slowly in her slippers to the front door. She puts pressure on the stubborn door with one large hip then dramatically turns the lock. . . and shuffles away.
When she gets to the base of the stairs, she takes off one slipper, slowly, leaning on the wall as she lifts her leg to remove it. She focuses on the door, then chucks the slipper, hard, at just the right spot. She takes off the other slipper and does it again.
Shirley climbs the steps, barefooted, up to her writing desk.
She's smiling.
Stacking the dishes in the kitchen, she thought, Maybe he means it, maybe he could kill himself first, maybe he really wasn't curious and even if he were he'd drive himself into a hysterical state trying to read through the envelope, locked in the bathroom. Or maybe he just got it and said, Oh, from Jimmy, and threw it in his brief case and forgot it. I'll murder him if he did, she thought. I'll bury him in the cellar. (from “Got a Letter from Jimmy”) 224 One of my bucket-list reads has been Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. The great Stephen King was inspired by the story. I downloaded the audible audio of “The Lottery and Seven Other Stories” by Shirley Jackson, narrated by Carol Jordan Steward. It’s a bit over 3 hours, and the time goes by quickly. Her prose, even when listened to, are beautiful. She writes with economy and the astuteness of the human condition. The stories involve everyday moments; yet under her keen eye, we see the insecurities, the tension involved in maintaining appearances.
The short stories include “The Lottery”, “Flower Garden”, “Come Dance with Me in Ireland”, “Men with Their Big Shoes”, “Trial by Combat”, “Pillar of Salt”, “Like Mother Used to Make”, and Colloquy”.
“The Lottery” was disturbing, as expected. “Flower Garden” was my favorite. Jackson captured small town living in the Jim Crow era so well. “Come Dance with Me in Ireland” left me scratching my head. “Men with Their Big Shoes” is a new mother’s nightmare. “Trial by Combat” is a single woman’s nightmare. “Pillar of Salt” is a small town girl dealing with big city crime. “Like Mother Used to Make” is strange. “Colloquy” went right over my head.
Glad I checked off a bucket-list item!!
224 I am not persuaded any of these qualify as horror. Good enough stories, readable, lukewarm writing, not much more. !!!BEWARE of SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!
There's this story about some weird guy telling a young neurotical kid with an even younger sister gruesome tales about his own (hypothetical) sister. The mother chases him away.
There's a story about a woman running around looking for her fiance and asking a bunch of random geezers about him. It's painstakingly described how she's over 30 and how it's disadvantageing her to no end and how difficult it is to look presentable at this ripe old age... *eyeroll* We get a view of her 2 pocketbooks dilemma, 2 dress dilemma, all kinds of dillemas of this kind. We even get a view of her fantasy of how she would talk to the police, trying to explain to them that she has a right to a fiance because she's not just this shabby body/face (at her ripe old age of 30! *eyeroll*) but that there's also something beneath the surface that makes her worthy of this great honour. *eyeroll*
There's another story about a dancer become secretary who tries to buy secondhand furniture and pretends for a bit she's the one selling it to another customer.
The Lottery, of course. So, the winner gets stoned by their neighbours (young kids included), once per year.
Another story is about a girl talking to a grownup about the approaching end of the world, the said grownup gets his panties in a twist about it.
Yet another story is about Laurie telling stories about Charlie (I hope I'm not mistaken about the names). L. goes to a kindergarten and comes home regaling everyone with stories about a wilder kid in there, C. These stories 'become an institution' with the family who start calling anything wild or unfortunate or nasty 'a Charlie'. Then, after ages, they learn that there's no Charlie (and that it was likely/maybe L. doing all the acting up and then referring to himself in the 3d person and another name). Taudry? Maybe. I liked this one for its weirdness but then again, it's not too unusual a situation. And not a horror, definitely. Kids (and grownups) have been known to do far more horrible stuff than misbehaving in a kindergarten and then trying to make up an alter ego.
Another one is about marines and a whole flock of females of a family who think marines are dirty or deranged or are gonna jump them all on sight or something. And yes, it's boring.
Another story is about an Afroamerican kid invited to dinner to a White family and the mother of the family being very obtuse about his life circumstances. She's very determined to have her foot in her mouse for the duration of the story. And she succeeds in that with flying colours.
Actually, all over there are lots of women portrayed in here who are shown how they are over 30 and how it's difficult to be over 30 compared to being over 20. All these women live either for men or for kids or for something just behind the horizon. They don't do things just for themselves. And it's all damn tiresome and it might have been a social horror or writing horror or bored-out-of-my-mind horror but not horror-horror. I hope the author was trying to achive some kind of social satire or irony and was illustrating all this shit for the purpose of showing the reader just how bothersome these attitudes can get. Or else, these stories would be worthless altogether.
And bothersome this whole stuff is! Seriously, men, meeting such women, how did they not manage to run really fast away so as not to immediately become the center of someone else's universe? Is it even pleasant for anyone when the people's worlds are so very much skewed? I wouldn't want to be in any society where any social group is obliged to revolve around the interest of any other social group. I think both would be incredibly boring.
Mind it, these stories might have been ground-breaking in their time (including the miracle of a woman, no, A WOMAN putting her pen to paper and getting some results recognisable as writing!) but at this time, today, these are more of a jaw-breaking-from-yawning kind. Mildly interesting. Only mildly. 224
People are never quite what they seem, are they? There are loads of oddities, secrets, turmoil, prejudices, obsessions, hysteria, and perhaps even evil lurking just below the surface. I don’t think anyone understood this better than Shirley Jackson. I’d even go so far as to say Shirley Jackson didn’t have much faith in humanity. She exposes all of us and our shortcomings in one way or another in this haunting collection of twenty-five short stories.
One character from the story titled “Elizabeth” sets out for a day at the office:
“Funny thing, she thought, a clerk in a drugstore, he gets up in the morning and eats and walks around and writes a play just like it was real, just like the rest of us, like me.”
I have a suspicion Jackson is telling us that we are all a part of some grand deception as we go about our own days. Not one of us could have fooled her!
If you are seeking typical ‘horror’ stories, you might want to give this a pass. You may be disappointed. Jackson doesn’t write ‘horror’ like other writers. Instead, she tells disturbing and weird tales; ones that will make your skin crawl just the same. But don’t expect to be hiding under the covers and jumping at the slightest tap on the window or creak in the floorboard. Do expect to look at your partner, your neighbor, your friend, your dentist, your florist, your hair stylist, and the guy sitting next to you on the subway and wonder what is actually going on in the darkest recesses of their minds. When they speak, are they really conveying what they truly mean? Are you yourself becoming slightly unhinged by thinking about it overly much? Perhaps you won’t even recognize yourself any longer.
“Then she realized that at the wash-basin she was in the way of the women in a hurry so she dried her face quickly. It was when she stepped a little aside to let someone else get to the basin and stood up and glanced into the mirror that she realized with a slight stinging shock that she had no idea which face was hers!”
There are an abundance of stories in this collection, and naturally some are better than others. There are several that I forgot by the next day, and others that will stay with me for a long time, creeping into my head at unexpected and unwelcome moments. I’m a poor sleeper and always have been. I toss and turn and am prone to frequent, vivid and bizarre dreams. Some, thankfully not all, are nightmarish in quality. As I read these stories, I couldn’t help but think that many of them had this surreal, unnerving quality to them – almost as if I was recalling some long ago, deeply buried dream. But I believe that was Jackson’s gift. Her unique storytelling abilities and her keen penetration of the depths of our psyches force you to sense a recognition or remembrance of something that has already happened or could come to pass when you least expect it. Nothing is ever as it appears. Take a peek underneath and what you see will leave you wishing someone would just pinch you and wake you up from this hell.
“Things will be different afterward. Everything that makes the world like it is now will be gone. We’ll have new rules and new ways of living.”
224 The one thing that really stands out about this collection of Shirley Jackson stories is this: the subtlety.
It's not over the top horror in any shape or fashion. Rather, it's regular folk doing regular things and as we peel back layers and layers to their surroundings or their individual psyches, everything twists subtly. The normal quickly becomes a twilight zone nightmare even if it's only a tiny little thing that's changed.
A dog caught killing chickens. *shiver* My goodness, that one killed me. Dead.
Some, like the Witch, was totally awesome and people of my generation would have just found it great fun, but I can see why the mommy freaked the hell out. Of course, the little kid was rocking hard to it and why wouldn't he?
I loved the Tooth. It was damn surreal and I was thinking along the lines of all the similar kinds of tales and novels to come after it. Body-hopping tales, indeed. :)
But more than that, I was really impressed and fascinated at the look into '40's racism, subtle or not, how badly women were treated and how badly they treated each other, and the general miasma of inhumanity everywhere.
Some tales were all about the unspoken silence that surrounded mental illness and the insane pressure to keep a lid on it and remain normal. Things like this may not be completely horror as the genre but the tension was definitely all horror.
Shirly Jackson's stories were absolutely macabre, quite brilliant, and completely understated. It's all about looking through the darkened mirror, seeing our normal lives, living them, and then seeing just how horrible we really are. :)
Great stuff! 224 “Grace Paley once described the male-female writer phenomenon to me by saying,’Women have always done men the favor of reading their work, but the men have not returned the favor.’”
I do believe that Miss Jackson was making a very pointed comment about male readers. I don’t consciously think about reading a male or female writer, but I know that I do read more male writers. I went back and looked at the last thirty books I’ve read:
22 male writers 73%
8 female writers 27%
I wasn’t expecting to find a 50/50 split or anything, but I was still shocked to see that my ratio was so extremely out of balance. Thank goodness I had just read an Ursula Le Guin and this Shirley Jackson, or my ratio would have been even more skewed. So maybe I’m not consciously selecting books due to the gender of the writer, but maybe I should be more conscious about selecting more women writers for my reading queue.
Oh no, I have to read more Virginia Woolf! Oh yes!
These stories are all nicely tied together by a single thread of cruelty. Maybe cruelty is too strong a word. Maybe describing it as a meanness, or an unkindness, with how people treat other people would be more accurate. In these stories, there are jilted lovers, racism, unreasonable fears, con men, lost souls, a book thief, petty judgments, aspersions cast recklessly, and with the final story, there is a community of people trapped by their own insidious customs.
We are surrounded by inhumanity.
Jackson sets each of these stories up with perfectly normal scenarios, and then a spear appears out of the darkness and stabs through your vitals. The spear is barbed with wicked spikes so that it hooks into your skin and requires a careful, painful removal before you can move onto the next story. I couldn’t help but think of some of the barbs I’ve had hit me unexpectedly over the years.
I’m a pincushion.
The final story, The Lottery, was quite the sensation when it was published in The New Yorker in 1948. People cancelled their subscriptions. They flooded the offices of the publisher with angry phone calls. Jackson herself received over 300 letters of which only 13 were positive. Even her parents didn’t like the story.
It is always interesting to see how people react to things. Occasionally, our editorial team at the publication of which I am a part owner will publish a story that will irritate some readers. We are in the age of FOX NEWS and MSNBC where people are spoon fed a view of the world that is exactly like their own. People now have even less tolerance for reading or hearing anything that deviates from their own beliefs than people did in 1948. They can agree with 99% of what a publication chooses to share with them, but if they read one article out of several hundred that they don’t like,...they cancel their subscription.
Does that make any sense?
Jackson and her publisher were shocked and, frankly, astounded at the vehement reaction to her story. It certainly stirred up a lot of powerful emotions in people. After the dust settled, I’m sure that Jackson had to be privately pleased that something she wrote scared people or certainly inspired them to action. Most writers prefer adoration to loathing or anger, but there had to be this moment where Jackson thought... Wow, I touched a nerve, and I think I like it.
South Africa banned it.
Looking at the story through a 2016 lense instead of a 1948 lense, I was not at all offended by the story, nor was I as shocked by the story as I certainly would have been 68 years ago, but it is still an unsettling concept. There is the growing unease as you realize what is about to happen. There is a welling of frustration with a group of people who continue to support an event that is trapped in ignorance and superstition. I kept thinking to myself, Someone needs to take an ax to the black box that holds the community hostage. ”The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.” The box’s condition reflects the outdated concepts that inspired its creation in the first place.
Shirley Jackson may not have had the most endearing view of people. She peels her characters like an onion, revealing them layer by layer. We see the deceitfulness and the unscrupulousness that lurks at the center of so many people. Jackson herself suffered from several psychosomatic illnesses and neuroses. She was overweight and chain smoked. I think she was all too aware of her own weaknesses. She passed away in her sleep from a heart attack at 48 years old. I have a feeling she was too hyper aware of the critical nature of life and ultimately crumbled piece by piece under the burden of this awareness. R.I.P.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten 224 my becoming-a-genius project, part 4!
in case you somehow missed parts one and two and three clogging your feed for the past 2 months, here's the situation:
i have decided to become a genius.
to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collected stories of various authors, reading + reviewing 1 story every day until i get bored / lose every single follower / am struck down by a vengeful deity.
this one, by my creepy queen shirley jackson, is one i have been worryingly excited about. also i want to give her a hug (both because i love her writing and because she seems like she needs one)
PROJECT 1: THE COMPLETE STORIES BY FLANNERY O'CONNOR
PROJECT 2: HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES BY CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
PROJECT 3: 18 BEST STORIES BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
PROJECT 4: THE LOTTERY AND OTHER STORIES BY SHIRLEY JACKSON
DAY 1: THE INTOXICATED
it is honestly and truly the scariest thing in the world that this story was written in the 1940s, when it not only could have been written now but believably happened today.
rating: 4.5
DAY 2: THE DAEMON LOVER
the real monsters, scarier than those in any horror story, are among us every day. Straight Men
rating: 4
DAY 3: LIKE MOTHER USED TO MAKE
there is something so SCARY about this story...i am rattled. count me rattled. i need a hug and a kiss on the forehead and also to give the main character of this a hug and a kiss on the forehead.
rating: 4.5
DAY 4: TRIAL BY COMBAT
i regret to inform you the rumors are true: i did spill an entire cup of water on my nightstand while trying to shut off my alarm this morning, wreaking havoc on my floor, the corner of my mattress, the edge of my laptop, and, most significantly and unfortunately, this book.
so this was an unusually damp but still pleasant reading experience.
rating: 4.25
DAY 5: THE VILLAGER
i gotta tell ya, this book has been the gift that keeps on giving. thematically apt for christmas.
rating: 4.25
DAY 6: MY LIFE WITH R.H. MACY
took the weekend off because i forgot how to read.
another genuinely and yet inexplicably spooky one.
rating: 4
DAY 7: THE WITCH
shirley jackson is amazing. this is so scary. also i want a lollipop.
rating: 4.5
DAY 8: THE RENEGADE
Feeling like this at nine-thirty in the morning, she thought, it's a feeling that belongs with eleven o'clock at night.
eek.
rating: 4
DAY 9: AFTER YOU, MY DEAR ALPHONSE
this is a pretty cool story about how racial stereotypes aren't often true, until you consider that this whole collection is made up of things that are supposed to be subtly unsettling.
then it's less cool.
rating: 3
DAY 10: CHARLES
kids are scary as hell.
rating: 3.75
DAY 11: AFTERNOON IN LINEN
this started out with an Alice reference, which obviously is the best way any story can start for me, but it was kind of meh from there.
kids really are scary as hell, though.
rating: 3.25
DAY 12: FLOWER GARDEN
really it's still day 11, but i skipped two days earlier and was in the mood to keep reading and...i don't have to justify myself to you, person i'm imagining reading this!
all i have to say is that Mrs Maclane is a queen and i can't figure out whether this story is on her side or not.
rating: ?
DAY 13: DOROTHY AND MY GRANDMOTHER AND THE SAILORS
it's weird to read stories like this that just...what is this even? like that john mulaney bit about when your grandmother starts telling stories about playing marbles at the soda fountain and you're like NO ONE KNOWS WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, YOU IDIOT!
except i would never call shirley jackson an idiot.
rating: 3
DAY 14: COLLOQUY
treating myself to another two-story day!
this one is possibly the most relatable 2.5 pages of all time.
rating: 4.25
DAY 15: ELIZABETH
this one just made me sad.
rating: 3
DAY 16: A FINE OLD FIRM
how does shirley jackson make the most innocuous interaction seem spooky!!!
rating: 3.5
DAY 17: THE DUMMY
dating a ventriloquist who makes his dummy talk to me is the worst fate i can imagine, so needless to say this story scared the living daylights out of me.
rating: 4
DAY 18: SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY
this is set in a bookstore (dreamy) and is about how people are the worst (true).
rating: 3.75
DAY 19: COME DANCE WITH ME IN IRELAND
just some classic irish shenanigans here
rating: 3
DAY 20: OF COURSE
people are weirdddddd. always have been, always will be.
trying, also, not to realize that these stories have taken a significant downturn in quality for me.
(increased by half a star on day 21 for title reasons.)
rating: 3.5
DAY 21: PILLAR OF SALT
as a city person this didn't quite do it for me.
rating: 3
DAY 22: MEN WITH THEIR BIG SHOES
this is a fun one. and i do love a good grifter. a scheme. a scam.
rating: 4
DAY 23: THE TOOTH
this is scary beyond reason.
rating: 4.75 or 5
DAY 24: GOT A LETTER FROM JIMMY
Sometimes, she thought, stacking the dishes in the kitchen, sometimes I wonder if men are quite sane, any of them. Maybe they're all just crazy and every other woman knows it but me, and my mother never told me and my roommate just didn't mention it and all the other wives think I know...
one of the great story openers of all time, probably.
rating: 4
DAY 25: THE LOTTERY
nothing will ever beat this story, which is so creepy and f*cked up that hundreds of New Yorker readers (already creepy and f*cked up individuals) literally sat down to write shirley jackson actual, physical hate mail.
unparalleled.
rating: 5
OVERALL
this collection definitely dipped in quality for me for what felt like a hundred years, but overall i love Shirley Jackson very much and i think she should be granted immortality - for reasons of talent, spookiness, and my love for her.
rating: 4.25 224 After reading all these seemingly disconnected tales of hush-hush Terror, evidently some pattern arises. This chain of stories is where I found the masterpiece existing at the very core of the novel.
Never before has subtlety been used so effectively. In a masterpiece of the macabre, a few corpses, ghosts, demons should make cameos, surely. Nah-ah. Not true here.
Shirley Jackson is also the author of The Haunting of Hill House, a haunted house tale that suggests rather than shows... like all the good ole horror movies. I don't quite know how to approach a review about something I fell head over heels with (move over Barker [and, therefore, S. King]). The tiny details is what enthralls readers of Jackson... all the moments of dread that announce themselves only when one's in that sort of type of gothic mood.
I suppose the title, The Lottery is much more than just the final story in this collection-- which is also the best known, most popular of the bunch. It also implies that to all these people, though some threads unite them (most protagonists are female, have slight-to-severe OCD, live in New York City or the country... there are tales with children and mothers in them, with slight transference of evil between them; people turning against each other in a lesser degree of violence than in the culminating climax of the title story, an almost poetic announcement of the apocalypse written in code), even though there are sure fire connections (Mr. Harris is the name of almost every single male character found scattered in the stories), what occurs to these people, tragedy or sudden revulsion or deep depression or severe psychosis, is almost as if by a mystical collective lottery, one everyone plays in because everyone is... alive. You play it because you live. Fate chooses you. If you get picked, then it's your turn to experience something that makes the skin crawl. 224
The Lottery, one of the most terrifying stories written in this century, created a sensation when it was first published in The New Yorker. Power and haunting, and nights of unrest were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Shirley Jackson's lifetime, unites The Lottery: with twenty-four equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate Jackson's remarkable range--from the hilarious to the truly horrible--and power as a storyteller. The Lottery: Adventures of the Dæmon Lover