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A review by octavia_cade
Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Okay, this is a doorstopper of a biography, but I was so interested, and it was so well-written, that it ended up seeming a lot shorter than it was. Given that it was sitting on my bookshelf for weeks, looking intimidating, I'm quite pleased about that. Jackson's last two novels are amongst my favourites - Hill House has the greatest opening paragraph of all time - and while I haven't read all her work, everything I have read I loved, so this bio has been on my to-read list for some time.
It's definitely well worth reading. I didn't know much of anything about Jackson's life before this, and I'm almost sorry to know more now. She's a fascinating woman, but that jerk of a husband, and that endlessly carping mother... I wanted her to get shot of them both and live her life freely with her books and cups of stars and piles of rotten fruit to throw at them whenever they started trying to put her down again. As unfortunate as I find them, however, some of the themes of her stories are now a little more illuminated by their presence. Franklin draws clear connections, and her sympathetic and incredibly well-researched reporting of Jackson's life is genuinely compelling.
It's definitely well worth reading. I didn't know much of anything about Jackson's life before this, and I'm almost sorry to know more now. She's a fascinating woman, but that jerk of a husband, and that endlessly carping mother... I wanted her to get shot of them both and live her life freely with her books and cups of stars and piles of rotten fruit to throw at them whenever they started trying to put her down again. As unfortunate as I find them, however, some of the themes of her stories are now a little more illuminated by their presence. Franklin draws clear connections, and her sympathetic and incredibly well-researched reporting of Jackson's life is genuinely compelling.