Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (95 page)

William Brennan was the most enthusiastic and devoted research assistant a biographer could hope for, returning to the Library of Congress time and again to retrieve anything I asked for. Prashansa Taneja did research and fact-checking at Bennington College, and Ummekulsoom Ghadai helped with Kenneth Burke’s archive. Allison Bulger analyzed all the letters Jackson received in response to “The Lottery” and also helped with transcription, as did Victoria Beale.

Marc Harrington of the Yoshitsune Foundation kindly searched Claude Fredericks’s journal—itself a remarkable document—for mentions of Jackson and Hyman. Anne Zimmerman shared many pages of Stanley Hyman’s letters to her father, Ben Zimmerman, which were invaluable in dating some of Jackson’s stories. Shannon Beatty spent a long and dusty day tearing apart a barn with me in search of Jackson’s letters to her mother. Mattie Rogers Kroiz, the truest of friends, not only showed up to help but figured out the right place to look.

Many people who knew Jackson and Hyman generously shared their memories and insights in interviews, including Betty Aberlin, Miriam Marx Allen, Walter Bernstein, Corinne Biggs, Patty Burrows, Virginia Bush, Suzanne Stern Shepherd Calkins, Jerome Charyn, Joan Constantikes, Midge Decter, Naomi Decter, Anna Fels, Elizabeth Greene, Sandra Hochman, Victoria Kirby, Myron Kolatch, Jesse Kornbluth, Walter Lehrman, Jesse Zel Lurie, Catherine Morrison, Alison Nowak, Laura Nowak, Larry Powers, Harriet Fels Price, Marjorie Roemer, Joan Schenkar, Marilyn Seide, Florence Shapiro Siegel, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Ruth Smith, Lyn Sprogell, Marion Strobel, and Anne Zimmerman.

I was privileged to receive financial support for this book from the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Leon Levy Center for Biography. Gary Giddins at the Levy Center was an invaluable source of advice and support, as were
my colleagues at the Women Writing Women’s Lives seminar. The New York Institute for the Humanities, where I presented an early version of the book, has been my intellectual community for years. A fellowship at the MacDowell Colony during the summer of 2014 allowed me three weeks of blissfully uninterrupted writing.

The members of the Narrative Writing Group—Patricia Auspos, Betty Boyd Caroli, Barbara Fisher, Dorothy O. Helly, and Melissa Nathanson—read and commented on every page of the manuscript. I think they came to care about Shirley nearly as much as I do. Trish Harnetiaux was present at the creation and never tired of hearing about my discoveries.

I owe so much to Sarah Burnes, my dedicated and tireless agent, who believed in this book from the moment I mentioned the idea to her. She found it the perfect home with Robert Weil at Liveright/W. W. Norton, the editor of every writer’s dreams. At Liveright, I’m grateful also for the work of Will Menaker, Bill Rusin, Don Rifkin, Peter Miller, and Cordelia Calvert. Trent Duffy copyedited the manuscript impeccably.

Sam and Phoebe more than earned their promised dedication. They took far more of an interest in Shirley Jackson than I ever imagined they would, and it was tremendous fun to see her works—from
Life Among the Savages
to “The Lottery”— through their eyes. Ariel showed me that the third baby actually can be the easiest. And from literally the day we met, my husband, Joseph Braude, was devoted to this book. From Delray Beach, Florida, to Sonoma County, California, and countless places in between, he was my companion on this journey.

Permissions

     ILLUSTRATIONS

Photographs on pages 4, 219, and 356 used by permission of Erich Hartmann/Magnum Photos.

Photographs on pages 71 and 466 used by permission of Philippe Halsman/Magnum Photos.

Photographs on pages 12, 24, 28, 32, 47, 56, 65, 169, 222, 249, 383, 408, and 486 courtesy of Laurence Jackson Hyman.

Photographs on pages 75, 78, 85, 95, 99, 180, and 238 courtesy of Phoebe Pettingell.

Photographs on pages 191 and 193 courtesy of Bennington College.

Photograph on page 223 courtesy of Trinity College Library, Cambridge University.

Photograph on page 246 courtesy of
The State News
(Michigan State University).

Photograph on page 250 courtesy of The Ralph and Fanny Ellison Charitable Trust.

Photograph on page 281 used by permission of Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

Photographs on page 311 and 314 courtesy of the
Knickerbocker News
.

Photographs on page 324 and 363 courtesy of Lloyd Studio.

Photograph on page 333 courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center.

Photograph on page 339 reproduced with permission of the Principal and Fellows of Newnham College, Cambridge.

Photograph on page 395 used by permission of Princeton University Library.

Photograph on page 403 used by permission of Bennington Museum, Bennington, Vermont.

Photograph on page 454 used by permission of Grapefruit Moon Gallery.

Cartoon on page 458 used by permission of Charles Saxon/The New Yorker Collection/The Cartoon Bank.

Photographs on page 488 and 489 courtesy of Middlebury College Special Collections and Archives.

     TEXT

Selections from unpublished letters written by Bernice Baumgarten and Carol Brandt used by arrangement with Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.

Selections from unpublished letters written by Jeanne Marie (Jeanou) Bedel used courtesy of J. P. Trystram.

Selections from unpublished letters written by Kenneth and Libbie Burke used by arrangement with The Kenneth Burke Literary Trust.

Selections from unpublished letters written by Ralph Ellison used by arrangement with The Ralph and Fanny Ellison Charitable Trust.

Selections from unpublished letters written by John and Margaret Farrar, Roger Straus, and Robert Giroux to Shirley Jackson. Copyright © 2016 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Printed by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

Selections from unpublished letters written by Herbert Mayes used by arrangement with Alexandra Mayes Birnbaum and Victoria Mayes.

Selections from “Myth and Ritual” by Howard Nemerov used by permission of the University of Chicago Press.

Selections from unpublished letters from Howard Nemerov used by arrangement with the Estate of Howard Nemerov.

Selections from
Come Along with Me
by Shirley Jackson, edited by Stanley Edgar Hyman, copyright 1948, 1962, © 1960 by Shirley Jackson; copyright 1944, 1950, © 1962, 1965, 1968 by Stanley Edgar Hyman. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Selections from
Hangsaman
by Shirley Jackson, copyright 1951 by Shirley Jackson. Used by permission of Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Selections from
The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson, copyright © 1959 by Shirley Jackson, copyright renewed © 1987 by Laurence Hyman, Jai Holly, Sarah Webster, and Joanne Schnurer, used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

“Mrs. Spencer and the Oberons,” “Autobiographical Musing,” “The Ghosts of Loiret,” “Hex Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar,” “Memory and Delusion: A Lecture,” “Here I Am, Washing Dishes Again,” “The Real Me,” “About the End of the World: A Lecture,” “Still Life with Teapot and Students,” “Bulletin,” and “Private Showing” from
Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings
by Shirley Jackson, edited by Laurence Jackson Hyman and Sarah Hyman DeWitt, copyright © 2015 by Laurence Jackson Hyman, J. S. Holly, Sarah Hyman DeWitt, and Barry Hyman; biographical note, compilation, and afterword copyright © 2015 by Penguin Random House LLC. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Excerpts from
The Lottery
by Shirley Jackson. Copyright © 1948, 1949 by Shirley Jackson. Copyright renewed 1976, 1977 by Laurence Hyman, Barry Hyman, Mrs. Sarah Webster, and Mrs. Joanne Schnurer. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

Selections from
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
by Shirley Jackson, copyright © 1962 by Shirley Jackson, copyright renewed © 1962 by Jai Holly, Barry E. Hyman, and Sarah Stewart. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Index

Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.

Page numbers in
italics
refer to illustrations.
Page numbers beginning with 505 refer to endnotes.

Abbott, Berenice,
178

Aberlin, Betty, 194

Abigail
(
Another Country
) (Jackson), 313–14

“Action Photo Has Been Taken, An” (Gaby), 151

Adams, Ansel, 26

Addams, Charles, 4–5

Adventure, An
(Moberly and Jourdain), 405

Adventures of Augie March, The
(Bellow), 303

African Americans, 159–61, 174–75, 203–4, 302–3, 366, 380

“Afternoon in Linen” (Jackson), 31, 171–72, 175

“After You, My Dear Alphonse” (Jackson), 171–72, 174, 176, 186, 205

Akron, University of, 341

Alameda, Calif., 19

Alameda Whist Club, 20

Alaska, 15

Alaska Republican Convention of 1896, 18

Albany, N.Y., 436–37

Albany Times-Union
, 310,
311

Aldridge, John, 302

Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 186–87, 189, 197, 209, 233, 244–45

Hyman’s relations with, 238–43, 269, 337

Alice in Wonderland
(Carroll), 291

“All I Can Remember” (Jackson), 43

American Council of Learned Societies, 337, 432

American Dream, An
(Mailer), 464

American Jitters, The
(Wilson), 85

American Revolution, 15, 22, 201, 355

American Writers’ Congress:

of 1935, 87, 109

of 1937, 87–88

of 1939, 115, 180

Amherst College, 337

Anderson, Marian, 123–24

“And the Angels Sing,” 121

Anthony
(Jackson), 128, 133–34

anticommunism, 6, 131, 356, 358–60

antifascism, 87, 88

anti-Nazism, 140

Antioch Review
, 160

anti-Semitism, 6, 27, 30, 96–97, 122, 123, 131–33, 140, 146, 150, 183, 213, 234, 243, 272, 315, 370, 465

Aristotle, 185

Armed Vision, The
(Hyman), 8, 70, 73, 86, 196, 218,
219
, 237–38, 239–45, 292, 467

critical response to, 243–44

writing of, 197,
238
, 464

Armstrong, Louis, 73, 124, 125, 363

Army, U.S., 152, 162, 170, 182, 184, 187, 257

“As High as the Sky” (Jackson), 184

Associated Press, 257, 258, 301

atheism, 76, 85, 107, 114, 180, 445

Atlantic Monthly
, 132, 193

At Wit’s End
(Bombeck), 307

Auchincloss, Louis, 424

Auden, W. H., 109, 122, 195, 279

Austen, Jane, 497

Authors Guild, 241

Ayling, Dorothy, 31, 34–36, 38, 40–41, 44, 462

correspondence of SJ and, 49, 58, 60

Ba’al Shem Tov, 73

Baby and Child Care
(Spock), 164

Baker, Frank, 430

Ballechin House, 405

Baltimore, Md., 429, 495

Bank of California, 26

Barber, Alice, 20

Barber, Elizabeth, 20

Barber, Mary, 20

Barber, William, 20, 266

Barkham, John, 398, 451, 452

Barnes, Djuna, 100, 134, 135, 300

Barrymore, John, 397

Baruch, Bernard M., 235

baseball, 8, 78, 167, 363

“Battle Hymn of the Republic, The,” 15

Baudelaire, Charles, 77

Baumgarten, Bernice, 315–16, 345, 361, 363, 373, 375, 378, 380, 390–91, 395–97,
395
, 420

Bausch and Lomb, 45

Beatty, Jeanne, 436, 476, 495

correspondence of SJ and, 8, 39, 428–35, 437, 440, 442, 461, 469, 571–72

death of, 461

education of, 432

marriage and family of, 432–33

Beatty, Shannon, 469, 571

“Beautiful Stranger, The” (Jackson), 255–56, 280

Bedel, Jeanne Marie “Jeanou,” 56–58,
56
, 59–62, 64, 66–67, 76, 92, 102, 199–200, 214, 251, 433

correspondence of SJ and, 92, 99, 105, 109, 148, 194–95, 220, 296, 512

as prisoner of war, 181–82

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 57, 120, 319

“Behold the Child Among His Newborn Blisses” (Jackson), 181

Belitt, Ben, 224

Bell Jar, The
(Plath), 67

Bellow, Saul, 73, 178, 243, 277, 293, 303, 396–97, 399, 424, 446, 463–64, 490, 524, 537

Bell Telephone ad, 331–32,
333

Bennington, Vt., 199, 254

Bennington Banner
, 379

Bennington Bookshop, 390

Bennington College, 54, 106, 156, 189–99, 202–4, 254, 268, 269, 312, 459, 493

Barn lecture hall at, 341

Commons of,
191

faculty of, 192, 194, 195–97, 199, 207, 234, 327, 337–42

Form in the Novel course at, 338

Forms of Literature course at, 196

founding of, 190–91

Hyman as professor at, 4, 9, 74, 75, 77, 163, 189, 192, 195–98, 202, 209, 239, 298, 320, 337–42, 348, 496

Jennings Hall at, 402