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Come Along with Me
A haunting and psychologically driven collection from Shirley Jackson that includes her best-known story "The Lottery"
At last, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" enters Penguin Classics, sixty-five years after it shocked America audiences and elicited the most responses of any piece in New Yorker history. In her gothic visions of small-town America, Jackson, the author of such masterworks as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, turns an ordinary world into a supernatural nightmare. This eclectic collection goes beyond her horror writing, revealing the full spectrum of her literary genius. In addition to Come Along with Me, Jackson's unfinished novel about the quirky inner life of a lonely widow, it features sixteen short stories and three lectures she delivered during her last years.
At last, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" enters Penguin Classics, sixty-five years after it shocked America audiences and elicited the most responses of any piece in New Yorker history. In her gothic visions of small-town America, Jackson, the author of such masterworks as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, turns an ordinary world into a supernatural nightmare. This eclectic collection goes beyond her horror writing, revealing the full spectrum of her literary genius. In addition to Come Along with Me, Jackson's unfinished novel about the quirky inner life of a lonely widow, it features sixteen short stories and three lectures she delivered during her last years.
290 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1968
142 people are currently reading
4081 people want to read
About the author
Shirley Jackson
341 books11.3k followersShirley Jackson was an influential American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years. She has influenced such writers as Stephen King, Nigel Kneale, and Richard Matheson.
She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."
Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb", to mirror humanity's Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned The Lottery', and she felt that they at least understood the story".
In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.
She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."
Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb", to mirror humanity's Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned The Lottery', and she felt that they at least understood the story".
In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.
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March 5, 2021
" It is much easier, I find, to write a story than to cope competently with the millions of daily trials and irritations that turn up in an ordinary house, and it helps a good deal – particularly with children around – if you can see them through a flattering veil of fiction. It has always been a comfort to me to make stories out of things that happen, things like moving, and kittens, and Christmas concerts at the grade school, and broken bicycles. And it is certainly easier to sit there taking notes while everyone else is running around packing the suitcases and giving last-minute instructions to the moving men"
This is Shirley Jackson speaking and in her case it’s only appropriate to say that she had been haunting me for sometime before and after I joined GR, a year ago. Her name kept turning up in so many articles and references, not to mention raving reviews, that I had to see for myself what it was all about. The only problem was that I’ve never been a fan of ghostly stories or the supernatural, so why dive in such unfamiliar waters?
Well, dive I did and it turns out that Jackson is not your typical horror-story writer. She doesn’t rely on outright terror in the form of monster-in-the-closet-that-grabs-you-with-its-malformed-hand-when-you-aren’t-looking. The monsters are there, alright, but they are of a different, subtly chilling kind. Her “ghosts” are to be found in the mundane domesticity of her characters, in their suppressed or semiconscious fears, longings and occasional maliciousness that lurks behind the customary state of things in the community they belong, be it their family or their neighbors and fellow villagers.
Jackson believed that fear should sneak up on a reader from behind and manifest itself as quietly as a discreet tap on the shoulder.. And that’s exactly what she keeps doing in the fourteen stories of this collection that perfectly show the range and variety of her work. I was amused by her recurring themes of small-town narrow-mindedness and domestic exasperation and I really admired her way of demonstrating the suffocation of Good Housekeeping in the 50s.
I did love her humor that, surprisingly, is not often mentioned in the various references to her work but was very much there in every piece. It’s sly and sardonic, same as her general view of human nature and social relationships. A special mention should be made to her masterfully cryptic endings: they leave an awful lot to the reader’s imagination.
Two short lectures on writing are included in this edition and they were as enjoyable as the stories themselves. Also included is a piece she wrote with her thoughts on the reading public’s reaction to her most famous story, The Lottery. For me, this story (that is of course also included) was a rare case of great expectations that were justified. It gripped me from beginning to end and it chilled me to the bone. She was indeed a master of her craft and I look forward to reading more of her work.
September 14, 2020
This Halloween, read Shirley Jackson!
The subtlety that works incredibly well in classic horror films works its magnificent power in this realm like it never has before (sorry King, sorry Barker... sorry del Toro, sorry Lovecraft!) or since. Nobody can reach the pointillistic American Gothic of Shirley Jackson.
Death stains all--matter-of-factly--and doesn't comfort but unnerve. Characters in her short tales fill up empty rooms slowly as if with all of their hopes and dreams. Her world is one ripe with horrid implications--gross details and flaws in the suburban design.
She is perfect as Hawthorne in this, my favorite of all literary genres; his novels and short stories are as perfect as her sketches (published and non-) and lectures. Her "Louise Please Come Home" will knock your socks off.
The subtlety that works incredibly well in classic horror films works its magnificent power in this realm like it never has before (sorry King, sorry Barker... sorry del Toro, sorry Lovecraft!) or since. Nobody can reach the pointillistic American Gothic of Shirley Jackson.
Death stains all--matter-of-factly--and doesn't comfort but unnerve. Characters in her short tales fill up empty rooms slowly as if with all of their hopes and dreams. Her world is one ripe with horrid implications--gross details and flaws in the suburban design.
She is perfect as Hawthorne in this, my favorite of all literary genres; his novels and short stories are as perfect as her sketches (published and non-) and lectures. Her "Louise Please Come Home" will knock your socks off.
April 2, 2017
When the whole family comes down with the gripe it makes for an amusing night of bed switching, blanket and pillow switching along with the many accouterments the various family members take to bed. Delightful, amusing and as a parent she must have had a great deal of patience.
October 9, 2019
I checked this out from the library to read only the “unfinished novel” and the few pieces that aren’t included in other collections.
The unfinished work, “Come Along With Me,” is about thirty pages long and reads more like one of Jackson's short stories than one of her novels. It shares the theme of escape, or attempted escape, from domestic life with some of her earlier works; but the first-person narrator seems to be of a different type, an unabashedly “big” (in more ways than one) middle-aged woman. Some of the character’s thoughts were repetitive, but it’s impossible to know if that was intentional or if some of the repetition would’ve been lost in a successive draft.
Other new-to-me pieces were the short stories “Tootie in Peonage” and “A Day in the Jungle,” which descends into a morass of believable anxiety almost hard to read. I also read one of the hilarious nonfiction stories, “Pajama Party,” (included in one of her books about her family, though I didn’t remember it); and two lectures — the first, “Experience and Fiction,” which seems to be a combination of parts of two other lectures (or vice versa) I’d previously read, and the last, “Notes for a Young Writer,” composed for one of Jackson's daughters. The latter contains solid writing tips, and I think it’s the only time I’ve heard a writer explicitly say it’s okay if what’s read out loud might sound unnatural, because you need to remember that you are writing to be read silently.
The unfinished work, “Come Along With Me,” is about thirty pages long and reads more like one of Jackson's short stories than one of her novels. It shares the theme of escape, or attempted escape, from domestic life with some of her earlier works; but the first-person narrator seems to be of a different type, an unabashedly “big” (in more ways than one) middle-aged woman. Some of the character’s thoughts were repetitive, but it’s impossible to know if that was intentional or if some of the repetition would’ve been lost in a successive draft.
Other new-to-me pieces were the short stories “Tootie in Peonage” and “A Day in the Jungle,” which descends into a morass of believable anxiety almost hard to read. I also read one of the hilarious nonfiction stories, “Pajama Party,” (included in one of her books about her family, though I didn’t remember it); and two lectures — the first, “Experience and Fiction,” which seems to be a combination of parts of two other lectures (or vice versa) I’d previously read, and the last, “Notes for a Young Writer,” composed for one of Jackson's daughters. The latter contains solid writing tips, and I think it’s the only time I’ve heard a writer explicitly say it’s okay if what’s read out loud might sound unnatural, because you need to remember that you are writing to be read silently.
August 29, 2011
If I had to pick a favorite short story from this book I'd say all of them. All of the short stories wedged their creepy little fingers way back into my head and seem to have gotten a pretty good hold back there. Like I said in my update... Ms Jackson has this things about houses that just makes me fear these structures now. She makes me believe that houses are alive, breathing, and sometimes sinister things. I look for changes in my house. I listen to what it says. When I leave my house I lock the front gate so it doesn't run off.
Now my favorite part of the book are the lectures. In particular the one about her short story 'The Lottery'. I loved reading the correspondence this one little story generated. It shows how far we've come as a culture since 1948 where today we can write about almost anything and not shock the masses. This kind of scares me too... to a degree. I find people like Glenn Beck and stations like Fox news more disturbing than stoning a villager once a year.
I'm gonna finish Neil's book now and another book of short stories I started but have put off... then I'll move on to Borges. But Shirley Jackson will be sitting by me in spirit.
Now my favorite part of the book are the lectures. In particular the one about her short story 'The Lottery'. I loved reading the correspondence this one little story generated. It shows how far we've come as a culture since 1948 where today we can write about almost anything and not shock the masses. This kind of scares me too... to a degree. I find people like Glenn Beck and stations like Fox news more disturbing than stoning a villager once a year.
I'm gonna finish Neil's book now and another book of short stories I started but have put off... then I'll move on to Borges. But Shirley Jackson will be sitting by me in spirit.
September 17, 2020
It's hard to give this a proper rating -- on the one hand, we have the early beginnings of a novel that I desperately wish I could read; on the other, we have an assemblage of stories, some I already knew and some previously-uncollected. The novel has a hell of a hook and, as you might've guessed, I'm wrecked that Jackson died before she could really get into it. The stories are, well, they're Jackson stories and they're great. I particularly enjoyed the essay/lecture that leads into THE LOTTERY at the end of the book. But this is, ultimately, ephemera for the completists.
November 20, 2018
Somewhere among the musty, dusty memories of my childhood is the day that my mother gave me access to her bruised but well-loved paperback copy of “The Haunting of Hill House.” You have to understand that I was a precocious reader for a youngster, and my mother was not averse to letting me read books or stories that were well beyond my grade level in school, especially if she thought they were genuine pieces of literature that I would benefit from absorbing. I was also by this time noodling around in the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and a new writer on the horror scene…...some dude named Stephen King. And I also think that my mother must have figured that “Hill House” was a big literary step up from the comic books that I kept bringing into the house. And thus began my lifelong fascination with the works of Shirley Jackson, a fandom that I still pursue to this very day.
Jackson herself is a bit of a conundrum as a person. She was able to write gently humorous slice-of-life vignettes that centered around her real-life family, and yet she shunned most interview requests and lived a life apart from the established literary circuit of the time. Born in 1916, she lived to be only 48 years old, a victim of heart disease brought on by her weight and her heavy smoking habit. Her husband, the literary critic Stanley Hyman, was a bit on the controlling side, maintaining a tight grip on Jackson’s royalties from her writing. Hyman was also a serial philanderer, a situation that Jackson was not entirely happy with. Despite all of this, Jackson was a prolific novelist and short story writer, authoring six novels, two personal memoirs, and well over 200 works of short fiction and personal journalism. She remains an elusive yet highly influential figure within the realm of suspense and horror fiction.
Shirley Jackson’s biggest strength as a writer was her ability to convey a sense of discord within her stories. Her characters often populate a world where things are just the SLIGHTEST bit off-kilter, an ephemeral zone where odd things happen to seemingly normal people who have managed to sidestep their way into a universe that is vaguely sideways and a bit to the left of ours. Her novels and stories surely rank amongst the most cerebral and erudite in all of speculative fiction. You know that you are going to get an intelligent and inventive story every time that you crack open one of her excursions into the unusual.
“Come Along With Me” was the first collection of Jackson’s work to published posthumously. First released in 1968, this book includes the beginning of what was to be Jackson’s next novel, as well as 16 short stories and three lectures that she gave at colleges or conferences during her later years. I have a first edition Popular Library paperback printing in my collection, and that’s what I am reviewing here. It’s a bit of an uneven anthology, but it does give the reader who might otherwise be unfamiliar with Shirley Jackson a reasonable idea of what to expect upon digging deeper into her oeuvre.
“Come Along With Me” - According to Jackson’s husband, Stanley Hyman, this was the last story that Shirley was working on when she died. It’s little more than a fragment, though an interesting fragment it is. The theme is a familiar one in Jackson’s work, that of a woman making a new start by inventing a new persona and moving to a different town. But this woman obviously has a bag of secrets that would have made for a scintillating tale had Jackson lived to finish it.
“Janice” - Jackson’s first published short story, a brief piece of short horror about a girl who casually recounts her suicide attempt earlier in the day. It’s a well-crafted little two-page bang-up that would presage her career as a writer who would work in the dank netherworld of psychological terrors.
“Tootie in Peonage” - A social satire that hits the mark with bullseye accuracy. Tootie Maple is hired by Julia Taylor, the sort of upper middle-class housewife who longs for the prestige that comes with hiring “the help.” The problem is that Tootie is a lazy mess who would rather paint her toenails than clean the pots on her shift. An even bigger problem is that Julia is afraid of firing Tootie, who was the only applicant for the job in the first place. Sly comedy ensues.
“A Cauliflower in Her Hair” - Teenaged Virginia Garland brings home a friend for dinner, another girl named Millie. Millie catches the eye of elder statesman Mr. Garland, who pretty much leches over her in full view of the family. A kind of creepy story with rapey overtones. Proof that you don’t need supernatural horrors to creep you out when there are plenty of real-life predators running around, often right in front of our noses. Possibly a metaphor for the “open marriage” that Stanley Hyman insisted on, and that Jackson made uneasy agreement with.
“I Know Who I Love” - The sad story of one Catherine Vincent, a woman who has let life pass her by, and now must care for an ailing mother who never cared much to have a daughter in the first place. A rumination on life and missed opportunities.
“The Beautiful Stranger” - A woman is visited by the ghost of her dead husband, who appears to her as a lovely stranger inhabiting the physical form of her spouse. This is Shirley Jackson at her best as a writer of horror fiction. The prose is beautiful, the plot is layered, and the ending…..watch out for that ending….
“The Summer People” - An older couple decide to stay in their summer vacation rental beyond Labor Day. “No one’s ever done that before….” is the constant refrain from the locals, who don’t seem too keen on having visitors in the off season. Stories like this might get you to look at the fine print on that timeshare contract REAL closely……
“Island” - The sad reality of an old woman’s life means that she must escape her daily torment by imagining herself alone on an island. A harsh account of a life near its end, and maybe that final escape won’t be so bad after all.
“A Visit (for Dylan Thomas)” - Hands down the finest piece of Gothic horror that I have ever read. Multifaceted and layered, this story achieves a level of sinister beauty and dark, eldritch dread like nothing I have ever read before. Truly a masterpiece. You should seek out this book JUST FOR THIS STORY.
“The Rock” - Paula Ellison, her ailing brother Paul, and his wife Virginia find themselves vacationing on a remote island called “The Rock.” They are joined by Mrs. Carter, the landlady, and another guest, the mysterious Mr. Johnson. This is another one of those stories that really keeps you on your toes, as reality slowly recedes and Mr. Johnson’s REAL purpose on “The Rock” becomes clear……
“A Day in The Jungle” - Yet another of Jackson’s tales of a woman seeking a new life and a new identity. Elsa Dayton takes off her wedding ring and leaves her husband, heading to the big city in the hopes of starting over. But of course, things never go as planned in a Shirley Jackson story. I really do think that the idea of leaving a life behind in favor of reinventing the self must have been one that Jackson must have relished. Perhaps her marital troubles were at the root of this, perhaps her health. I don’t really know. All I know is that this is a recurring theme in her dramas that surely must have been some kind of a reflection of her subconscious.
“Pajama Party” - Jackson didn’t just write suspense and horror. She also wrote a lot of domestic tales that were barely fictionalized accounts of her “life among the savages.” This was her shorthand for the funny and heartwarming stories of life with her husband and children. Not to be confused with Erma Bombeck, who mined a similar literary vein with much less style and a much weaker vocabulary.
“Louisa, Please Come Home” - Yet another story of a runaway girl who moves to a new town to establish a new identity. This one is a real case of “you can’t really go home again.” Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
“The Little House” - A young woman inherits her dead Aunt’s house, and makes lovely plans to make this new abode her own. But the neighbors have other ideas……
“The Bus” - Old Miss Harper steps onto the late-night bus to….The Twilight Zone? The Outer Limits? This is a pretty scary story, maybe the closest that Jackson will ever come to letting the boogeyman out of the closet and letting him wrap his arms around one of her characters. Very effective, very creepy.
“Experience and Fiction” - A lecture in how to take story elements from everyday life and apply them to plot construction. Nice information for aspiring writers, revealing information for fans.
“The Night We All Had Grippe” - Grippe is an old medical term for influenza. This is another of Jackson’s domestic romps that details a night spent changing beds and losing pillows, as every member of the household must deal with snuffly noses and high fevers.
“Biography of a Story” - A lecture piece where Jackson describes in great detail the public reaction to her short story, “The Lottery,” first published in “The New Yorker.” I’m not sure which is scarier, the story itself or the letters that Jackson received in the wake of the initial publication. Proof positive that the American public has ALWAYS had a bit of trouble separating reality from fantasy. Fake news, indeed.
“The Lottery” - Jackson’s most famous story, a sort of tongue-in-cheek play on a theme that “The Wicker Man” would later flesh out in greater detail. I can see why folks were disturbed by this one. Worse yet, “The New Yorker” didn’t label this as fiction when it first came out. So people assumed…..and you KNOW what happens when you assume……
“Notes For A Young Writer” - More “how-to” from Jackson, as she tackles the best ways to keep your audience interested once you have them hooked. She doesn’t have to convince me.
At the end of the day, “Come Along With Me” is a solid introduction to Shirley Jackson for people who might not otherwise be familiar with her work. Most of the stories in this collection had never been anthologized before, and the lecture pieces are interesting and a bit revealing. Jackson’s big strengths are her liquid prose and her ability to put the reader into a state of “believing the unbelievable.” She was a truly unique writer and her legacy certainly wasn’t tarnished by this posthumous release.
FINIS
Jackson herself is a bit of a conundrum as a person. She was able to write gently humorous slice-of-life vignettes that centered around her real-life family, and yet she shunned most interview requests and lived a life apart from the established literary circuit of the time. Born in 1916, she lived to be only 48 years old, a victim of heart disease brought on by her weight and her heavy smoking habit. Her husband, the literary critic Stanley Hyman, was a bit on the controlling side, maintaining a tight grip on Jackson’s royalties from her writing. Hyman was also a serial philanderer, a situation that Jackson was not entirely happy with. Despite all of this, Jackson was a prolific novelist and short story writer, authoring six novels, two personal memoirs, and well over 200 works of short fiction and personal journalism. She remains an elusive yet highly influential figure within the realm of suspense and horror fiction.
Shirley Jackson’s biggest strength as a writer was her ability to convey a sense of discord within her stories. Her characters often populate a world where things are just the SLIGHTEST bit off-kilter, an ephemeral zone where odd things happen to seemingly normal people who have managed to sidestep their way into a universe that is vaguely sideways and a bit to the left of ours. Her novels and stories surely rank amongst the most cerebral and erudite in all of speculative fiction. You know that you are going to get an intelligent and inventive story every time that you crack open one of her excursions into the unusual.
“Come Along With Me” was the first collection of Jackson’s work to published posthumously. First released in 1968, this book includes the beginning of what was to be Jackson’s next novel, as well as 16 short stories and three lectures that she gave at colleges or conferences during her later years. I have a first edition Popular Library paperback printing in my collection, and that’s what I am reviewing here. It’s a bit of an uneven anthology, but it does give the reader who might otherwise be unfamiliar with Shirley Jackson a reasonable idea of what to expect upon digging deeper into her oeuvre.
“Come Along With Me” - According to Jackson’s husband, Stanley Hyman, this was the last story that Shirley was working on when she died. It’s little more than a fragment, though an interesting fragment it is. The theme is a familiar one in Jackson’s work, that of a woman making a new start by inventing a new persona and moving to a different town. But this woman obviously has a bag of secrets that would have made for a scintillating tale had Jackson lived to finish it.
“Janice” - Jackson’s first published short story, a brief piece of short horror about a girl who casually recounts her suicide attempt earlier in the day. It’s a well-crafted little two-page bang-up that would presage her career as a writer who would work in the dank netherworld of psychological terrors.
“Tootie in Peonage” - A social satire that hits the mark with bullseye accuracy. Tootie Maple is hired by Julia Taylor, the sort of upper middle-class housewife who longs for the prestige that comes with hiring “the help.” The problem is that Tootie is a lazy mess who would rather paint her toenails than clean the pots on her shift. An even bigger problem is that Julia is afraid of firing Tootie, who was the only applicant for the job in the first place. Sly comedy ensues.
“A Cauliflower in Her Hair” - Teenaged Virginia Garland brings home a friend for dinner, another girl named Millie. Millie catches the eye of elder statesman Mr. Garland, who pretty much leches over her in full view of the family. A kind of creepy story with rapey overtones. Proof that you don’t need supernatural horrors to creep you out when there are plenty of real-life predators running around, often right in front of our noses. Possibly a metaphor for the “open marriage” that Stanley Hyman insisted on, and that Jackson made uneasy agreement with.
“I Know Who I Love” - The sad story of one Catherine Vincent, a woman who has let life pass her by, and now must care for an ailing mother who never cared much to have a daughter in the first place. A rumination on life and missed opportunities.
“The Beautiful Stranger” - A woman is visited by the ghost of her dead husband, who appears to her as a lovely stranger inhabiting the physical form of her spouse. This is Shirley Jackson at her best as a writer of horror fiction. The prose is beautiful, the plot is layered, and the ending…..watch out for that ending….
“The Summer People” - An older couple decide to stay in their summer vacation rental beyond Labor Day. “No one’s ever done that before….” is the constant refrain from the locals, who don’t seem too keen on having visitors in the off season. Stories like this might get you to look at the fine print on that timeshare contract REAL closely……
“Island” - The sad reality of an old woman’s life means that she must escape her daily torment by imagining herself alone on an island. A harsh account of a life near its end, and maybe that final escape won’t be so bad after all.
“A Visit (for Dylan Thomas)” - Hands down the finest piece of Gothic horror that I have ever read. Multifaceted and layered, this story achieves a level of sinister beauty and dark, eldritch dread like nothing I have ever read before. Truly a masterpiece. You should seek out this book JUST FOR THIS STORY.
“The Rock” - Paula Ellison, her ailing brother Paul, and his wife Virginia find themselves vacationing on a remote island called “The Rock.” They are joined by Mrs. Carter, the landlady, and another guest, the mysterious Mr. Johnson. This is another one of those stories that really keeps you on your toes, as reality slowly recedes and Mr. Johnson’s REAL purpose on “The Rock” becomes clear……
“A Day in The Jungle” - Yet another of Jackson’s tales of a woman seeking a new life and a new identity. Elsa Dayton takes off her wedding ring and leaves her husband, heading to the big city in the hopes of starting over. But of course, things never go as planned in a Shirley Jackson story. I really do think that the idea of leaving a life behind in favor of reinventing the self must have been one that Jackson must have relished. Perhaps her marital troubles were at the root of this, perhaps her health. I don’t really know. All I know is that this is a recurring theme in her dramas that surely must have been some kind of a reflection of her subconscious.
“Pajama Party” - Jackson didn’t just write suspense and horror. She also wrote a lot of domestic tales that were barely fictionalized accounts of her “life among the savages.” This was her shorthand for the funny and heartwarming stories of life with her husband and children. Not to be confused with Erma Bombeck, who mined a similar literary vein with much less style and a much weaker vocabulary.
“Louisa, Please Come Home” - Yet another story of a runaway girl who moves to a new town to establish a new identity. This one is a real case of “you can’t really go home again.” Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
“The Little House” - A young woman inherits her dead Aunt’s house, and makes lovely plans to make this new abode her own. But the neighbors have other ideas……
“The Bus” - Old Miss Harper steps onto the late-night bus to….The Twilight Zone? The Outer Limits? This is a pretty scary story, maybe the closest that Jackson will ever come to letting the boogeyman out of the closet and letting him wrap his arms around one of her characters. Very effective, very creepy.
“Experience and Fiction” - A lecture in how to take story elements from everyday life and apply them to plot construction. Nice information for aspiring writers, revealing information for fans.
“The Night We All Had Grippe” - Grippe is an old medical term for influenza. This is another of Jackson’s domestic romps that details a night spent changing beds and losing pillows, as every member of the household must deal with snuffly noses and high fevers.
“Biography of a Story” - A lecture piece where Jackson describes in great detail the public reaction to her short story, “The Lottery,” first published in “The New Yorker.” I’m not sure which is scarier, the story itself or the letters that Jackson received in the wake of the initial publication. Proof positive that the American public has ALWAYS had a bit of trouble separating reality from fantasy. Fake news, indeed.
“The Lottery” - Jackson’s most famous story, a sort of tongue-in-cheek play on a theme that “The Wicker Man” would later flesh out in greater detail. I can see why folks were disturbed by this one. Worse yet, “The New Yorker” didn’t label this as fiction when it first came out. So people assumed…..and you KNOW what happens when you assume……
“Notes For A Young Writer” - More “how-to” from Jackson, as she tackles the best ways to keep your audience interested once you have them hooked. She doesn’t have to convince me.
At the end of the day, “Come Along With Me” is a solid introduction to Shirley Jackson for people who might not otherwise be familiar with her work. Most of the stories in this collection had never been anthologized before, and the lecture pieces are interesting and a bit revealing. Jackson’s big strengths are her liquid prose and her ability to put the reader into a state of “believing the unbelievable.” She was a truly unique writer and her legacy certainly wasn’t tarnished by this posthumous release.
FINIS
January 7, 2018
This is a collection of short stories that include an unfinished story because of her death, her most famous story, and lectures where she describes her career.
It seems like whenever I read an anthology my rating always ends up being a three star rating. I like some stories and some I do not. This was my introduction to this writer and I don't think she is for me. She does a terrific job with the atmosphere and being cryptic. But therein lies the problem too. It was a little too cryptic for my taste. Often a story would end with the air of mystery surrounding it. This works for her famous story "The Lottery" but often it left me unfulfilled. Maybe she chose this way of writing because of the short story format and there is a limited amount of space for a story. The part of the book I enjoyed the most were her lectures. I was amazed by the aftermath of the publication of "The Lottery".
Once again, an anthology receives a three star rating from me. At least I am consistent. I can see why readers love her work but it wasn't for me. I might try one of her novels as maybe I am not "getting it" because of the short story format.
It seems like whenever I read an anthology my rating always ends up being a three star rating. I like some stories and some I do not. This was my introduction to this writer and I don't think she is for me. She does a terrific job with the atmosphere and being cryptic. But therein lies the problem too. It was a little too cryptic for my taste. Often a story would end with the air of mystery surrounding it. This works for her famous story "The Lottery" but often it left me unfulfilled. Maybe she chose this way of writing because of the short story format and there is a limited amount of space for a story. The part of the book I enjoyed the most were her lectures. I was amazed by the aftermath of the publication of "The Lottery".
Once again, an anthology receives a three star rating from me. At least I am consistent. I can see why readers love her work but it wasn't for me. I might try one of her novels as maybe I am not "getting it" because of the short story format.
February 6, 2017
Be careful when someone invites you to their house during the summer holidays.
February 7, 2017
I'm doing a lifetime book challenge where you read one book from each year since you were born. I chose this book for 1968 because I wanted to include a Shirley Jackson and the rest of her books were published before I was born. This collection was released posthumously. As for her previously work, I can highly recommend "The Haunting of Hill House", "We Have Always Lived in the Castle", and "The Lottery and Other Stories".
This volume is a mishmash collection including some lectures/essays, a partially finished novel, and various short stories.
Come Along With Me -- This is part of a novel that Ms. Jackson was working on when she died (at the way too young age of 48). It's about 4 chapters or so. It's interesting and I was just really getting into it when it abruptly ended. In the story, a woman has moved to a strange town after her husband died, and her internal voice is a little crazy. It's unclear why she decided to move and change her name, but she claims to be a psychic and holds one seance just before the book ends. I would love to know where the author intended to go with this story, if the woman really saw ghosts or just thought she did. As it is, it's a bit frustrating.
My favorite stories:
The Beautiful Stranger - 5 stars
It seems to me I read this long ago. Wonderful example of Shirley Jackson's understated suburban horror/squirmyness. A woman is sure her husband is a stranger when he comes home from a trip.
The Summer People - 5 stars
Probably the most outright horror story in the book. The story ends before the worst happens, but it's the slow built up that is so creepy. Fantastic!
Louisa, Please Come Home -- 4 stars
A young woman deliberately vanishes from her family and home, moving away under a new identity and building a new life. We never learn why she felt compelled to do this--there was no abuse or reason, it was simply a compulsion perhaps. There's not a big scary ending, it's more a subtle tale on identity and the slippery nature thereof.
The Bus -- 4 stars
This is the last short story in the volume and echoes the "lost from home" theme in many of the others. An older woman is trying to get home on a bus and falls asleep. The driver wakes her and puts her out at "her stop", but after the bus leaves she realizes she's in the middle of nowhere. She is picked up by a truck and taken to an old house which is a converted road house, but it reminds her of the home she grew up in. The story is creepy throughout and the ending was a little more concrete than others. At least I thought I understood what was going on!
Biography of a Story & The Lottery -- 5 stars
The Biography of a Story is an essay by Jackson on the reception "The Lottery" received, including excerpts from many letters she got from the reading public. In short, everyone hated the story and some were outraged and angry and others tried to figure out the story's meaning. As a writer myself, I found this fascinating to read. "The Lottery" is included, and since it's been years since I read it, I enjoyed experiencing it again. Definitely hard-core creepy and quite relevant today. Deservedly considered a masterpiece.
Other Stories:
Janice -- Super short, basically dialog. Not much meat. 2 stars.
Tootie in Peonage -- This is a very odd story that seemed to be about racism? Or it was racist? It's about a lazy servant and the family that can't get rid of her. 1 star.
A Cauliflower in Her Hair - Also very short - a young girl has a friend over for dinner and her dad likes her a little too much. Vaguely creepy. 3 stars.
I Know Who I Love - 2 stars. I wasn't sure what to make of this. Sort of an odd and sad little character study.
Island - 3 stars. Another sad slice of life / character study about an old lady and her companion. Nothing much happens but it's got a nice melancholia. I liked the imagery of what was going on in the old lady's head.
A Visit - 3 stars. A young girl is spending the summer with a school friend in a huge and fantastic old house. Or is she? There's lots of reflections and repeated images of the house and an old aunt in a tower. I confess, I'm not sure the meaning of this. Is the girl dead? I would have liked more hints.
The Rock - 3 stars. Another bleak and lonely setting, this time a rocky island with a mysterious old man. Is he a ghost? Is he death? Once more the story is creepy and unsettling, but I wasn't sure what it meant precisely.
A Day in the Jungle - 3 stars. This is another story of a woman who runs away from her home and husband and attempts to take on a new identity in a nearby town. We never understand why she left her husband, though she seems a little unhinged initially and becomes very much so at the end. By the time she meets up with her husband, she's relieved because she's become so afraid of everything and he's a safe harbor. So many of Jackson's heroine are just not quite right in the head that a vague/dreamy way.
Pajama Party- 2 stars. This isn't horror and reads more like one of Ms. Jackson's cute family stories. A family is having a slumber party for their daughter's birthday. Sort of amusing, I suppose, but not my thing.
This Little House - 3 stars. A young woman inherits her aunt's house after her death and meets some rather insidious neighbors. This was enjoyable but very short and uneventful.
Overall:
So many of these stories are about women escaping their suburban/domestic prisons only to realize that running away to a new life doesn't save them. There's a consistent theme of the rubbery nature of identity, with one "fake" spouse and other escapees changing their name and trying to vanish. In one case, when an escapee tries to go back to her original reality, she is no longer recognized and everyone thinks she's an imposter. I'm not sure why this theme of escape and identity seemed to haunt Ms. Jackson to the extent that she wrote it over and over again. I know she was married to a literary critic and professor and had four children. Did part of her long for escape from her role as housewife? I can completely understand that, if so.
There's also a subtle edge of insanity in many of her characters. When we're in their heads, their narration is just left of center, which instills that creepy vibe. Many of these characters reminded me of Nell in "The Haunting of Hill House", who was definitely whacked.
The other thing I noticed was that all over her stories have a creepy overtone but few have any kind of real "end" in the end. Often there is very little action either, more of a slice of life and internal dialog. I suppose this is inherent in the short story form, to some extent, since the stories are too short to have much of a plot. Most of the stories are left off vaguely so that you wonder if you understood the story at all, or if it was an allegory or what. In many cases this isn't satisfying to me--I tend to be a more literal reader and I want something to happen. That may be why I prefer her novels, and, in the case of this collection, I liked best the stories that had at least some plot movement.
Having said that, I find that not showing the horror play out works brilliantly in "The Lottery" and "The Summer People". In those stories, it's clear at the end what's about to happen, and there's some plot movement, but you don't see the gory details. I think leaving the monster to the imagination is highly effective.
One more note: In the included essay "Notes for a Young Writer", Jackson writes "Do not try to puzzle your reader unnecessarily; a puzzled reader is an antagonistic reader." This made me smile because I found a number of the stories in this volume puzzling and not very clear, and that seems to be their charm.
Overall rating - 4 stars
This volume is a mishmash collection including some lectures/essays, a partially finished novel, and various short stories.
Come Along With Me -- This is part of a novel that Ms. Jackson was working on when she died (at the way too young age of 48). It's about 4 chapters or so. It's interesting and I was just really getting into it when it abruptly ended. In the story, a woman has moved to a strange town after her husband died, and her internal voice is a little crazy. It's unclear why she decided to move and change her name, but she claims to be a psychic and holds one seance just before the book ends. I would love to know where the author intended to go with this story, if the woman really saw ghosts or just thought she did. As it is, it's a bit frustrating.
My favorite stories:
The Beautiful Stranger - 5 stars
It seems to me I read this long ago. Wonderful example of Shirley Jackson's understated suburban horror/squirmyness. A woman is sure her husband is a stranger when he comes home from a trip.
The Summer People - 5 stars
Probably the most outright horror story in the book. The story ends before the worst happens, but it's the slow built up that is so creepy. Fantastic!
Louisa, Please Come Home -- 4 stars
A young woman deliberately vanishes from her family and home, moving away under a new identity and building a new life. We never learn why she felt compelled to do this--there was no abuse or reason, it was simply a compulsion perhaps. There's not a big scary ending, it's more a subtle tale on identity and the slippery nature thereof.
The Bus -- 4 stars
This is the last short story in the volume and echoes the "lost from home" theme in many of the others. An older woman is trying to get home on a bus and falls asleep. The driver wakes her and puts her out at "her stop", but after the bus leaves she realizes she's in the middle of nowhere. She is picked up by a truck and taken to an old house which is a converted road house, but it reminds her of the home she grew up in. The story is creepy throughout and the ending was a little more concrete than others. At least I thought I understood what was going on!
Biography of a Story & The Lottery -- 5 stars
The Biography of a Story is an essay by Jackson on the reception "The Lottery" received, including excerpts from many letters she got from the reading public. In short, everyone hated the story and some were outraged and angry and others tried to figure out the story's meaning. As a writer myself, I found this fascinating to read. "The Lottery" is included, and since it's been years since I read it, I enjoyed experiencing it again. Definitely hard-core creepy and quite relevant today. Deservedly considered a masterpiece.
Other Stories:
Janice -- Super short, basically dialog. Not much meat. 2 stars.
Tootie in Peonage -- This is a very odd story that seemed to be about racism? Or it was racist? It's about a lazy servant and the family that can't get rid of her. 1 star.
A Cauliflower in Her Hair - Also very short - a young girl has a friend over for dinner and her dad likes her a little too much. Vaguely creepy. 3 stars.
I Know Who I Love - 2 stars. I wasn't sure what to make of this. Sort of an odd and sad little character study.
Island - 3 stars. Another sad slice of life / character study about an old lady and her companion. Nothing much happens but it's got a nice melancholia. I liked the imagery of what was going on in the old lady's head.
A Visit - 3 stars. A young girl is spending the summer with a school friend in a huge and fantastic old house. Or is she? There's lots of reflections and repeated images of the house and an old aunt in a tower. I confess, I'm not sure the meaning of this. Is the girl dead? I would have liked more hints.
The Rock - 3 stars. Another bleak and lonely setting, this time a rocky island with a mysterious old man. Is he a ghost? Is he death? Once more the story is creepy and unsettling, but I wasn't sure what it meant precisely.
A Day in the Jungle - 3 stars. This is another story of a woman who runs away from her home and husband and attempts to take on a new identity in a nearby town. We never understand why she left her husband, though she seems a little unhinged initially and becomes very much so at the end. By the time she meets up with her husband, she's relieved because she's become so afraid of everything and he's a safe harbor. So many of Jackson's heroine are just not quite right in the head that a vague/dreamy way.
Pajama Party- 2 stars. This isn't horror and reads more like one of Ms. Jackson's cute family stories. A family is having a slumber party for their daughter's birthday. Sort of amusing, I suppose, but not my thing.
This Little House - 3 stars. A young woman inherits her aunt's house after her death and meets some rather insidious neighbors. This was enjoyable but very short and uneventful.
Overall:
So many of these stories are about women escaping their suburban/domestic prisons only to realize that running away to a new life doesn't save them. There's a consistent theme of the rubbery nature of identity, with one "fake" spouse and other escapees changing their name and trying to vanish. In one case, when an escapee tries to go back to her original reality, she is no longer recognized and everyone thinks she's an imposter. I'm not sure why this theme of escape and identity seemed to haunt Ms. Jackson to the extent that she wrote it over and over again. I know she was married to a literary critic and professor and had four children. Did part of her long for escape from her role as housewife? I can completely understand that, if so.
There's also a subtle edge of insanity in many of her characters. When we're in their heads, their narration is just left of center, which instills that creepy vibe. Many of these characters reminded me of Nell in "The Haunting of Hill House", who was definitely whacked.
The other thing I noticed was that all over her stories have a creepy overtone but few have any kind of real "end" in the end. Often there is very little action either, more of a slice of life and internal dialog. I suppose this is inherent in the short story form, to some extent, since the stories are too short to have much of a plot. Most of the stories are left off vaguely so that you wonder if you understood the story at all, or if it was an allegory or what. In many cases this isn't satisfying to me--I tend to be a more literal reader and I want something to happen. That may be why I prefer her novels, and, in the case of this collection, I liked best the stories that had at least some plot movement.
Having said that, I find that not showing the horror play out works brilliantly in "The Lottery" and "The Summer People". In those stories, it's clear at the end what's about to happen, and there's some plot movement, but you don't see the gory details. I think leaving the monster to the imagination is highly effective.
One more note: In the included essay "Notes for a Young Writer", Jackson writes "Do not try to puzzle your reader unnecessarily; a puzzled reader is an antagonistic reader." This made me smile because I found a number of the stories in this volume puzzling and not very clear, and that seems to be their charm.
Overall rating - 4 stars
April 12, 2008
Thinking this was an actual novel, I was surprised when I started to find it was actually a compilation of an unfinished novel (only a taste of what had been completed before Shirley Jackson's death), 16 stories, and three essays. The title unfinished novel is heartbreaking in the sense that the first three chapters are wonderful, and it would have been nice had she been able to go as far with the novel as she had wanted. The short stories are classic Jackson - I had forgotten that prior to reading The Haunting of Hill House I had read several short stories by her, and reading Come Along With Me reminded me just how powerful her stories can be. Her small-town stories are possibly the best I've ever read and I could not help but think of Flannery O'Connor while reading them. She was a master of all sorts of stories, from the ghoulish to the creepy to the real. In with the essays is "Biography of a Story" which is her explanation of her experience writing and the aftermath of her most vivid short story, "The Lottery".
Jackson's strength, so far in what I have read, has been in short stories as opposed to novels. While Come Along With Me was unfinished, it read like a short story and was able to retain that short story mystique that so many of her other stories possess. I was reminded while reading this collection that The Haunting of Hill House did not feel perfect-enough for me, and I think this may be difference. Short stories, when done correctly, can pack a more powerful punch, and Jackson managed to always punch with her stories. Until I read another (complete) novel, I'll reserve further judgment.
Jackson's strength, so far in what I have read, has been in short stories as opposed to novels. While Come Along With Me was unfinished, it read like a short story and was able to retain that short story mystique that so many of her other stories possess. I was reminded while reading this collection that The Haunting of Hill House did not feel perfect-enough for me, and I think this may be difference. Short stories, when done correctly, can pack a more powerful punch, and Jackson managed to always punch with her stories. Until I read another (complete) novel, I'll reserve further judgment.
December 12, 2017
These stories are mixed. Some of them, like the grippe one, are funny. Family funny.
But others are so close to a psychosis perception that they are chilling. When meant to be just descriptive event or period or place scenarios? Or not. One day on a bus, or conversations with the boardinghouse lady etc. Remembering a day with a friend. Husband or nanny known nostalgia. And most of those are bordering on not just supernatural or "medium seer" skills but clearly dwell too in hallucination experience territory.
She could write a scary tale. I wonder if all were meant to be?
But others are so close to a psychosis perception that they are chilling. When meant to be just descriptive event or period or place scenarios? Or not. One day on a bus, or conversations with the boardinghouse lady etc. Remembering a day with a friend. Husband or nanny known nostalgia. And most of those are bordering on not just supernatural or "medium seer" skills but clearly dwell too in hallucination experience territory.
She could write a scary tale. I wonder if all were meant to be?
April 9, 2010
When Jackson writes about hauntings or murders you can pretend that you are reading about the unusual. You don't have that luxury with these short stories. Here the quotidian cruelties, the pettiness, the dishonesty and selfishness of ordinary people are not softened by the distracting gloss of insanity and horror.
June 5, 2020
Oh Shirley Jackson, you've got my back, always! Complexity, irony, ambiguity... I remember you even have a story titled "Seven Types of Ambiguity", in a different collection. I thought I fancied your creepy tales only, but at this point I cannot distinguish which is which. I guess I'll be reading you till I die.
October 10, 2023
This collection of shorts stories and essays by Shirley Jackson, compiled by her husband, is a dark gem. I've read most of her other collection, The Lottery and Other Stories, but I found this volume far more penetrating. (Vague spoiler ahead)
There is a story in this book called The Rock, so named by Jackson's husband who found the story untitled in one of her boxes of papers she never had published and presumably didn't plan to have published. It is one of the most unsettling few pages I've read, and left me in a state of total bewilderment, the more so for the fact that it seems never to have been intended for the public to see. There is indeed a ghost in this story, but it's hiding in such plain sight and in so mundane a setting that it crept up on me before I knew what I was actually reading, and I had to go back and find out at what point the situation began to warp, and what the figure's presence and behavior were supposed to mean. Again, as in many of Jackson's stories, the presence grows seamlessly out of the state of mind of the protagonist. Shirley Jackson's meticulous description of household objects, windows, tables, kitchens, living rooms, all strike me as becoming literally bent by the mind of the narrator who has a serious emotional problem. The dialogue then, while remaining so ordinary on the surface, begins to take on a sinister undertone of what I can only describe as a kind of paranoia. This is true of The Summer People, The Beautiful Stranger, The Bus, and Louisa, Please Come Home, among others.
The Summer People, one of my favorite Shirley Jackson stories, is a perfect example of how Jackson swells the surface tension slowly but surely in the course of a few pages. In this case through a chant-like, hypnotic repetition of a few comments and remarks from the local inhabitants of a small town, directed at a couple from the city who wish to prolong their stay past Labor Day. As in her legendary story The Lottery, she builds a very subtle atmosphere of oppression and menace at the root of which seems to lie her view of small town mentality and its tacit sense of conspiracy toward outsiders. What I love about her stories is that the surface tension is never ruptured. She never shows you the horror, she is content to stretch your nerves to breaking point, but never raises the curtain, so to speak. Some readers might find this unfulfilling, but I come away from her stories with a sense of the mysterious which can never be dispelled, because she has effectively trapped the mystery whole within the pages of her story, so that it can never grow stale.
This book is also extraordinary for its essays on writing (in the form of Jackson's letter of advice to her daughter, for instance), on the fallout from The Lottery at the time of its publication and Jackson's steadfast refusal to explain the story away, and her essay on what moved her to research and write the legendary Haunting of Hill House. This latter essay gives the reader a stunning glimpse into how a writer of powerful horror and mystery could actually be more frightened and impressionable than any of her readers. It is obvious that she was a highly sensitive person, and that her gift for storytelling was her channel and her saving grace, without which her anxiety would have been overwhelming. Being able to turn an affliction like hers into art is, for me, the best example of alchemy there is.
There is a story in this book called The Rock, so named by Jackson's husband who found the story untitled in one of her boxes of papers she never had published and presumably didn't plan to have published. It is one of the most unsettling few pages I've read, and left me in a state of total bewilderment, the more so for the fact that it seems never to have been intended for the public to see. There is indeed a ghost in this story, but it's hiding in such plain sight and in so mundane a setting that it crept up on me before I knew what I was actually reading, and I had to go back and find out at what point the situation began to warp, and what the figure's presence and behavior were supposed to mean. Again, as in many of Jackson's stories, the presence grows seamlessly out of the state of mind of the protagonist. Shirley Jackson's meticulous description of household objects, windows, tables, kitchens, living rooms, all strike me as becoming literally bent by the mind of the narrator who has a serious emotional problem. The dialogue then, while remaining so ordinary on the surface, begins to take on a sinister undertone of what I can only describe as a kind of paranoia. This is true of The Summer People, The Beautiful Stranger, The Bus, and Louisa, Please Come Home, among others.
The Summer People, one of my favorite Shirley Jackson stories, is a perfect example of how Jackson swells the surface tension slowly but surely in the course of a few pages. In this case through a chant-like, hypnotic repetition of a few comments and remarks from the local inhabitants of a small town, directed at a couple from the city who wish to prolong their stay past Labor Day. As in her legendary story The Lottery, she builds a very subtle atmosphere of oppression and menace at the root of which seems to lie her view of small town mentality and its tacit sense of conspiracy toward outsiders. What I love about her stories is that the surface tension is never ruptured. She never shows you the horror, she is content to stretch your nerves to breaking point, but never raises the curtain, so to speak. Some readers might find this unfulfilling, but I come away from her stories with a sense of the mysterious which can never be dispelled, because she has effectively trapped the mystery whole within the pages of her story, so that it can never grow stale.
This book is also extraordinary for its essays on writing (in the form of Jackson's letter of advice to her daughter, for instance), on the fallout from The Lottery at the time of its publication and Jackson's steadfast refusal to explain the story away, and her essay on what moved her to research and write the legendary Haunting of Hill House. This latter essay gives the reader a stunning glimpse into how a writer of powerful horror and mystery could actually be more frightened and impressionable than any of her readers. It is obvious that she was a highly sensitive person, and that her gift for storytelling was her channel and her saving grace, without which her anxiety would have been overwhelming. Being able to turn an affliction like hers into art is, for me, the best example of alchemy there is.
December 12, 2013
A short story collection published posthumously by Shirley Jackson's husband. The title story, Come Along With Me, is apparently the initial few chapters of a novel left uncompleted. The concept of the story captivated me. It is by far the strongest element of the collection. A middleaged, devoted, farm wife is suddenly widowed. She opts to sell/cash out absolutely everything she owns and sets off with no destination in mind, no plans. She even abandons her name. Everything from there on is decided by pure chance, whimsy. The concept appeals to me imensely. I even made up a new name for myself shortly after reading this story. . . . . Olivia Paloma. I have always liked the name Olivia and Paloma is the name of a nearby street. Easy. Had she completed this work I am certain it would have been one of her best works. There is another short story in this collection about a young girl who runs away from home and makes a new life. Kind of makes one wonder about Shirley Jackson's interest in creating a new self. Four stars as the collection is a bit uneven. Leftovers, but of the best possible sort.
April 15, 2015
Not her best collection of short stories but they're ok, it's still Shirley.
October 3, 2021
Lots of thoughts on this slim volume of short stories from Shirley Jackson.
The first is just amazement at how skilled Jackson was of creating existential dread in menace without actually ever resorting to actual violence (the closing sentences of ‘The Lottery’ being a notable exception.
Jackson’s terror is found deep within the recesses of our own psyches.
Whether it’s a story about a woman who runs away from home only to find out that going home again, willingly or unwillingly, isn’t as easy as it seems, or about a woman running from her past and crafting a new identity, or an elderly retired couple who decide to stay a little longer at their summer cottage rather than return to the city, only to discover that when your escape becomes your everyday, it loses a little of its magic.
All of these stories share a theme of escape from the monotony of everyday life as well the often crushing realization that you can never quite outrun your own shadow.
One of the most interesting sections of this book is not a story but rather a Jackson essay about initial reader reactions to her story “The Lottery”.
When she first published this story of a small town that holds a yearly, mysterious, “lottery”, the reaction was swift and the condemnation was seemingly universal. That in and of itself is not unusual perhaps. Getting a reader to react to what you write is surely a high form of praise. What interested me however is looking at the criticism circa 1948, and how it’s vitriol shocked Jackson to her core.
“Was the sole purpose just to give the reader a nasty impact?”
“Anyone who seeks to communicate with the public should be at least be lucid”
“I resent being tricked into reading perverted stories like The Lottery”
“Couldn’t the story have been a trifle esoteric, even for the New Yorker?”
Esoteric, lucid, trifle...look at those adjectives that disturbed Jackson and consider what the reaction today would be! Can you imagine any ‘vitriol’ directed at a stranger via Twitter or Facebook being this genteel and generally lacking in ad hominem attacks? It made me wonder how far as a society we’ve degenerated in the last 60 years to the point that such eloquent criticism seems almost inconceivable today.
As such, these stories for me at least were not only highly entertaining and thought provoking, but also a time capsule of sorts into an era that seems far more distant than 1948.
The first is just amazement at how skilled Jackson was of creating existential dread in menace without actually ever resorting to actual violence (the closing sentences of ‘The Lottery’ being a notable exception.
Jackson’s terror is found deep within the recesses of our own psyches.
Whether it’s a story about a woman who runs away from home only to find out that going home again, willingly or unwillingly, isn’t as easy as it seems, or about a woman running from her past and crafting a new identity, or an elderly retired couple who decide to stay a little longer at their summer cottage rather than return to the city, only to discover that when your escape becomes your everyday, it loses a little of its magic.
All of these stories share a theme of escape from the monotony of everyday life as well the often crushing realization that you can never quite outrun your own shadow.
One of the most interesting sections of this book is not a story but rather a Jackson essay about initial reader reactions to her story “The Lottery”.
When she first published this story of a small town that holds a yearly, mysterious, “lottery”, the reaction was swift and the condemnation was seemingly universal. That in and of itself is not unusual perhaps. Getting a reader to react to what you write is surely a high form of praise. What interested me however is looking at the criticism circa 1948, and how it’s vitriol shocked Jackson to her core.
“Was the sole purpose just to give the reader a nasty impact?”
“Anyone who seeks to communicate with the public should be at least be lucid”
“I resent being tricked into reading perverted stories like The Lottery”
“Couldn’t the story have been a trifle esoteric, even for the New Yorker?”
Esoteric, lucid, trifle...look at those adjectives that disturbed Jackson and consider what the reaction today would be! Can you imagine any ‘vitriol’ directed at a stranger via Twitter or Facebook being this genteel and generally lacking in ad hominem attacks? It made me wonder how far as a society we’ve degenerated in the last 60 years to the point that such eloquent criticism seems almost inconceivable today.
As such, these stories for me at least were not only highly entertaining and thought provoking, but also a time capsule of sorts into an era that seems far more distant than 1948.
May 16, 2013
This posthumous collection starts with the title story, which is the beginning of the novel Jackson was working on when she died. If there is a heaven, and I get to go there, and Shirley Jackson is there, one of the first things I will do is find her and have her tell me what happens next. Breathtakingly brilliant.
Following that, there are fourteen previously uncollected stories, all great. The best way I can describe them to the uninitiated is to have you imagine the world of "Mad Men," all those people who live normal, slightly miserable, lonely lives, and layer over the top of it a pervasive sense of "Twilight Zone"-ish unease. Something is slightly off, the narrator may or may not be mentally ill, there is something dreadful and wrong, but just a little bit, in each of these stories. Nothing supernatural, or scary, just wrong.
After that, there are lectures and essays, including a very funny one which describes the public's reaction to Jackson's classic short story "The Lottery" first being published in the New Yorker. The story itself follows that, and then some good, practical advice (originally meant for her daughter) on short story writing.
I could not have loved this more.
Following that, there are fourteen previously uncollected stories, all great. The best way I can describe them to the uninitiated is to have you imagine the world of "Mad Men," all those people who live normal, slightly miserable, lonely lives, and layer over the top of it a pervasive sense of "Twilight Zone"-ish unease. Something is slightly off, the narrator may or may not be mentally ill, there is something dreadful and wrong, but just a little bit, in each of these stories. Nothing supernatural, or scary, just wrong.
After that, there are lectures and essays, including a very funny one which describes the public's reaction to Jackson's classic short story "The Lottery" first being published in the New Yorker. The story itself follows that, and then some good, practical advice (originally meant for her daughter) on short story writing.
I could not have loved this more.
September 28, 2011
I love Shirley Jackson's horror. But her realism? ..
Reading these stories and essays felt a little like watching the director commentary on Edward Scissorhands. It's a favorite of mine, so I'd been looking forward to it. I had anticipated fascinating insights into narrative structure, film technology, Edward's psyche, and the subtle art of evoking an honest performance. What I got was Tim Burton whining about the suburbs for an hour and 45 minutes.
This was, more or less, the same thing.
But her thoughts on narrative structure are fascinating. Though they come last in book, I recommend reading the essays first so that you can fully appreciate her craftsmanship.
Reading these stories and essays felt a little like watching the director commentary on Edward Scissorhands. It's a favorite of mine, so I'd been looking forward to it. I had anticipated fascinating insights into narrative structure, film technology, Edward's psyche, and the subtle art of evoking an honest performance. What I got was Tim Burton whining about the suburbs for an hour and 45 minutes.
This was, more or less, the same thing.
But her thoughts on narrative structure are fascinating. Though they come last in book, I recommend reading the essays first so that you can fully appreciate her craftsmanship.
May 20, 2012
i dont think i am adequately equipped to describe the perfection that is shirley jackson but man, i feel like she knows me
how can someone be so adept at writing about the subtle insidiousness of every day life
i just
i'm
going to reanimate her, bye
how can someone be so adept at writing about the subtle insidiousness of every day life
i just
i'm
going to reanimate her, bye
June 19, 2022
realised many of these stories are in other collections i’ve read, and the déjà vu added a delightful extra layer of unease. and as always shirley jackson’s nonfiction is unbelievably delightful, laugh-out-loud funny! perfect!
October 10, 2025
Come Along with Me is something of a grab bag for the incorrigible Shirley Jackson fan. On the down side, it reprints several short stories that were included in the excellent Dark Tales collection, and any self-respecting Jackson junkie already has that book, so the repetition amounts to padding in the current volume.
As an aside, "The Beautiful Stranger", which appears in both collections, is so damn good that there's no reason not to read it at least twice. This tale is one of Jackson's very best, and fully demonstrates her extraordinary ability to express a subtle tone of disquiet, and do it in such a way that the reader retains that sensation well after closing the book.
The upside of Come Along with Me is the inclusion of three of Jackson's short essays on the art of writing fiction. These provide fascinating insights into her craft, and while they're not essential for appreciating her fiction, they do help to elucidate why she was such a master of the written form of the English language.
As an aside, "The Beautiful Stranger", which appears in both collections, is so damn good that there's no reason not to read it at least twice. This tale is one of Jackson's very best, and fully demonstrates her extraordinary ability to express a subtle tone of disquiet, and do it in such a way that the reader retains that sensation well after closing the book.
The upside of Come Along with Me is the inclusion of three of Jackson's short essays on the art of writing fiction. These provide fascinating insights into her craft, and while they're not essential for appreciating her fiction, they do help to elucidate why she was such a master of the written form of the English language.
August 19, 2020
As usual, I came across a few spots that gave me true chills, but this collection is also a very mixed bag. The opening unfinished novel is enjoyable and eerie, and it's a shame it's only 30+ pages long. The middle section contains mostly unpublished stories her husband dug up after her death, though man if these were underwhelming or seemed less focused. I admit getting halfway through most of these and skipping ahead. But a couple worked very well. The final section contains essays and The Lottery, her most famous short. These are all great additions and worthwhile. So, worth reading for fans of SJ, but it's mixed.
August 28, 2018
I’ve always been a fan of Shirley Jackson’s book “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” and have read “The Lottery” about 20 times already, so it comes to no surprise that after a long hiatus, this short story collection made me excited to be reading again. As always, I loved the creepy, gothic vibes and I loved the characters in each story. My favorite short story was definitely ‘A Visit’, which at the last sentence had me flip right back to the beginning to read over a second time in the same sitting. A solid 5⭐️ read for me!
July 1, 2024
This collection had a lot of great stuff in it but it also feels like a posthumous release (which it is) in the sense that it’s kinda all over the place and doesn’t have a clear vision necessarily. The titular unfinished novel was very cool and I would have loved to read the rest of that had she gotten to finishing it. I also loved stories like The Summer People, A Visit, Pajama Party, Louisa Please Come Home, The Bus. And the essays at the end were cool as well as the stories they were paired with. The Night We All had Grippe and The Lottery are two very different stories but they’re both Shirley Jackson at her very best, I think.
May 24, 2025
گر کتابی قرار بود منو با خودش جایی ببره، همراه من بیا دقیقاً جایی بود که نمیخواستم برم.
این مجموعه از داستانهای کوتاه و یک رمان ناتمام، بیشتر شبیه کشوی درهمبرهم یک نویسندهست تا یک اثر منسجم. بعضی داستانها ایدههای جالبی دارن، ولی اجراشون ناقصه. بعضیها شروع میشن و ناگهان رها میشن. و بعضیها انگار صرفاً نوشته شدن چون کاغذی جلوی نویسنده بوده.
نثر جکسون مثل همیشه خاصه، اما این بار آن حس تاریکی عمیق، زیرمتنِ روانی و دلهرهی تدریجی که آثار کلاسیکش مثل «لاتاری» دارن، کاملاً غایبه. بهجاش، با متنهایی روبهروییم که یا ناتمامن، یا صرفاً تمرینهای ادبی به نظر میرسن.
این مجموعه برای کسانی که عاشق شرلی جکسون هستن شاید جذاب باشه، چون پنجرهای به ذهن و سبک کاریاش باز میکنه. اما برای من، بیشتر حس سردرگمی، پراکندگی و ناامیدی داشت.
نه داستانها ماندگار بودن، نه روایتها قوی، نه تجربهٔ کلی رضایتبخش. فقط یک ستاره، و اونم با ارفاق.
این مجموعه از داستانهای کوتاه و یک رمان ناتمام، بیشتر شبیه کشوی درهمبرهم یک نویسندهست تا یک اثر منسجم. بعضی داستانها ایدههای جالبی دارن، ولی اجراشون ناقصه. بعضیها شروع میشن و ناگهان رها میشن. و بعضیها انگار صرفاً نوشته شدن چون کاغذی جلوی نویسنده بوده.
نثر جکسون مثل همیشه خاصه، اما این بار آن حس تاریکی عمیق، زیرمتنِ روانی و دلهرهی تدریجی که آثار کلاسیکش مثل «لاتاری» دارن، کاملاً غایبه. بهجاش، با متنهایی روبهروییم که یا ناتمامن، یا صرفاً تمرینهای ادبی به نظر میرسن.
این مجموعه برای کسانی که عاشق شرلی جکسون هستن شاید جذاب باشه، چون پنجرهای به ذهن و سبک کاریاش باز میکنه. اما برای من، بیشتر حس سردرگمی، پراکندگی و ناامیدی داشت.
نه داستانها ماندگار بودن، نه روایتها قوی، نه تجربهٔ کلی رضایتبخش. فقط یک ستاره، و اونم با ارفاق.
May 30, 2021
This is such an exceptional collection. Come Along With Me showed so much promise; eerie, funny, and hinting at something life-affirming. Angela Motorman is a very different Shirley Jackson heroine—older, self-assured, (newly) independent—and it's unfortunate that we don't get to know how she evolves or what her entire journey is. The beginning of her story is one of emancipation; recently widowed, thus free from an abusive relationship, and financially independent, she sets out into the world, reinventing herself and fully embracing her clairvoyance. Jackson set out to write a "happy book," and had she had the chance to complete it, it would have been one of her best.
The stories gathered here were also brilliant—my favourites being "Louisa, Please Come Home," "A Visit," "A Day in the Jungle," "The Summer People," and her two autobiographical ones, "Pajama Party" and "The Night We All Had Grippe"—as were Jackson's three lectures. I took many useful notes from "Experience and Fiction" and "Notes from a Young Writer." Instead of rereading "The Lottery" for the umpteenth time, I decided to listen to Shirley Jackson's recording of her story. It was the first time I heard her voice (❤️❤️❤️), and it definitely enhances the experience/understanding of the story. I thought of what Ruth Franklin wrote about this recording in her biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life: “Grudgingly, Jackson agreed to record “The Lottery” for Folkways Records in 1959. Along with her recording of “The Daemon Lover,” on the B side, it is the only recording of her voice that still exists. The agoraphobia of her late years had not yet begun, but she preferred to avoid New York City if possible, and refused to make a special trip to do the recording. Laurence, then a technically adept senior in high school, did it for her on a reel-to-reel recorder at Bennington. Jackson, nervous, brought along a glass of bourbon; the clink of ice cubes in her glass is occasionally audible. Her voice is low, with the slightest hint of an English affectation. She reads the story calmly, almost without expression. A sharpness enters her tone only when Tessie Hutchinson begins to speak. Jackson’s voice ascends shrilly as she reads the lines: “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right.” She gives the final line of the story a curious inflection: “And then they were upon her.” Like the pointed collar around the throat of the dog Lady in “The Renegade,” the recording cuts off abruptly before her voice has a chance to die out, making the last line sound like a question: And then they were upon her? The irony is audible. They have been upon her all along.”
The stories gathered here were also brilliant—my favourites being "Louisa, Please Come Home," "A Visit," "A Day in the Jungle," "The Summer People," and her two autobiographical ones, "Pajama Party" and "The Night We All Had Grippe"—as were Jackson's three lectures. I took many useful notes from "Experience and Fiction" and "Notes from a Young Writer." Instead of rereading "The Lottery" for the umpteenth time, I decided to listen to Shirley Jackson's recording of her story. It was the first time I heard her voice (❤️❤️❤️), and it definitely enhances the experience/understanding of the story. I thought of what Ruth Franklin wrote about this recording in her biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life: “Grudgingly, Jackson agreed to record “The Lottery” for Folkways Records in 1959. Along with her recording of “The Daemon Lover,” on the B side, it is the only recording of her voice that still exists. The agoraphobia of her late years had not yet begun, but she preferred to avoid New York City if possible, and refused to make a special trip to do the recording. Laurence, then a technically adept senior in high school, did it for her on a reel-to-reel recorder at Bennington. Jackson, nervous, brought along a glass of bourbon; the clink of ice cubes in her glass is occasionally audible. Her voice is low, with the slightest hint of an English affectation. She reads the story calmly, almost without expression. A sharpness enters her tone only when Tessie Hutchinson begins to speak. Jackson’s voice ascends shrilly as she reads the lines: “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right.” She gives the final line of the story a curious inflection: “And then they were upon her.” Like the pointed collar around the throat of the dog Lady in “The Renegade,” the recording cuts off abruptly before her voice has a chance to die out, making the last line sound like a question: And then they were upon her? The irony is audible. They have been upon her all along.”
February 21, 2008
Rather a hodgepodge of a collection, what with the unfinished novel (the title story), a handful of other stories (some previously published, some not), and three lectures. The lecture "Biography of a Story" is backstory on Jackson's most famous tale, "The Lottery"--the public uproar and crazy letters demanding an explanation are fascinating, and give pause to the notion that Americans were better read 50 years ago. Some story standouts: Jackson's
trademark small-town paranoia is on display in "The Summer People," hauntings in "A Visit" and "The Rock," and there's the circular nightmare of "The Bus" (one I'd read years ago and couldn't find in other collections). Also a good twist on the you-can't-go-home-again theme ("Louisa, Please Come Home"), featuring a methodical runaway girl. Although this is a mixed bag, in a way I like it better than the larger collected stories, where too many together start to seem somewhat formulaic.
trademark small-town paranoia is on display in "The Summer People," hauntings in "A Visit" and "The Rock," and there's the circular nightmare of "The Bus" (one I'd read years ago and couldn't find in other collections). Also a good twist on the you-can't-go-home-again theme ("Louisa, Please Come Home"), featuring a methodical runaway girl. Although this is a mixed bag, in a way I like it better than the larger collected stories, where too many together start to seem somewhat formulaic.
August 15, 2013
Not many authors can give me the unfailing sentence-by-sentence pleasure I get from the writing of Shirley Jackson. My only hesitation in reading this unfinished fragment of a novel was that I knew I'd be caught up in her genius, only to be dumped back into the world after a mere thirty pages or so, but those pages were more than worth it. This book also contains a smart, representative selection of Ms Jackson's short fiction and a handful of her excellent essays. Buy it without hesitation, and enjoy it forever after.
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