Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (90 page)

352
   
“I can think of”
: John Barkham, “Author Exploits ‘Four in One,’ ”
Roanoke Times
, June 27, 1954.

352
   
“anybody who gives away”
: George A. Minot, “Will Keep You on Edge,”
Boston Herald
, June 27, 1954.

352
   
“Shirley Jackson the housewife”
: Dan Wickenden, “Shirley Jackson Once More Weaves Her Dramatic and Satiric Spell,”
New York Herald Tribune
, June 20, 1954.

352
   
“more gripping”
: John Metcalf, “New Novels,”
The Spectator
, February 11, 1955.

352
   
“Most men” . . . “plural monogamy”
: “Sterling North Reviews the Books,”
New York World Telegram
, June 22, 1954.

352
   
“the most horrifying”
: Florence Zetlin, “Four Beings in One Girl’s Body,”
Norfolk
(Va.)
Pilot
, June 20, 1954.

352
   
“too bizarre”
: Orville Prescott, “Books of the Times,”
The New York Times
, June 22, 1954.

353
   
“an old souse”
: Joe Hymans, “This Is Hollywood,” unidentified clipping, SJ-LOC, Box 44.

353
   
“arty and pretentious”
: SJ to BB, March 4, 1955.

353
   
“Abbott and Costello meet a multiple personality”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, June 12 [1955].

353
   
“Major mental muddle melodramatized”
: “Psychiatry Steps In,”
Newsweek
, March 11, 1957.

354
   
“the all-purpose female malady”
: Lavinia Reedy, “From Peaceful N. Bennington . . . A Tale of Warring Personalities,”
The Knickerbocker News
(Albany, N.Y.), September 1, 1954.

354
   
“they made”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [c. March 1957].

13. DOMESTIC DISTURBANCES

355
   
“fiendish book” . . . “sleep for a year”
: SJ to BB, December 1, 1953.

355
   
Cerf proposed
: BB to SJ, March 27, 1953.

355
   
“enough of a library”
: SJ to BB, March 30, 1953.

356
   
“by a kind of dogged”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, December 21 [1954], SJ-LOC, Box 3.

357
   
“The main trouble”
: SJ to BB, October 6, 1953.

357
   
“disturbed and uneasy”
:
The Witchcraft of Salem Village
, 6.

357
   
“They could not” . . . “half crazy”
: Ibid., 27.

358
   
“spent a large part”
: Ibid., 28.

358
   
“Their mothers had surely talked”
: Ibid., 29.

358
   
“uncontrollable hysteria” . . . “had an audience”
: Ibid., 31.

358
   
“a wonderful way of attracting attention”
: Ibid., 33.

358
   
“as concretely dangerous”
: Ibid., 61.

359
   
“As in all such epidemics”
: Ibid., 89.

359
   
“People simply stopped”
: Ibid., 123.

359
   
The term “witch hunt”
: “Senate Inquiry Set on Acheson Staff,”
The New York Times
, February 26, 1950.

360
   
“intelligent and thoughtful people”
:
The Witchcraft of Salem Village
, 12.

360
   
“If the bewitched” . . . “over the world”
: SJ-LOC, Box 12.

361
   
“i’ve been feeling” . . . “little as possible”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, October 15 [1954].

361
   
one went to
McCall’s
: SJ to GJ and LJ, December 21 [1954].

361
   
“eating and sleeping”
: Ibid.

362
   
“stanley says”
: Ibid.

362
   
“You were trying”
: GJ to SJ, December 31 [1954], SJ-LOC, Box 2.

362
   
“When do you start”
: GJ to SJ, n.d. [September 1955].

362
   
“obviously . . . must be”
: SJ to BB, January 29, 1955.

362
   
“our small clown”
: SJ-LOC, Box 14.

363
   
“i actually like”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, January 11 [1957].

363
   
“since we have been in despair”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [summer 1955].

363
   
“Our whole family life”
: SJ to BB, June 26, 1955.

364
   
“some real jazz” . . . “one more number”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, May 21 [1956].

364
   
“a little chip”
: M.M., “Miss Jackson—Life Among the Demons,”
New York Post
, January 5, 1957.

365
   
almost verbatim from a letter
: SJ to Virginia Olsen, September 16, 1953, SJ-LOC, Box 23 (misfiled).

365
   
“Barry Sunday”
:
Raising Demons
, 75–76.

365
   
A note she actually once left
: SJ-LOC, Box 51.

365
   
“gone to Fornicalia to live”
:
Raising Demons
, 43.

365
   
“had not come home”
: Ibid., 45.

365
   
“almost illiterate”
: Ibid., 95.

366
   
“by a series”
: Ibid., 102.

366
   
“since we were”
: Ibid., 99.

366
   
1939 New York World’s Fair
: SEH and St. Clair McKelway, “The Time Capsule,”
The New Yorker
, December 5, 1953.

366
   
William Shawn accepted
: Phoebe Pettingell argues that the culture of secrecy Shawn encouraged at
The New Yorker
undermined the
self-confidence of many writers. “You never knew why Shawn suddenly went off. It was not only controlled but also the most repressed and repressive environment. . . . People who stayed at
The New Yorker
kept feeling that if they were really good Shawn would be running their stuff.” (Interview, August 12, 2011.)

367
   
“if i can sell”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, January 30 [1956].

367
   
“Nothing is ever wasted”
:
CAWM
, 219.

367
   
“potential writing time”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, December 30 [1953].

367
   
“stanley cannot say”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [summer 1953].

368
   
“ ‘Daddy is going to see’ ”
:
Raising Demons
, 179.

368
   
“the classically dogmatic”
: Derland Frost, “Shirley Jackson’s Family,”
Houston Post
, January 6, 1957.

368
   
“the author’s husband”
: Esther Greenberg, “Raising Demons Is a Frolic, or So It Would Seem,”
Washington Post and Times Herald
, January 6, 1957.

368
   
The admissions director
: SJ to GJ and LJ, October 4 [1956].

368
   
“typewriters”
:
Raising Demons
, 20.

369
   
“how strange it was going”
: Ibid., 142.

369
   
“I drove home”
: Ibid., 145.

369
   
“a new breed” . . . “lives are a joke?”
: Betty Friedan,
The Feminine Mystique
(1963; repr., New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 52–53.

369
   
“somehow one expects more”
: Jean Campbell Jones, “The Writer as Mother,”
Saturday Review
, January 19, 1957.

369
   
“if Miss Jackson’s”
: Silence Buck Bellows, “Children and Parents,”
Christian Science Monitor
, January 3, 1957.

370
   
“the humor” . . . “tangy flavor”
: Edmund Fuller, “Shirley Jackson’s Tangy Vein: Frustrated Humor,”
Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine of Books
, January 6, 1957.

370
   
“writer with two heads”
: “A Female Thurber: Mother of 4 Also Produces Wit,”
Miami Herald
, January 27, 1957.

370
   
“310 pages from life”
: Paul Molloy, “Mother Sees Funny Side of Household,”
Chicago Sun-Times
, January 6, 1957.

370
   
“charm in writing”
: FAP, “American Family Life at Its Best,”
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
, January 27, 1957.

370
   
“an unusual but not really”
: Untitled review,
Burlington Free Press
, March 18, 1957.

370
   
“as normal”
: “A Female Thurber.”

370
   
“someone trapped” . . . “spinsterhood”
: Mary McGrory, “Unsparing Album of Family Snapshots Sans Retouching,”
Washington Star
, January 6, 1957.

371
   
“The savages are older”
: Lewis Gannett, “Laurie, Jannie, Sally, and Barry—Demons at Home and Charmers Abroad,”
New York Herald Tribune
, January 6, 1957.

371
   
“the two best lines”
: Roger Straus to SJ, April 12, 1956, SJ-LOC, Box 8.

371
   
“Last Christmas”
:
Raising Demons
, 306.

371
   
“it’s not a real”
: Unpublished story, SJ-LOC, Box 26.

371
   
“It was the standard”
: Interview with Barry Hyman, July 22, 2013.

372
   
“She liked being”
: Interview with Laurence Jackson Hyman, February 17, 2013.

372
   
“a classic fat girl”
: Brendan Gill,
Here at the New Yorker
(1975; repr., New York: Da Capo, 1997), 247.

372
   
“Each of them ordered”
: Ibid., 246.

372
   
Kenneth Burke recalled
: Judy Oppenheimer,
Private Demons
(New York: Putnam, 1988), 219.

373
   
“for reasons” . . . “like a goose”
: Ibid.

373
   
“our doctor”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, September 29 [1960].

373
   
“i have suddenly realized” . . . “creams and sweets”
: Unpublished essay, SJ-LOC, Box 50.

374
   
“Mrs. Melville Makes a Purchase”
:
JOD
, 269–83.

374
   
Gardner Botsford
: Interview with Janet Malcolm (Botsford’s widow), February 1, 2012.

374
   
“the claptrap”
: Unpublished essay, SJ-LOC, Box 50.

374
   
Dr. Durand warned her
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [October 1956].

374
   
a strict weight-loss plan
: SJ-LOC, Box 35.

374
   
“SINFUL”
: SJ-LOC, Box 35.

374
   
“i figure” . . . “eating potatoes”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, October 1956.

375
   
Miltown
: See Tony Dokoupil, “America’s Long Love Affair with Anti-Anxiety Drugs,” Newsweek.com, January 21, 2009, and Andrea Tone,
The Age of Anxiety: A History of America’s Turbulent Affair with Tranquilizers
(New York: Basic Books, 2008). By 1957, Americans had filled more than 36 million prescriptions for Miltown. Sarah Hyman DeWitt confirms that Miltown was among her mother’s prescriptions.

375
   
“I know excess weight”
: GJ to SJ, n.d. [December 1956].

375
   
Shirley’s plan for apportioning
: BB to SJ, November 26, 1956.

375
   
“stanley and i”
: SJ to Beatty, September 29 [1960].

376
   
“If you wanted to spend time”
: Interview with Barry Hyman, July 22, 2013.

377
   
“who wants” . . . “christmas”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, January 11 [1957].

377
   
“brilliantly intelligent”
: SJ recorded this incident in two separate
documents—one a rough draft, the other more polished. All quotes in this section, unless otherwise identified, are from these documents. Both are in SJ-LOC, Box 14.

378
   
“She was a bitter”
: Interview with Sarah Hyman DeWitt, February 17, 2013.

378
   
“the most mischievous”
: Interview with Laura Nowak, July 24, 2013.

378
   
“very intense . . . very intellectual”
: Interview with Alison Nowak, October 14, 2014.

379
   
“When a teacher”
: Interview with Jai Holly, July 22, 2013.

379
   
“letters of appreciation” . . . “understanding”
: “Board Hears Defenders of Miss Holden,”
Bennington Banner
, April 25, 1957.

380
   
“without terror”
: SJ to Jeanne Beatty, January 14 [1960].

380
   
“the old sadist”
: SJ to GJ and LJ, n.d. [May 1957].

380
   
“in an institution”
: SJ to Beatty, January 14 [1960].

380
   
“a tremendous story”
: BB to SJ, May 3, 1957.