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A review by book_concierge
Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson
3.0
I’ve read two of Jackson’s classic “horror” tales previously: The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived In the Castle. So, I knew she was a talented writer. But I had no idea she had such a wicked sense of humor!
This collection of essays / vignettes is about Jackson and her family’s move to a small town in Vermont, where she and her husband settled into a large house and proceeded to fill it with children and books, a dog, two cats and “literally thousands of socks.”
It takes place in the early to mid 1950s, when women were typically homemakers, juggling all the aspects of running the household and raising the children, while their husbands went to work, read the newspaper, and occasionally played catch with their sons. The episodes includes a furnace on the blink, a rodent in the house, shopping for children’s clothes and shoes, everyone having the grippe, PTA meetings, shopping for and making family meals (not to mention LOTS of chocolate pudding) and learning to drive. Fueled by little more than coffee, cigarettes and a cocktail before dinner, Jackson dealt with it all with humor and a somewhat detached manner that preserved her sanity.
This collection of essays / vignettes is about Jackson and her family’s move to a small town in Vermont, where she and her husband settled into a large house and proceeded to fill it with children and books, a dog, two cats and “literally thousands of socks.”
It takes place in the early to mid 1950s, when women were typically homemakers, juggling all the aspects of running the household and raising the children, while their husbands went to work, read the newspaper, and occasionally played catch with their sons. The episodes includes a furnace on the blink, a rodent in the house, shopping for children’s clothes and shoes, everyone having the grippe, PTA meetings, shopping for and making family meals (not to mention LOTS of chocolate pudding) and learning to drive. Fueled by little more than coffee, cigarettes and a cocktail before dinner, Jackson dealt with it all with humor and a somewhat detached manner that preserved her sanity.