A genius of literary suspense, known to millions as the author of the "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) plumbed the cultural anxiety of postwar America better than anyone. Based on a wealth of previously undiscovered correspondence and dozens of interviews, Shirley Jackson reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the author, firmly placing Jackson within the American Gothic tradition.

About the Author
Ruth Franklin is a book critic and frequent contributor to The New Yorker, Harper's, and many other publications. A recipient of a New York Public Library Cullman Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, she lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews
"... lively and authoritative new biography." -- The Economist
"This new biography... could not be more welcome or timely... Her [Ruth Franklin's] critical grasp of Jackson's oeuvre is superlative and you do not doubt a word she says: this is most definitely an exhaustive biography." -- Julie Myerson - The Spectator
"Franklin has gained access to a trove of new material including a fascinating correspondence between Jackson and a housewife fan in the early 1960s. Our sense of there being "two Shirleys" is not encouraged by the author, who makes a convincing case for seeing the two personas instead as "profoundly interconnected"." -- The Times Literary Supplement
"Franklin's masterful biography, deeply researched and warmly sympathetic to its subject, paints a different picture, successfully marrying the various elements of Jackson's personality - writer and homemaker, gifted literary author and popular mummy-blogger memoirist." -- Literary Review
"... sympathetic and fair-minded biography..." -- The Guardian
"Franklin... gives equal weight to Jackson's life and work in this groundbreaking new biography." -- Jane Ciabattari, The 10 Best Books of 2016 - BBC Culture
"...Ruth Franklin skilfully and with great verve and readability paints a portrait of a woman with many faces in this slick and stylish biography." -- The Mail on Sunday
"Ruth Franklin's Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life is a richly satisfying biography: capacious, incisive, and full of surprising insights into the legacy of this "Virginia Werewolf among the seance-fiction writers" (as a short-sighted mid-century writer once dubbed her)." -- Kate Bolick, Our Favourite Books of 2016 - The Irish Times
"... enjoyable biography..." -- Dan Jones - The Times
"In her biography...Ruth Franklin plays down the broomstick tag and skilfully unpicks the threads of Jackson's life and works." -- The Arts Desk
"... gloriously comprehensive book." -- SciFi Now
"... a wonderful, intriguing, warmhearted biography of the author of The Lottery. Franklin, like her subject, is just so darned readable..." -- The Bookseller
"This is a skilled and deeply researched portrait of a curious woman and accomplished writer who retains the power to torment and unsettle readers..." -- The Times
"Franklin's biography looks at the inner darkness that fuelled a unique literary talent." -- The Telegraph
"For many readers, Jackson is the best of all horror writers, a master of tension and unravelling sanity. In the biography Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, Ruth Franklin unravels some of the myths that surrounded the writer and also shows us a picture of a life that in some ways contains many of the things Jackson was writing about. Plagued with a fear of the outside world and an obsessive, panicked need to write, Jackson at times appears as one of her own characters - paranoid, compulsive, afraid." -- Daisy Johnson, Further Reading: Horror Books - The Guardian


Awards
Short-listed for Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award 2017.



Book Information
ISBN 9781631493416
Author Ruth Franklin
Format Paperback
Page Count 624
Imprint Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publisher WW Norton & Co
Weight(grams) 466g
Dimensions(mm) 211mm * 140mm * 30mm