S2 E8 The Very Haunted Life of Shirley Jackson, Part 2

In our second half of Shirley Jackson’s biography,* we pick up in 1939 when Shirley is about to marry Stanley, and for a full portrait of Stanley, you’ll absolutely want to check out S2E7 “The Very Haunted Life of Shirley Jackson.”  Again, as we highlight in the show notes for the previous episode, this episode is only made possible by the scholarship of Jackson biographer, Ruth Franklin. We have drawn primarily on Franklin’s 2016 biography of Shirley Jackson, A Very Haunted Life, and we highly recommend it as thorough, thoughtful, and engaging.  If you love Jackson or if you are interested in what 1950’s life was like for women and female artists, get your hands on Franklin’s marvelous book! 

In this episode, for Jackson, children and books start coming along at about equal intervals in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, and then we really get to see a woman writing full time, while also being an attentive mother, a loyal wife + maid, cook, and laundress.  Hear about how Jackson manages this challenge admirably, in a time when neither her husband, nor her parents, nor her society offered her any physical or emotional support.  

As they review Shirley Jackson’s adult life with a focus on motherhood, Sonja and Vanessa pause to give special attention to Jackson’s 1953 family memoir, Life Among the Savages, about raising her 4 children.  It’s brilliant.  Add to that, it’s hard not to marvel at a writer who masters nonfiction humor writing AND also writes fictional horror at a level that makes her one of Stephen King’s greatest influences. Jackson’s Life Among the Savages takes us on a jolly journey through 1950’s America, where parenting requires ashtrays and no child car seats.  

Shirley Jackson’s life was short, and packed into it are all the forces arrayed against mid-century American women–the constraints of maintaining a home, the unquestioned deference to husbands, the constant pressure to be feminine and slim, all alongside a very human desire to pursue what your mind and spirit need… and if that need happens to be writing, in the 1950’s, you probably have to wait for your husband to allow you a turn at the typewriter.   

*CORRECTION: In this episode, Vanessa says that Jackson was not physically well enough to attend the Haunting of Hill House movie premier, but what she should have said is that Jackson did attend, but just barely, and Stanley had to accompany her. Apologies for this factual inaccuracy.

REFERENCES:

Ruth Franklin's biography:  A Very Haunted Life

Goodreads Review of Life Among the Savages