Customer Reviews

Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories Of Shirley Jackson

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You might be familiar with Shirley Jackson's writing; her novels "Hangsaman" and "The Haunting of Hill House" come to mind, and you would be hard pressed to find someone who had made it through middle and high school in this country without reading Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery," the eerie tale of sinister crowd psychology and tradition gone bad.

Now, we have the first collection of "new" works by Jackson since her death in 1965 at the age of 48. Some published only once thirty or more years ago, many never before published in any form, the stories that make up "Just An Ordinary Day" have been collected by Jackson's heirs from some unlikely sources -- crates at the Library of Congress, forgotten file drawers -- even an old barn in Vermont.

This is an uneven collection. Some of the stories seem unresolved works-in-progress, some mere sketches of ideas still needing to be fleshed out, and several are outright throwaways. But among the 52 pieces here are some remarkable examples of storytelling.

Jackson was a master of the updated gothic horror tale. She could take an everyday situation and inject it full of a sense of unease that would slowly grow into full-blown terror. It's hard to read her work without looking at the world slightly suspiciously. That happily married couple you know - are they thinking murderous thoughts? The quiet clerk in your office with all the cats - what dark secrets does he keep?

In the story "Nightmare," an early bright spot in the book, a young, single woman named Miss Morgan starts her day in the usual fashion: she dresses carefully in her nondescript clothes, goes to her nondescript office and performs her nondescript secretarial work. This day is like any other for her until her boss asks her to run a seemingly simple errand. From there on, it's pure Shirley Jackson. The people on the street, taxi cabs, barking dogs - even a simple supermarket promotional contest - all take on new, menacing overtones.

But while Jackson is known best for her darker work, this compilation shows that she was comfortable working in a broad mix of styles. "My Recollections of S. B. Fairchild" is a humorous story of the troubles of catalog shopping, and several romantic pieces include "The Omen" and "Come To The Fair." And of course, you'll find plenty of simply frightening storytelling here - most notably "The Story We Used To Tell," "The Good Wife" and "Jack The Ripper."

If a few of the offerings are not among Jackson's best (there is a reason, after all, why some stories are never published), this collection is still a lot of fun, and certainly adds to the body of Jackson's known work. She was a gifted, diligent writer, and "Just An Ordinary Day" is a rare chance to see deeper into the writer's strengths and weaknesses as well as a glimpse of an artist developing her craft.

As much as my friends and myself admire Jackson's classic works, I must agree that this is a pretty mediocre collection of short stories. Because many have not been seen for over 50 years however, they certainly belong in the library of every Shirley Jackson fan. "The Possibility of Evil" is stunning. Sometimes Shirley either tried too hard, had writer's block or simply experimented with the bizarre; whatever the reason, most of her works were ahead of her time and when she was good she was the BEST-there are, unfortunately too many rather dull and uninspired stories in this collection. Shirley was the female Stephen King of her day!

Shirley Jackson was a gem. She was a suburban mom and wife who managed to find the time to crank out loads of short fiction as well as authoring The Haunting of Hill House, easily the greatest haunted house novel yet done. Jackson's uncollected, often unpublished stories are here in this volume that arrives in the world like a late Christmas present. Some of these tales are hilarious, a few are disturbing, many are weird, and a handful are touchingly personal and concern Jackson's life raising her kids in post-War America. (Those last types were the ones I enjoyed most of all.) Shirley Jackson left the world far too soon and her like won't be seen again, but this volume, compiled by her son, is a nice keepsake for her fans, who never knew most of this existed.

There has been tons of controversy over this book about whether or not is should have been published. My personal opinion is that is should not have been published because these stories were private stories and were not published for a reason. However, now it has been published and there is nothing anyone can do about it but enjoy it as a learning experience. The reason I gave the book five stars was because it is a very accurate representation of Shirley Jackson. Writing was always theraputic for her -- she used it to express the other dimensions of her life and her self which no one could understand. Writing was a way of putting everything that went on in her mind down on paper. Therefore, reading these stories is like reading her diary -- she expressed her emotions through fiction, and the variety of characters and plots that can be seen in this collection are a representation of a certain period of her life through her eyes. If you are looking for the edited fiction that made Shirley Jackson famous, this is not the book for you. However, if you are interested in the inner workings of the author's mind, this collection of stories and essays is the closest one can get.

I found this collection of short stories by Shirley Jackson to be interesting and odd. Ms. Jackson was a prolific short story writer and many of these stories were published in magazines in the forties, fifties, and sixties. I think that I enjoyed the stories because they were written in an era when I was young. Ms. Jackson writes about people - nice people and not-so-nice people. One of her not-so-nice people stories is called "The Possibility of Evil" which was published in The Saturday Evening Post. It was chilling and I just loved it. But Shirley Jackson was funny too. The story "Alone in a Den of Cubs" made me laugh out loud. She had a dry sense of humor. I'm not sure if she was a genius, but she was certainly on her game. I think that she was very witty and clever. Her most famous short story was "The Lottery" and it caused quite an uproar when it was first published and really put her on the map. I enjoyed that story, but it is not in this book. My son thinks that the story is awful, but he doesn't understand the era when that story was written and how disturbing it was to people. I do want to say that I did not like all of the stories in this book, but I loved most of them. I guess I am a Shirley Jackson groupie.

that's how i felt when i saw this book on my library shelf. it helped to quell a hunger that i have had for many years. thank you laurence and sarah for compiling these works. i would love to see the out of print works of shirley jackson back on bookstore's shelves.

These are the weakest stories of Shirley Jackson. Thus, she never collected them when she was still alive. Please buy her OTHER books. They are so much better.

I love Shirley Jackson and all of her writings, and this is a great collection of her stories. Some of them seem a bit out of place and unfinished of course, but they definitely have the "Shirley Jackson feeling" when you are reading them. I enjoy reading her short stories because it's a great reminder of what other great works she has written as well.

"One Ordinary Day With Peanuts" Buy this book to read that story. Before this book was released that story, more ambiguous and both funnier and more chilling than the famous "The Lottery" was only available in an old issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and a decades out of print Best Of paperback collection by Judith Merril. Don't let Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction put you off; the magazine had deeply catholic tastes, particularly then, as did Judith.

The rest of the stories range from very, very good to "yeah, I see why that wasn't published or completed". There's arguments whether the latter should've been published. Reading Judy Oppenheimer's biography Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson puts things in context though doesn't settle the issue. One of her daughters, who completed one of Jackson's novels after her death, used "Ordinary" to test prospective boyfriends and she oversaw the publication of this collection.

Jackson is today only remembered for "The Lottery" and maybe the not-bad Haunting of Hill House. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a subtle, sneaky novel. Not without flaws but long overdue for rediscovery as is the author herself, both her fiction and non-fiction (Life Among the Savages is Erma Bombeck + Stephen King + Mark Twain).

This is a wonderful collection of Shirley Jackson's short stories in a new easy to read book. Jackson's "The Lottery" continues to shock and mesmerize readers sixty years after it's publication in "The New Yorker". To this day, this story holds the record for generating the most mail and telegrams in "the New Yorker's" history and Jackson, until her death, contended that this was "just a story." Her writing is a wonderful guide for all people who wish to write. It's a satisfying smörgåsbord of a wide variety of work, all of it centered on character and the inner workings of the human mind. As a fan of writers such a Richard Russo, Charles Dickens, Barbara Kingsolver, Stephen King, Alice Walker and John Irving, Shirley Jackson belongs at the top of this list. You must read everything she wrote, but this book is a wonderful way to get your feet wet. Used or new, it's a book that you will return to many times and you may even want more than one copy so that you can lend it but still have it while your reading buddy takes his or her time savoring each story. This is an example of the power of the written word and an example of why William Shakespeare and Aristophanes are still remembered and read today.