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Shirley Jackson and Domesticity: Beyond the Haunted House
Shirley Jackson and Domesticity takes on American horror writer Shirley Jackson's domestic narratives – those fictionalized in her novels and short stories as well as the ones captured in her memoirs – to explore the extraordinary and often supernatural ways domestic practices and the ecology of the home influence Jackson's storytelling.
Examining various areas of homemaking – child-rearing and reproduction, housekeeping, architecture and spatiality, the housewife mythos – through the theoretical frameworks of gothic, queer, gender, supernatural, humor, and architectural studies, this collection contextualizes Jackson's archive in a Cold War framework and assesses the impact of the work of a writer seeking to question the status quo of her time and culture.
Examining various areas of homemaking – child-rearing and reproduction, housekeeping, architecture and spatiality, the housewife mythos – through the theoretical frameworks of gothic, queer, gender, supernatural, humor, and architectural studies, this collection contextualizes Jackson's archive in a Cold War framework and assesses the impact of the work of a writer seeking to question the status quo of her time and culture.
- GenresNonfiction
272 pages, Paperback
Published December 30, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 5, 2022
4.5
I connected with this collection of academic essays on Jackson’s work even more than I did with the other I recently read, Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy. (A couple of the essayists have pieces in both books, published fifteen years apart). I have interlibrary loans to thank for my being able to read both. I envision another ILL in my future, as one of the editors has written a book on Toni Morrison’s “spectral” writings.
The subtitle Beyond the Haunted House suits me, as I’m a big proponent of Jackson being so much more than the one “haunted-house novel” she wrote (and its being so much more than that description, which is also explored here). Yet a sense of unease imbues all her writing (including her humorous pieces), especially those about the living spaces of wives and mothers. Apparently there’s a term for this kind of disquiet: domestic gothic.
One essay posits that the short stories Jackson wrote for The New Yorker, both before and after her big splash with “The Lottery,” helped hone her own aesthetic while subtly undermining theirs. Another essay places the architecture of Jackson’s fictional houses in a sociohistorical perspective. The Sundial gets three essays, arguably needed as the least explored of her novels. Two others reveal, separately, the chilling narcissism and eerie economies within Jackson’s final novel. I failed to connect with the last essay on the Netflix reinvention of The Haunting of Hill House. I still don’t want to watch it (even if I had Netflix, which I don’t).
I connected with this collection of academic essays on Jackson’s work even more than I did with the other I recently read, Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy. (A couple of the essayists have pieces in both books, published fifteen years apart). I have interlibrary loans to thank for my being able to read both. I envision another ILL in my future, as one of the editors has written a book on Toni Morrison’s “spectral” writings.
The subtitle Beyond the Haunted House suits me, as I’m a big proponent of Jackson being so much more than the one “haunted-house novel” she wrote (and its being so much more than that description, which is also explored here). Yet a sense of unease imbues all her writing (including her humorous pieces), especially those about the living spaces of wives and mothers. Apparently there’s a term for this kind of disquiet: domestic gothic.
One essay posits that the short stories Jackson wrote for The New Yorker, both before and after her big splash with “The Lottery,” helped hone her own aesthetic while subtly undermining theirs. Another essay places the architecture of Jackson’s fictional houses in a sociohistorical perspective. The Sundial gets three essays, arguably needed as the least explored of her novels. Two others reveal, separately, the chilling narcissism and eerie economies within Jackson’s final novel. I failed to connect with the last essay on the Netflix reinvention of The Haunting of Hill House. I still don’t want to watch it (even if I had Netflix, which I don’t).
July 12, 2025
3.5 ✰ very interesting book that highlights the different aspects of shirley jackson's use of domestic horror !
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews