Literary Biographies: Shirley Jackson, A Rather Haunted Life

Shirley Jackson is one of my favorite authors. She is a writer who continued in the American Gothic tradition of Hawthorne and Poe, but kept her work uniquely her own: the horror, either psychological or supernatural, blended with postwar, suburban mundanity.

Jackson was a significant figure in 20^th century American literature, though often kept on the edges of mainstream literary canon. How many people have read the short story The Lottery, with its unflinching portrait of brutality and rituality in small American towns? Or how many people have seen either the 1963 or 1999 film adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House?

Last year we were lucky enough to see Let Me Tell You published -- a volume of Jackson’s previously unpublished and uncollected stories and nonfiction writings. This year, on the centenary of her birth, we get a biography from book critic and author, Ruth Franklin.

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life is a meticulous, critical, empathetic work – not only a glimpse into Jackson’s motivations for her novels and stories, but also an exploration of the woman herself: someone who had a successful writing career but who struggled with marital issues, substance abuse, and personal and social anxieties.

Neil Gaiman writes of the new biography, “Ruth Franklin is the biographer Jackson needed: she tells the story of the author in a way that made me want to reread every word Jackson ever wrote.” I agree and would highly recommend it. It is nice seeing Jackson get her much-deserved due at the hands of a skilled biographer.

Below are a few other literary biographies I would recommend:

The Real Jane Austen / Paula Byrne

My Wars Are Laid Away in Books / Alfred Habegger

Beatrix Potter / Linda Lear

Flannery / Brad Gooch

And make sure to check out the New York Times Literary Biographies Reading List for even more suggestions.

Glenn Gould: A Life Off Tempo by Sandrine Revel

Glenn Gould: A Life Off Tempo by Sandrine Revel

I have long listened to the many, wonderful variations of classical composers done by Glenn Gould on piano. My first exposure to him was when I was flipping through classical vinyl records at a thrift shop when I stumbled across his Bach variations for 50 cents. Naturally, I grabbed it, took it home for a listen, and became an instant fan of Gould’s. From then on, he was one of the artists whom I always looked for when record hunting. But, I knew very little about the man until I picked up Glenn Gould: A Life Off Tempo by Sandrine Revel.

The story is not a straight forward one, with Revel intermixing typical documentary convention with surrealist interludes. These little interruptions could have detracted from the odd yet compelling story of Gould and make for fascinating breaks as we follow this quirky genius as he grows up from a boy to the intense and difficult classical musician we all know. The muted, cool colors on water color paper are wonderful to look at, each page beautifully done. The wonderful artwork does an excellent job of supporting the story of the intense, difficult musician. This is definitely one of the better graphic novel biographies that I have read and I would recommend it for any fan of classical music, of Gould himself, or of graphic novel non-fiction.