Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (87 page)

278
   
fur coat
: SEH-LOC, Box 33, folder 2 (note on yellow paper misfiled with “early writings: poetry”).

279
   
“should take ten years”
: SEH to Zimmerman, July 13, 1950.

279
   
“the greatest blessing”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [April 1950].

279
   
“You’d better”
: GJ to SJ, n.d. [April 1950].

279
   
Dylan Thomas, on his first
: John Malcolm Brinnin,
Dylan Thomas in America
(Boston: Little Brown, 1955), 3–25; Paul Ferris,
Dylan Thomas
(New York: Dial Press, 1977), 237–38.

280
   
“As usual, we stayed too late”
: Brinnin,
Dylan Thomas in America
, 35–36.

280
   
“Now you know exactly”
: Ferris, Dylan Thomas, 239.

280
   
“Shirley Jackson Hyman”
: Brendan Gill,
Here at the New Yorker
(1975; repr., New York: Da Capo, 1997), 247.

280
   
“a tubby little man” . . . “jogging past him”
: Ibid., 248.

280
   
“fooling about”
: Ferris,
Dylan Thomas
, 240.

280
   
In an untitled fragment
: SJ-LOC, Box 19. SJ later told her friend Helen Feeley that “she was one of those women Dylan Thomas screwed on the back porch.” Feeley did not entirely believe her. See Judy Oppenheimer,
Private Demons
(New York: Putnam, 1988), 151.

283
   
“[e]ven farther”
: LOA, 211.

283
   
“A visit”
:
CAWM
, 101–25.

283
   
a great-aunt
: The stone tower, with the old lady inside, foreshadows the library tower in
Hill House
, the room Eleanor fears to enter because of the decay only she can smell.

284
   
“Come downstairs” . . . Emma was gone
: “Emma,” Shirley Jackson Papers (MS 336), University of Colorado at Boulder.

284
   
“which heaven knows” . . . “not very serious”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [June 1950].

284
   
“You sound”
: GJ to SJ, n.d. [June 1950].

285
   
“that was [the week of]”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [summer 1950].

285
   
“a nice girl from the South”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [summer 1950].

285
   
“real fancy doctor” . . . “magic pills”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [summer 1950].

285
   
waist size by now was up to 40
: SEH to Zimmerman, July 13, 1950.

285
   
other prescriptions
: Interview with Sarah Hyman DeWitt, February 21, 2013.

286
   
And Shirley was initially successful
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [end of August 1950].

286
   
Dexamyl
: A friend of Shirley’s described the experience of taking Dexamyl: “we have both discovered dexamil [sic] and are fair delirious with it. especially in a capsule form containing little pellets which melt at different rates and you take one and just when life is getting drab and foolish another one melts and you tingle down to your tippy-toes” (SJ-LOC, Box 10).

286
   
“Think how much” . . . “love them too”
: “The Fresh Air Fund,”
The New York Times
, July 6, 1949.

286
   
“Perhaps these days”
: “Fresh Air Diary” (unpublished manuscript), SJ-LOC,
Box 48. Unless otherwise identified, all the quotes in this section are from this document.

288
   
“overtax”
: GJ to SJ, n.d. [August 1950]. The strain on SJ’s writing—the unpublished “Fresh Air Diary” was the only thing she wrote that summer—was also evident.

288
   
Laurence rode his bicycle
: Different accounts of the accident are in SJ-LOC, Box 23 and Box 50. See also SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [October 1950], and SEH-LOC, Box 1 (“Hyman v. Weidlich, 1950–53”). SJ’s account in Box 23 begins with the detail about the weather; as in “The Lottery,” terrible things tend to take place on beautiful days.

289
   
“Except for a splitting headache”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [October 1950].

289
   
she found painful to recount
:
Savages
, 156–63.

289
   
“there is nothing”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [October 1950].

290
   
“a highly neurotic” . . . “and today”
: Ibid.

290
   
“sweet-faced old lady” . . . “very likely win”
: SJ-LOC, Box 23.

290
   
“half our town”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [end of November 1950].

291
   
“we are thinking”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [December 1950].

291
   
to recover any money
: SEH-LOC, Box 1.

291
   
“Gallows Pole”
: The song was popularized by Leadbelly and has also been recorded by Almeda Riddle; Peter, Paul and Mary; and others. SJ would have likely known the Leadbelly and Almeda Riddle versions.

291
   
When Jackson read tarot
: Jai Holly showed me some of SJ’s tarot cards. Elizabeth Greene recalls that when SJ did a tarot reading for her, she used the Waite-Smith deck.

292
   
“suggests deep entrancement” . . . “Resurrection”
: Arthur E. Waite,
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot
(New York: University Books, 1959), 116–19.

292
   
the Hanged Man
: T. S. Eliot,
The Waste Land
, lines 43–55.

292
   
a god of vegetation named Attis
: James Frazer,
The Golden Bough
(New York: Macmillan, 1949), 347–52.

293
   
“a novel with contemporary setting”
: Andre Bernard of the Guggenheim Foundation kindly provided me with a copy of SJ’s application.

293
   
“He seems perpetually”
:
Hangsaman
, 11.

293
   
“You overlook one”
: Ibid., 13.

293
   
some of his friends commented
: See, for instance, JW to SJ, April 25 [1951], in her
Hangsaman
scrapbook, SJ-LOC, Box 31. SEH acknowledged that he was the source for Mr. Waite in a letter to KB, May 15, 1951, KB-PSU; the letter also indicates that Natalie was modeled on SJ as an undergraduate at Rochester.

293
   
“fuzzy tweed jacket”
:
Hangsaman
, 26–27.

294
   
“I always used”
: Ibid., 19.

294
   
In an early draft
: SJ-LOC, Box 45. Another draft of
Hangsaman
is misfiled in SEH-LOC, Box 32, as “Untitled novella.”

294
   
“Male, I should say”
:
Hangsaman
, 22.

294
   
as Jackson acknowledged
: SJ-LOC, Box 45. See also SEH to KB, May 15, 1951.

294
   
“It was decided”
:
Hangsaman
, 48-49.

295
   
“confiscated from the common bathrooms”
: Ibid., 119.

295
   
“Natalie, I want to die”
: Ibid., 133. Elizabeth echoes the famous line of the Cumaean Sibyl quoted by T. S. Eliot as an epigraph to
The Waste Land
: “I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a cage, and when the boys said to her, ‘Sibyl, what do you want?’ she answered: ‘I want to die.’ ” According to the legend, Apollo had granted her immortality but not eternal youth.

295
   
“if she had lost”
:
Hangsaman
, 99.

295
   
“the girl Tony”
: Ibid., 143.

296
   
“old and large”
: Ibid., 177

296
   
“side by side, like two big cats”
: Ibid., 180.

296
   
“Still she haunts me phantomwise”
: Ibid., 190. The yearbook chronicling SJ’s sophomore year at Rochester had an
Alice in Wonderland
theme.

296
   
“strange, one-armed man”
: SJ-LOC, Box 1.

296
   
“As she had never been before”
:
Hangsaman
, 218.

296
   
“an elaboration”
: SEH, “Myth, Ritual, and Nonsense,”
Kenyon Review
11, no. 3 (Summer 1949).

297
   
Jackson saved the clipping
: SJ-LOC, Box 51.

297
   
“Still Life with Teapot and Students”
:
LMTY
, 15–20. In the published version, the girls’ names are changed to Joan and Debbi.

298
   
“with his latest tomato”
: Interview with Jai Holly, July 16, 2015.

298
   
“You know what”
: Telephone interview with Walter Lehrman, August 13, 2014.

298
   
“Stanley didn’t do that”
: Interview with Suzanne Stern Shepherd Calkins, October 16, 2014.

298
   
“There was nothing inherently”
: Interview with Marjorie Roemer, September 24, 2014.

298
   
“hundred-mile rule”
: Telephone interview with Lyn Sprogell, March 4, 2014.

298
   
“This was the world”
: Interview with Phoebe Pettingell, April 6, 2015.

299
   
“just ordinary drunken curiosity”
: Interview with Lehrman, August 13, 2014.

299
   
“i used to think”
: SEH-LOC, Box 2.

299
   
“A Day in the Jungle”
:
CAWM
, 146–60.

300
   
“Shirley finished the novel”
: SEH to Ben Zimmerman, November 29, 1950.

300
   
“in peonage”
: SEH to John Fischer (his editor at Harper and Brothers), December 7, 1950, Harpers Papers, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.

300
   
Brooklyn Bridge
: He finished that piece in February 1951; it ran in May 1952.

300
   
“my novel is coming out”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [December 1950].

300
   
Nemerov . . . Jay Williams
: Both letters are in SJ’s
Hangsaman
scrapbook, SJ-LOC, Box 31.

300
   
“It’s a story”
: Elliot Schryver to Rae Everitt, December 20, 1950, SJ-LOC, Box 31.

300
   
“wrung dry”
: Margaret Cousins to Rae Everitt, December 29, 1950, SJ-LOC, Box 31.

301
   
“one of the most successful”
: “The Year in Books,”
Time
, December 17, 1951.

301
   
“a considerable advance”
: “Mrs. Foster Reviews ‘Hangsaman,’ ”
Bennington Weekly
, undated clipping, SJ-LOC, Box 31.

301
   
“a beautifully written”
: Orville Prescott, “Books of the Times,”
The New York Times
, April 24, 1951.

301
   
“One cannot doubt”
: Alice S. Morris, “Adventure into Reality,”
The New York Times Book Review
, April 22, 1951.

301
   
“the structure of the novel”
: W. T. Scott, “Dreaming Girl,”
Saturday Review
, May 5, 1951.

301
   
“part magic”
: W. G. Rogers, “Author of the Week,” Associated Press, April 23, 1951.

301
   
“so complex” . . . “all of us”
: Diana Trilling, “Speaking of Books,”
The New York Times Book Review
, June 15, 1952.

302
   
“fashionable poses” . . . “cultural situation”
: John Aldridge, “Speaking of Books,”
The New York Times Book Review
, June 22, 1952.

303
   
“What language is it”
: Saul Bellow, “Man Underground,”
Commentary
, June 1952.

303
   
“suffered a schizophrenic split”
: Friedan,
The Feminine Mystique
, 39.

11. CABBAGES AND SAVAGES

305
   
“this compound of creatures”
: SJ-LOC, Box 1.

305
   
“a thunderstorm from a zephyr”
: Margaret Parton,
New York Herald Tribune
, June 23, 1953.

305
   
An early draft went further
: This appeared as “The House” in
Woman’s Day
, May 1952, and in
LMTY
as “Good Old House.”

306
   
“No matter how much”
:
Savages
, 17–18.

306
   
“always believed in ghosts”
: Ibid., 166.

306
   
“the reason i always think”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [c. October 1955], SJ-LOC, Box 3.

306
   
“It is just like a visit”
: GJ to SJ, n.d. [September 1957], SJ-LOC, Box 2.

306
   
“helter skelter way of living”
: GJ to SJ, n.d. [September 1953].

307
   
“Was there a lot of blood?”
:
Savages
, 158.

307
   
“an accurate account”
: This particular line comes from notes SJ made for a lecture about writing given in the late 1950s or early 1960s (Box 14), but versions of it appear in many other places.