Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (92 page)

409
   
“Carrie wanted”
: SJ-LOC, Box 22.

409
   
her cultural moment
: The critic Tricia Lootens writes that what Hill House ultimately reveals is “a brutal, inexorable vision of the ‘absolute reality’ of nuclear families that kill where they are supposed to nurture. In this perception, Jackson touches on the terror of her entire culture.” Lootens, “ ‘Whose Hand Was I Holding?’ Familial and Sexual Politics in Shirley Jackson’s
The Haunting of Hill House
,” in
Haunting the House of Fiction: Feminist Perspectives on Ghost Stories by American Women
, ed. Lynette
Carpenter and Wendy K. Kolmar (Knoxville: University Press of Tennessee, 1991), 167.

410
   
“No live organism”
: LOA, 243.

410
   
“there are few” . . . “parts”
: Stephen King,
Danse Macabre
(1981; repr., New York: Gallery Books, 2010), 282.

410
   
“An atmosphere”
: LOA, 330.

410
   
“lifting a cross”
: Ibid., 246.

410
   
“Her years”
: Ibid., 245.

411
   
“someday something would happen”
: Ibid., 246.

412
   
“round and rosy”
: Ibid., 282.

412
   
“during which time”
: Ibid., 245.

412
   
“oppressive to be”
: Ibid., 283–84.

412
   
In an early draft
: Lootens, “ ‘Whose Hand Was I Holding?’ ” 174.

413
   
“Gossip says”
: LOA, 298. “A Visit” is an obvious precursor.

413
   
“the heart of the house”
: Ibid., 326.

413
   
“Help Eleanor Come Home”
: Ibid., 345.

413
   
“What do you want?”
: Ibid., 378.

413
   
“It is too much”
: Ibid., 387.

413
   
“I think we are”
. . . “being alone”: Ibid., 355.

414
   
“God God”
: Ibid., 358.

414
   
“key line”
: SJ-LOC, Box 22.

414
   
holding her own hand
: Darryl Hattenhauer,
Shirley Jackson’s American Gothic
(Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2003), 162.

414
   
Another scholar
: Lootens, “ ‘Whose Hand Was I Holding?’ ” 178–79.

414
   
“Fear and guilt are sisters”
: LOA, 365.

414
   
“housemother”
: Ibid., 392.

414
   
“padded” . . . “unwelcoming”
: Ibid., 390.

415
   
“FAMILY FAMILY”
: SJ-LOC, Box 22. In a version of the lecture that appears in
LMTY
as “Memory and Delusion,” SJ tells a very similar story regarding a friend’s husband’s rifle number.

415
   
“The house
is
the haunting” . . . “Eleanor”
: SJ-LOC, Box 22.

415
   
“Somewhere upstairs”
: LOA, 400.

415
   
“I am home, I am home”
: Ibid., 407.

416
   
“outrageous” . . . “the way it is”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, February 12 [1960].

417
   
“one [new] lecture”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, July 21 [1958], SJ-LOC, Box 3.

417
   
“always noticing” . . . “potential paragraphs”
:
LMTY
, 377–78.

417
   
a lecture called “Garlic in Fiction”
:
LMTY
, 395–406.

418
   
question-and-answer sessions
: For a transcript of one of these sessions,
see Thelma Finefrock, “Shirley Jackson on the Short Story,”
Writer’s Digest
, May 1966.

418
   
“it is now one of”
: SJ to SEH, September 9 [1958], SEH-LOC, Box 2.

418
   
“frightened enough” . . . “radio city”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, July 21 [1958].

418
   
“the pride and joy of my life”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [July 1958].

418
   
“the sports car type”
: SJ to CB, September 5, 1962.

419
   
“sailing along in my little car”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, September 17 [1958].

419
   
long spontaneous drives
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, February 4, 1960.

419
   
Massachusetts and Maine
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [September 1960].

419
   
“Hill House is really swinging”
: SJ to CB, August 19, 1958.

419
   
every week she threw out
: SJ to GJ and LJ, September 17 [1958].

420
   
“yell and swear”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, February 4, 1960.

420
   
“when the dogwood”
: Pat Covici to SJ, May 2, 1958, SJ-LOC, Box 11.

420
   
“The Very Strange House Next Door”
:
JOD
, 365–77.

420
   
a housekeeper named Mallie
: See also “Dinner for a Gentleman” (
JOD
, 52–63) and “Family Magician” (
JOD
, 236–47).

421
   
“as it usually”
:
Special Delivery
, 119.

421
   
“No one has ever solved”
: Ibid., 116.

421
   
“No baby ever developed”
: Ibid., 37.

421
   
“in ninety-nine cases”
: Ibid., 92.

421
   
“only appear”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [September 1960].

422
   
“burying the hatchet”
: CB to SJ, November 26, 1958, SJ-LOC, Box 5.

422
   
“[she] thinks she is”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, February 4, 1960.

422
   
“eight feet tall” . . . “gray suit”
: Ibid.

423
   
she reprimanded her daughter
: GJ to SJ, n.d. [November 1958], SJ-LOC, Box 2.

423
   
“Shirley, from my experience”
: CB to Betty Pope, January 18, 1960, SJ-LOC, Box 5.

423
   
“Don’t press” . . . “gently”
: CB to SJ, March 31, 1959, SJ-LOC, Box 5.

423
   
“You are the most reasonable”
: Marshall Best to SJ, June 18, 1959, SJ-LOC, Box 11.

424
   
“the most spine-chilling” . . . “folk tale”
: Orville Prescott, “Books of the Times,”
The New York Times
, October 21, 1959.

424
   
“When busy Housewife”
: “Mom Did It,”
Time
, October 19, 1959.

424
   
“never read more than”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, November 2 [1959].

424
   
“a strong and scary parable”
: Harvena Richter, “The Ghosts of Illusion,”
Providence Journal
, October 18, 1959.

424
   
“when i left”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, November 2 [1959].

425
   
“you come after”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [December 1959].

425
   
“i just deposited”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [c. February 1961].

425
   
the idea of colored sheets
: Judy Oppenheimer,
Private Demons
(New York: Putnam, 1988), 149.

425
   
Wise decided
: Press release for
The Haunting
, SJ-LOC, Box 45.

425
   
“Shirley Jackson writes” . . . “draperies”
: Will Jones, “After Last Night: A Return to Old Haunts,”
Minneapolis Star-Journal
, August 15, 1963.

425
   
For the soundtrack
: Edith Lindeman, “ ‘Haunting’ May Mark Return of the Good Spooky Movie,”
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, August 18, 1963.

426
   
Gidding told her . . . “good idea”
: Richard C. Keenan,
The Films of Robert Wise
(Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2007), 125.

426
   
ads ran in the New York papers
: SJ-LOC, Box 45.

426
   
“a top-notch ghost story”
: Judith Crist, “Haunting—Of Ghosts and Ghouls,”
New York Herald Tribune
, September 19, 1963.

426
   
“Most of the devices”
: Brendan Gill, “The Current Cinema: Love and Ghosts,”
The New Yorker
, September 28, 1963.

426
   
“When I saw it”
: Michael Pilley, “Film Terrifies Book’s Author,” unidentified clipping, SJ-LOC, Box 45.

427
   
“I have written myself”
: Oppenheimer,
Private Demons
, 237.

16. STEADY AGAINST THE WORLD

428
   
“how Violet” . . . “I suspect”
: SJ, “The Lost Kingdom of Oz,”
The Reporter
, December 10, 1959.

429
   
“better than
Treasure Island
”
: Jeanne Beatty to SJ, December 12, 1959, SJ-LOC, Box 4. After discovering Beatty’s letters in SJ’s archive, I tracked down her daughter Shannon Beatty, who initially thought SJ’s letters to Beatty had been lost. They turned up in May 2015 in a barn at the Beattys’ former home in Pennsylvania. Excerpts are published here for the first time, courtesy of Shannon Beatty.

429
   
“I have looked forward” . . . “never can”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, December 29, 1959. SJ’s first letter to Beatty uses standard capitalization; the rest are lowercase.

429
   
“lovely” . . . “to remember”
: Pat Covici to CB, January 22, 1960, SJ-LOC, Box 5.

430
   
“i cannot really remember”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, February 12, 1960.

430
   
“Dear Master Parent”
: Jeanne Beatty to SJ, May 23, 1960, SJ-LOC, Box 4.

430
   
“do you know”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, February 4, 1960.

431
   
“he taught me to say”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, February 26, 1960.

431
   
She joked about her moods
: SJ to Beatty, February 12, 1960.

431
   
“with no trains”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, March 1960.

431
   
“my husband”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, January 14, 1960.

432
   
“every minute” . . . “forty dollars a page”
: SJ to Beatty, February 12, 1960. Ironically, in
The Tangled Bank
SEH quoted Marx on marriage: “The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production” (101).

432
   
“he sits down”
: SJ to Beatty, February 26, 1960.

432
   
“Of course I will” . . . “baby away”
: Jeanne Beatty to SJ, February 18, 1960.

433
   
“he solidifies”
: Beatty to SJ, May 23, 1960.

433
   
“purest saturated envy”
: Beatty to SJ, February 18, 1960.

433
   
“make me a poem”
: Jeanne Beatty to SJ, January 20, 1960, SJ-LOC, Box 4.

434
   
“it is a wonderful”
: SJ to Beatty, January 14, 1960.

434
   
“my book is”
: SJ to Beatty, February 12, 1960.

434
   
“my turn my turn”
: SJ to Beatty, March 1960.

434
   
“I resent” . . . “daily days”
: Beatty to SJ, February 18, 1960.

435
   
“damned book” . . . “old sponge”
: SJ to Beatty, February 26, 1960.

435
   
“a big old brown house” . . . “mushroom from another”
: SJ to Beatty, March 1960.

436
   
made careful notes
: SJ’s notes on the mushrooms are included in a draft of the novel shown to me by Laurence Jackson Hyman.

436
   
“cooking now”
: SJ to Beatty, March 1960.

436
   
“do not impose” . . . “dogwood day”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, September 3, 1960.

436
   
“i would have sent”
: Ibid. Beatty’s silence was likely caused by depression. “It is because I’d rather write to you than do anything else that I can’t,” she wrote to SJ that fall. “I become absorbed, and the pretense of good-wife-and-mother becomes so quickly submerged, the whole scaffolding shakes, and it may be hard enough on the kids later when I chase them up a tree like a mother bear and walk off, without the emphasis of a day-to-day desertion.” Jeanne Beatty to SJ, October 24, 1960, SJ-LOC, Box 4.

437
   
“a lovely evening”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [September 1960], SJ-LOC, Box 3.

437
   
“i am really seared”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, September 29, 1960.

437
   
“pact-with-the-devil series”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, November 14, 1960.

437
   
“maybe i will write”
: SJ to Beatty, September 29, 1960.

437
   
“Good food helps”
: Pat Covici to SJ, October 31, 1960, SJ-LOC, Box 11.

437
   
“these times come”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [November 1960].