Oriana’s review of Raising Demons > Likes and Comments

I added RD to my to-read because of this review.

However, I can name two, no three! LOL works right off:

My World and Welcome To It (or just about anything) by James Thurber

Peace by Gene Wolfe

Cider House Rules (and others) by John Irving

Thanks Sonky, for always taking my advice! : )

I will check out your three rec's as well, though I'm surprised about John Irving, as I've always found him pretty dull.

I'm sorry you find Irving dull. How much of him have you read?

Maybe the unearthing of anything in light of the book title Raising Demons is what Eric's prolly ref'g to.

1) Great review!

2) I got the pun right away. ; )

3) Irving is NOT boring! (at least not to me..heh)

Just started reading this yesterday, was so excited to find it on Bookshare. (I love Bookshare!) She is an absolute scream, and the bizarre way her kids talk is hilarious. I feel sorry for her poor husband, because she never even mentions his name.
I'm assuming you read the prequel to this one, "Life Among the Savages"? If not, READ IT!

I have indeed!!!! She is just the best. I think I read there will be a new collection of her unpublished works out soon!

One of my all time favorites. SJ is the bomb. Great picture of you and your sister. Ouch-breaking jaw must really hurt!!

Haha yeah, poor kid. But never fear—she recovered in six weeks and then went down to Mexico to be a stuntwoman, so it didn't really slow her roll all that much. (My sis is basically a superhero.)

Oriana wrote: "Haha yeah, poor kid. But never fear—she recovered in six weeks and then went down to Mexico to be a stuntwoman, so it didn't really slow her roll all that much. (My sis is basically a superhero.)"

Wow...that's some story! Good for her, glad to hear she picked herself up, dusted herself off and started all over again..lol

This is really interesting. I also felt uncomfortable by the "persona" of the "helpless little woman" Shirley Jackson displays in these two books. Knowing that she also was an extremely talented fiction writer changes the context, though, and introduces some sort of irony in the accounts of her life as a housewife. But I suppose this ironic frame was nonexisting when these short stories were first published, in the pages of women's magazines.

Oriana, you might also enjoy Betty McDonald's memoirs: "The Egg and I" "Anybody Can Do Anything" "The Plague and I" and "Onions In the Stew." She's of about the same era as Shirley Jackson, and like her, she was best known for a totally different genre of books: children's literature. But her memoirs are hilarious, often bitingly so.