Read Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life Online
Authors: Ruth Franklin
Tags: #Literary, #Women, #Biography & Autobiography
82
“lyric and exquisite”
: SEH-LOC, Box 33.
83
“as picturesque and checkered”
: SEH-LOC, Box 32.
83
“an infrequent and shamefaced” . . . “my body since”
: Ibid.
83
“It was my father’s theory” . . . “high school can be”
: Ibid.
84
“exotic” . . . “showing off”
: Interview with Bernstein, February 27, 2013.
84
A comic sketch
: SEH-LOC, Box 33.
84
“ultimately their excitement”
: Malamud Smith,
My Father Is a Book
, 187.
84
“small, round, red-haired girl”
: SEH-LOC, Box 32.
86
“take communism away”
: Cowley,
The Dream of the Golden Mountains
, 19–20.
86
“tinged with pink”
: Ibid., 289.
86
“to clarify the principles”
: Ibid., 136.
87
“He wrote in English”
: Ibid., 271.
87
“Hundreds of poets”
: Ann George and Jack Selzer,
Kenneth Burke in the 1930s
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 13.
87
the term “the people”
: Ibid., 17.
88
“constant doubts”
: SEH-LOC, Box 32.
88
“on the same wavelength”
: Interview with Florence Shapiro Siegel, March 5, 2014.
88
“sociological position”
: Syllabus from Main Currents in Modern Literature, SEH-LOC, Box 34.
89
“What I am attempting”
: Ibid.
89
Stanley’s last known Communist affiliation
: File 100-HQ-366428, National Archives at College Park, College Park, Md. I am grateful to Mark Murphy of the National Archives for expediting my request for SEH’s FBI file.
4. S & S
90
“I was in that first sweet”
: Judy Oppenheimer,
Private Demons
(New York: Putnam, 1988), 50.
92
Herrington’s course in folklore
: See chapter 8.
92
“I am going to write”
: SJ-LOC, Box 38.
92
“it seemed that everyone”
: “Preface (to be read aloud to a group of sympathetic listeners),” SJ-LOC, Box 30.
92
A story Shirley wrote around this time
: SJ-LOC, Box 37.
93
“I have . . . seldom” . . . “in my hand”
: SJ-LOC, Box 37.
93
“People are beginning”
: Draft of letter in college notebook, SJ-LOC, Box 37.
93
“epochal novel”
: Michael Palmer to SJ, January 4, 1938, SJ-LOC, Box 10.
93
“He knew [his roommates]”
: SJ-LOC, Box 10.
94
The Threshold
: Syracuse University Archives, Syracuse, N.Y.
94
“Surprisingly enough”
: SJ-LOC, Box 37.
94
“Darn near killed myself”
: LOA, 565.
94
After Y showed
: SJ to SEH, summer 1938 (“hawney”), SEH-LOC, Box 2. Since it is not possible precisely to date many of the letters between SJ and SEH, I have used their first lines as identifiers. Some of the letters are dated in pencil by an unknown hand; some of those dates are demonstrably
inaccurate (e.g., the letter is dated “Wednesday” but the date given is for a Thursday). For the sake of simplicity, I have used those dates when available, with the knowledge that they may be off by a day or more.
95
“specious scientific conditioning”
:
The Threshold
, Syracuse University Archives.
95
“You were the only live thing”
: SEH to SJ, summer 1938 (“darling, I worked eleven hours today”), SJ-LOC, Box 42.
96
“no idea what the things”
: Interview with Walter Bernstein, February 27, 2013.
96
“wrote painfully, it was a tedious”
: Oppenheimer,
Private Demons
, 76.
96
“He talked a lot”
: Ibid., 73.
97
“looking enough of a bum”
: SEH to SJ, summer 1938 (“oh darling, i am such a damn fool”). SJ-LOC, Box 42.
97
“Your intellect is”
: SJ-LOC, Box 13.
97
“no one can really love”
:
Hangsaman
, 106.
98
“He wants to know”
: SJ-LOC, Box 38.
98
“single antagonist”
:
Hangsaman
, 203.
98
“Stanley left me tonight”
: SJ-LOC, Box 38.
98
“all along” . . . “the summer began”
: SEH to SJ, summer 1938 (“darling, i am sick unto death”). SJ-LOC, Box 42.
98
“He is absolutely”
: SJ-LOC, Box 38.
98
“I leaned my head back”
: SJ-LOC, Box 38.
98
a note to herself
: SJ-LOC, Box 38.
98
“he could break me”
: SJ-LOC, Box 38.
99
“Did I remember”
: SJ-LOC, Box 37.
99
“I must beg him”
: Draft of letter in college notebook, SJ-LOC, Box 38.
99
the abbreviation “cf.”
: SJ-LOC, Box 37.
99
“Marx knows”
: SJ-LOC, Box 38.
100
“less than does sanskrit”
: SJ to SEH, summer 1938 (“dear, monopoly established by mother”), SEH-LOC, Box 2.
100
“I think any nation”
: SJ-LOC, Box 1.
100
His response
: SEH to SJ, June 1938 (“beloved, since i wrote the first half”), SJ-LOC, Box 42.
101
“My fashion has been acting up”
: SEH to SJ, summer 1938 (“cynara darling), SJ-LOC, Box 42.
101
notorious for his affairs
: This dynamic—of a philandering man and a distraught woman—was common among the Greenwich Village radicals Stanley admired. Couples such as John Reed and Mabel Dodge and Ben Reitman and Emma Goldman had almost verbatim arguments. See Russ
Wetzsteon,
Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia, 1910–1960
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 105, 212.
101
“I’ll do anything”
: SJ-LOC, Box 38.
101
“He kept making remarks”
: Interview with Florence Shapiro Siegel, March 5, 2014.
101
“Stanley, crawling, is still powerful”
: SJ-LOC, Box 38.
102
“they will eat”
: SEH to SJ, June 1938 (“dearest boopsie”), SJ-LOC, Box 42.
102
“for god’s sake”
: SJ to SEH, June 7, 1938, SEH-LOC, Box 2.
102
“i ought to stop”
: SEH to SJ, June 11, 1938. SJ-LOC, Box 42.
102
“every once in awhile”
: SEH to SJ, June 9, 1938, SJ-LOC, Box 42.
103
“genuine bohemia” . . . “save my life”
: SEH to SJ, June 1938 (“beloved, since i wrote the first half”).
103
“i promised you”
: SEH to SJ, July 1938 (“darling, a thing as terrible”), SJ-LOC, Box 42.
103
“typical jewish” . . . “mother and daughter”
: SEH to SJ, summer 1938 (“drujok, this continuation”), SJ-LOC, Box 42.
104
“you have forever”
: SEH to SJ, summer 1938 (“darling, i just got home”), SJ-LOC, Box 42.
104
“all sick inside”
: SJ to SEH, July 1938 (“i read the stupid poem to pan”) SEH-LOC, Box 2.
104
“if it turns you queasy”
: SEH to SJ, summer 1938 (“immortal beloved”), SJ-LOC, Box 42.
104
“it was a copulation”
: Ibid.
104
“o mightiest among men” . . . “
good
novel”
: SJ to SEH, August 1938 (“o mightiest among men”), SEH-LOC, Box 2.
105
“i think you are potentially”
: SEH to SJ, August 1938 (“cynara darling”).
105
a to-do list
: SJ to SEH, August 1938 (“this is the hardest letter”), SEH-LOC, Box 2.
105
“Pride is nice”
: Jeanne Marie Bedel to SJ, September 14, 1938, SJ-LOC, Box 43.
105
“Have you performed”
: “Meeting Jay Williams,” SJ-LOC, Box 19.
107
“an intricate thing” . . . “too great for the devil”
: “Meeting Jay Williams.”
107
“filled with books” . . . “in the world”
: Ibid.
108
skiing accident
: See chapter 8.
108
“You mustn’t be so timid”
: “Meeting Jay Williams.”
109
“Everybody here”
: Bedel to SJ, September 14, 1938.
109
“the next world war”
: SEH to SJ, September 1938 (“drujok, i sit here”), SJ-LOC, Box 42.
109
Earl Browder
: Ibid.
109
“we stayed up”
: Walter Bernstein to SEH, April 21, 1939, SEH-LOC, Box 4.
109
“composed mainly of semi-illiterate”
: SEH, “The Need for a New Poetic Form,”
Spectre
1, no. 1 (Fall 1939).
110
“truly liberating”
: SEH,
Standards: A Chronicle of Books for Our Time
(New York: Horizon, 1966), 118.
110
“Love Sonnet After Munich”
: SEH-LOC, Box 33.
110
“i don’t use”
: SEH to JW, fall 1938, JW-BU, Box 30.
110
“Letter to a Soldier”
: SJ-LOC, Box 13.
111
“knocked the class”
: SEH to JW, fall 1938.
111
“Y and I”
:
Syracusan
4, no. 2 (October 1930), Syracuse University Archives.
112
“Y and I and the Ouija Board”
:
Syracusan
4, no. 3 (November 1938), ibid.
112
“The Smoking Room”
:
JOD
, 3–8.
113
“All you need”
: Pages torn from college notebook, SJ-LOC, Box 41.
113
“What do you do”
: Walter Bernstein to SEH, May 7, 1939, SEH-LOC, Box 4.
113
“one-sided”
: SJ-LOC, Box 38.
113
“to know and understand”
: “We the Editor,”
Spectre
1, no. 4 (Summer 1940), Syracuse University Archives.
114
she even sent him a sketch
: SJ to SEH, June 27, 1939, SEH-LOC, Box 2.
114
“People don’t just part”
: SJ-LOC, Box 37.
114
“i decided i wanted”
: SJ to SEH, June 27, 1939.
115
“marvelous” . . . “great deal more”
: SEH to SJ, June 28, 1939, SJ-LOC, Box 42.
115
“read or fuck”
: SEH to SJ, July 1939, SJ-LOC, Box 42.
115
“look at someone’s face”
: SEH to SJ, July 10, 1939, SJ-LOC, Box 42.
115
he had dropped out of Columbia
: Thomas P. Brockway,
Bennington College: In the Beginning
(Bennington, Vt.: Bennington College Press, 1981), 94.
115
“there was not much talk”
: Malcolm Cowley, “Notes on a Writers’ Congress,”
The New Republic
, June 21, 1939.
115
“an intellectual thrill” . . . “believed them”
: SEH to SJ, July 19, 1939, SJ-LOC, Box 42.
116
“Aha, your subconscious”
: SEH to SJ, July 23, 1939, SJ-LOC, Box 42.
116
“i didn’t realize”
: SEH to SJ, August 6, 1939, SJ-LOC, Box 42.
116
“Minnesota comes close”
: SJ to SEH, July 25, 1939, SEH-LOC, Box 2.
116
“a foot and a half”
: SJ to SEH, July 26, 1939, SEH-LOC, Box 2.