Episode 43: On Shirley Jackson
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Shirley Jackson\'s stories and novels rank among the greatest weird works produced in America during the 20th century. However, unlike authors such as Philip K. Dick and H.P. Lovecraft, Jackson didn\'t cut her teeth in the pulps but among the slick pages of such illustrious publications as The New Yorker. On the other hand, whether because her most famous novel uses the traditional ghost story form or because she was a woman, Jackson only rarely appears in the litanies of weird literature, where she most definitely belongs. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss two of Jackson\'s short works, "The Lottery" and "The Summer People." The conversation touches on such cheerful topics as human sacrifice, the use of tradition to license evil, and the alienness that can infect even the most familiar things ... when the stars are right.
\\n\\nHeader image by Hussein Twabi, Wikimedia Commons
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REFERENCES
\\n\\nThe Weird Studies Patreon
\\nShirley Jackson
\\nZo\\xeb Heller, \\u201cThe Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson,\\u201d review of Ruth Franklin, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life
\\nAmerican writer Mitch Horowitz
\\nRhonda Byrne, The Secret
\\nStuart Wilde, The Trick to Money is Having Some
\\nSeymour Ginsburg, Gurdjieff Unveiled
\\nRandall Collins, Violence: A Microsociological Theory
\\nJames Hillman, A Terrible Love of War
\\nHomer, The Iliad
\\nPhil & JF at Octopus Books in Ottawa, 2015
\\nMarcus Aurelius, Meditations \\u201cWhatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together: your own existence and the things that happen to you.\\u201d
\\nDavid Lynch, Blue Velvet