Shirley Jackson reads The Lottery
December 14, 2017 1:26 PM   Subscribe

 
I first ran across this story when my 8th grade English teacher read it to us. I really think hearing it is the best way to experience it for the first time.
posted by JanetLand at 1:38 PM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


For anyone who has only read The Lottery. Do yourself a favour and pick up any of her other books and short stories. She's so much more than The Lottery. And don't get me wrong, I love that story and the darkness that runs underneath it, but she's such a talented writer and her world is much bigger than just that one story.
posted by Fizz at 2:11 PM on December 14, 2017 [11 favorites]


Great post.
posted by Fizz at 2:12 PM on December 14, 2017


I couldn't agree more with Fizz that Shirley Jackson is more than "The Lottery". In fact, I would take the popularity and accessibility of "The Lottery" as evidence that it is probably the least of her works -- especially compared to her novels like "The Haunting of Hill House", "We Have Always Lived in the Castle", "Hangsaman" and some of her short story collections (I can't say I've read her "domestic scenes" stories -- but I'll bet they're good too).
posted by Modest House at 2:57 PM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'd say start with The Haunting of Hill House. It's a great winter read. Moody and menacing.
posted by Fizz at 3:19 PM on December 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


The first paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House is frequently appreciated. But for my money the opening of We Have Always Lived in the Castle is just as good:
My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenent, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.
How could anyone stop reading there?
posted by theodolite at 3:54 PM on December 14, 2017 [11 favorites]


Haha, I know right!?! It's like your brain screams: “I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!”

*turns page*
posted by Fizz at 4:28 PM on December 14, 2017


I just found out today that her grandson, Miles Hyman, created a graphic adaptation last year. A few panels.
posted by maudlin at 4:31 PM on December 14, 2017


Unavailable in Canada...
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 5:05 PM on December 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


For my money, Jackson belongs in the very top tier of 20th century American authors. It’s a crime that she’s mostly remembered only for The Lottery. I read Hill House last year, probably on the recommendation of someone here, and proceeded to plow through her entire available oeuvre. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is one of my favorite books ever. Merricat is maybe the most disturbingly compelling character I know in literature.

There’s a film adaptation set to be released next year.
posted by mr_roboto at 5:35 PM on December 14, 2017


I know Hill House from film adaptations, and it had escaped my attention in the moment that the credit due is to her.
posted by mwhybark at 5:56 PM on December 14, 2017


"she's such a talented writer and her world is much bigger than just that one story."

For my money, her "Life Among the Savages," about parenting, is great. She's laugh-out-loud funny talking about family life, but she still has a fairly biting wit, somewhat darker than you usually find in mothers writing about family life in that era.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:40 PM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


Oh my god, Crispin Glover is going to play Uncle Julian. That’s either going to be totally perfect or a whacking great disaster.
posted by holborne at 10:09 PM on December 14, 2017


We Have Always Lived in the Castle is my favorite Jackson. She is so much more than The Lottery, a story I don’t even like all that much. But the recording is good.
posted by OmieWise at 3:29 AM on December 15, 2017


I can't see/hear the file, has it been blocked?
Meanwhile, here's a short film version, in which Ed Begley Jr appears briefly as Jack Watson [at 5:25].
This also links to a New Yorker article about the letters Jackson received after the publication, which is very interesting.
posted by chavenet at 7:08 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


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