Shirley Jackson

By Lenemaja Friedman

Book Overview

Former library hardcover book without a dust jacket, never checked out. Has normal library stamps and pocket in back. Twayne Publishers, 1975. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805704027
• ISBN13: 9780805704020
• Release Date: January 1975
• Publisher: Twayne Publishers
• Length: 182 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Starting Block

Originally published in 1975, just ten years after Shirley Jackson's death, Lenemaja Friedman's analysis of the author's life and works is a good starting place. However, since many of Shirley Jackson's short stories remained unpublished until the late 1990s, there is much more that needs to be said about her work. Friedman begins with a basic overview of the author's life. This biographical sketch does not go into great detail but provides some important information about Shirley Jackson. The majority of the text is criticism and analysis of the major short stories that had been published at the time and of Jackson's six novels and her two collections of family chronicles. Friedman does a commendable job with the section dealing with the short stories, analyzing the themes and motifs such as ghosts and evil that Jackson explored in her writing. She dedicates a whole chapter to Jackson's first novel, "The Road Through the Wall," and the next chapter to the two psychological novels that followed. One of the best sections is her chapter on setting within Jackson's novels, "The Sundial," "The Haunting of Hill House" and "We Have Always Lived in the Castle." For anyone looking for a brief overview of Jackson and perhaps her best known works, Friedman's criticism is a good place to start. It offers insight and thought-provoking analysis into the themes that Jackson wove throughout her writing. Friedman ably shows the paradox that existed within the author and within her work. She wraps it up with a look at Jackson's family chronicles and an overview of how Jackson approached her craft. "Shirley Jackson" by Lenemaja Friedman is a good starting block but far from comprehensive.