Customer Reviews

Road Through the Wall

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

 

 

Shirley Jackson is often described as a "Horror" writer; however, her power comes not from horrible bloody descriptions but rather from very down tuned, indifferent, every-day descriptions to the most vicious acts. Her descriptions are so mellowed that I felt confused and checked myself over and again to see if I understood correctly and something bad really did happen.
This is a story of one street and its inhabitants, but could have easily been any other street in any suburb. In fact, Shirley Jackson herself said that the book was written, at least partly, to get back at her parents, so some of it has to be a life she knew. I believe I am right to guess that the character of Harriet Merriam, a girl in her adolescent years, who is fat and not pretty, has many "bits and pieces" of Shirley Jackson herself, especially in the first pages where Harriet's mother goes through her letters. This act, which according to biographers happened to Shirley herself, is mentioned in "Hangsaman" another of Jackson's first books.
The story takes time getting into, the reason being that there are so many (around 20) characters and it takes time to differentiate between them. There is actually no character that is really "loveable" - if someone is described as a successful child or adult, then he has other faults. I guess this is exactly like real life where no one is perfect but it is so different from other literary works where even if a hero is imperfect you can have some sympathy towards several characters. Here the reader's sympathy does not exist although some people are more detestable then others. The merciless description of the characters even caused me some uneasiness at first. You can see down to the person's essence - as if you look at his soul with a magnifying glass and this intimate viewing can be quite uncomfortable.
The horrors of this story can mainly be described as the inability of accepting anyone who is different: Jews, Chinese, retarded people. Shirley Jackson gives us a variety of outsiders. The horrors are also the powers of parents, narrow and limited in their world perception to forever change or shape their children world and not for the best. This issue is not new; however has a striking and horrifying appearance in this book.
This is a powerful chilling book which, once you get into it (this takes time), cannot be put down. Shirley Jackson has a great knowledge of human nature which is again apparent in this book
I do wish I had some people around me I could discuss this book with. I was even disappointed to find only one review of this book as I am really interested in hearing how other people have understood or "felt" this book. I have studied Shirley Jackson's famous short story "the Lottery" at the university and am longing to analyze this book in the same way....I feel there is so much more to this book then what I was able to grasp and so many other nuances connected to the symbolism of the new road, the different family lives portrayed and the relationship and similarities between woman to woman, mother - daughter, father - son relationships to relationships between the kids themselves. I have to add that some of the elements of "the Lottery" are apparent here. What I mean is the seemingly peaceful, lovely atmosphere and the inner turbulence which becomes apparent through the end, when a victim who was introduced and chosen before is pointed out.
This is a masterpiece I highly recommend.

Although The Road Through the Wall was her first published novel, it is vintage Shirley Jackson. No one ever viewed and/or described human beings in the way Jackson did. Not surprisingly, this novel is terribly maudlin and disturbing. It is also very complex, and I'm not sure I would perfectly understand it had I read it over and over again. There are no heroes in these pages and only one innocent character. The premise of the story is fairly simple: Jackson paints a portrait of a well-to-do middle class neighborhood, shining her blinding light of truth on everyone. The portrait is not a pretty one. A wall separates the community from the well-to-do section of town, a section most of the men and women hope to eventually move to; in the meantime, they are terribly snobbish to those around them--quietly and secretly or brazenly and openly depending on how poor or ill-bred the inferior citizens are seen to be. Eventually, a section of the wall is removed in order to make way for a new road, a road that will expose their isolated community to the world and basically ruin their neighborhood, community, and lives. Well before the road is built, terrible tragedy does indeed strike at the heart of the community. I was quite shocked by the turn of events toward the end.

Some of Jackson's plot points really make little sense to me. While it often seems that Jackson intends to introduce such confusing elements into her fiction, I find it very likely that I am just not understanding the immense subtleties and hidden clues of a masterful writer. This novel is especially hard to comprehend. The cast of characters is quite large, consisting of a number of families. Jackson constantly moves back and forth between the men, women, and children, which makes it hard to really "know" each character. The task of keeping track of who is who is made even more difficult by the fact that many of the girls' names all start with H and that two of the boys have the same initials. There came a point when I just had to stop flipping back through the story trying to exactly remember each character in turn. Perhaps it was a deliberate tactic by Jackson to indicate that all of the characters are basically the same. One family surprisingly moves away right in the middle of the book, much to my surprise, and the family that moves into their rental home seems far less important that the book's back cover led me to expect. The reader should take nothing for granted when reading Shirley Jackson.

All in all, this is a wonderful if idiosyncratic read. The plot is amazingly complex for an author's first published novel. I wish I could talk about the ending, if for no other reason than to pose the questions I have about it. Once you permit yourself to enter Shirley Jackson mode, you may well be lured into a level of comfort, expecting the novel to simply end without any climax or conclusion. I can pretty much assure you that the conclusion is one you will not soon forget.

"Road Through the Wall" is Shirley Jackson's first novel, and as first novels go it has surprisingly good qualities. The prose and characterizations are uniformly excellent. By stealth she decomposes the boredom, loneliness, and suffocating nature of American suburban life. No, this doesn't contain any of the gothic horror goodies found in her later works. And the ending seems a bit disjointed from the overall story. Yet written over fifty years ago, "Road Through the Wall" seems anything but dated.

For a bit more about the story, it is actually a pastiche of daily events surrounding one neighborhood ... specifically one street. The dialogue and behavior of the children are realistically cruel. The parents are portrayed as being status seekers and gossip-mongers. Their insular world is shattered, symbolically and literally, when a new road is built which barrels through their enclave.


Bottom line: a subtle and deceptively intricate novel. Recommended.

More of a character study than a plot-driven novel, "The Road Through The Wall" is a haunting look at one seemingly perfect subdivision and its residents. It was the first novel Shirley Jackson published, and it is endowed entirely with her unique voice and vision. Jackson is a master at examining the ugliness and evil that lies underneath the thin veneers of propriety and expectations.

The story is set on Pepper Street, a fairly well-to-do subdivision on the outskirts of a wealthier one. The block is cordoned off by a tall brick wall that keeps the residents separate from their wealthier neighbors. For some characters, like the Desmonds, Pepper Street is a resting place before they move on to bigger and better places; while for other characters, it is an acknowledgement of what they have achieved. And for some characters, the limits of Pepper Street are as limiting as the walls of a prison. The narrative is told through various eyes, young and old, as readers follow the residents' lives during one summer that ends in startling and unexpected tragedy.

"The Road Through The Wall" is a quick-paced examination of the veils people hide behind. While almost all the residents would like others to see them at their best, their worst is revealed through their gossip and hypocritical treatment of their neighbors. Nobody is what they present themselves to be, and Jackson drops plenty of hints to the backgrounds of every character, but leaves the reader to piece these hints together. Jackson wrote with an intensity that has seldom been duplicated, crafting characters that draw readers in immediately, leaving the reader to wonder what becomes of them as they exit the story. The reader almost feels as if they were driving by Pepper Street and watching the story unfold, not quite catching all the background pieces of the puzzle, learning only part of the story.

The abrupt ending to the novel is disturbing and somewhat reminiscent of Jackson's most famous short story, "The Lottery". It leaves the reader wishing for more, with a desire to follow these characters further on into their lives as Pepper Street changes beyond their control. Yet it is all of these elements that are left unexamined and unexplained that make "The Road Through The Wall" such an intriguing and unforgettable novel.

I think my review will be appreciated the most by readers of Shirley Jacksons other works. First, the inside flap and the back cover are very misleading (although the inside flap does give a hint of what's to come, it makes it sound like it is something that happens early on). Both the inside flap and back cover also suggest that the book is somehow about the supernatural; it is NOT. This is summer vacation in suburbia with all it's dramas and tribulations; its ups and downs and percolating gossip. There's also an unusually large number of characters in what is only a 220 page book (I counted 35); mostly families on Pepper Street including parents and kids. I could relate to this book because even though it takes place in the 1930's I could translate that into the time of my childhood; a time without cell phones, PC's and Macs, MP3 players, satellite radio, and plasma TVs. It really did remind me of my time growing up and the summer vacations I had. Only this book adds a huge helping of tragedy. Overall I enjoyed it and I was a little surprised at the ending (which I think will seem familar to you if you've read two of Ms. Jackson's most famous stories). I have to recommend it, even though if your'e looking for something a little more supernatural or scary by Shirley Jackson, read The Haunting of Hill House, The Lottery, or Come Along With Me.

I enjoyed The Road Through the Wall it for it's compelling writing, just as I always enjoy Jackson's work, but as with about fifty percent of her stories and novels, I reach the end of the story convinced that I missed something that would have made the story much more significant. This book mostly paints a bleak picture of suburbia which was rather difficult for me to follow as it had a multitude of characters with generic names that all seemed similar to me. By the end of the book, I was convinced that the characters were intentionally keeping me in the dark, and that they were switching generic nametags behind my back to make things even more confusing. Read Jackson's horror or anecdotal humor instead.