There is a sense of gearing up for Christmas at work, nothing significant as yet, but just as the leaves will start to turn soon, so winter lines are beginning to appear on the shelves. Two particularly hard weeks at work have been a not entirely pleasant indication of what's to come and done nothing for my ability to concentrate. Fortunately I still have some of last years Christmas presents to play with including a copy of Shirley Jackson's 'Life Among the Savages' which is exactly the sort of book required at times like this.
My acquaintance with Jackson's work came courtesy of an article written by Elaine Showalter back when 'A Jury of Her Peers' was published by Virago. It was something along the lines of the ten best books by American women you wouldn't have heard of and had 'We Have Always Lived In The Castle' on it. I read and loved it, since then Penguin have reprinted 'The Lottery and Other Stories' and 'The Haunting of Hill House' in the U.K. but all of these basically fall into the horror camp, 'Life Among the Savages' is something quite different - although part if it does appear in 'The Lottery and Other Stories'.
Basically this autobiography but filtered through a series of articles for various magazines and then put together again as a book. Jackson talks about her husband, the old house they find themselves renting in Vermont, her growing family of children, the difficulty of finding a reliable mothers help, learning to drive, and how to accommodate the personalities of her offspring into the general scheme of things.
The books beginnings make themselves felt in an occasional disjointedness - passages start or finish rather abruptly sometimes, but all things considered the book comes together remarkably well. Jackson is funny about her children without being sentimental or overly exploitative which is as well because they take up most the book and I'm not generally well disposed to the children say the funniest things type of anecdote. Jackson makes it work because she maintains an edge of something in her voice - possibly a sense that she's unleashed something beyond her control on the world.
There is nothing horrible about this book, but when she describes the house as having a personality, of how it chooses where it's furniture will go, you find the seeds of 'The Haunting of Hill House'. In other moments there are glimpses of 'We Have Always Lived In The Castle' as well as the germs of ideas that re-appear in 'The Lottery and Other Stories'. It's certainly a book to deepen your appreciation of Jackson's art.
There is a companion volume called 'Raising Demons' which is sadly and inexplicably out of print as I still want more. I realise writing this that of all the books I've read from 50's America this is the first one that seems to have a basically happy account of functional family life - there's never a drunk to be seen and nobody has a break down, I realise that this probably says more about my reading choices than it does mid century America but it was a nice change of pace.