A Review of “Shirley Jackson: Four Novels of the 1940s & ‘50s”
Before the Fame
There seems to be an undercurrent of interest in Shirley Jackson lately, probably owing no small part to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. She was, perhaps, the ultimate American Gothic writer of her time — impressive given that she wasn’t from the Deep South. She might have been a bit of a misanthrope, and that aspect shows itself in some of her writing, so, in an era of social distancing, that might be appealing to some. You can now see the evolution of her work as a writer in a new collection that brings together Jackson’s first four novels — or the novels she wrote that didn’t cement her fame, as The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) later did. These earlier novels, which are published here, are The Road Through the Wall (1948), Hangsaman (1951), The Bird’s Nest (1954) and The Sundial (1958). None of these novels are perfect, and some are more successful than others, but if you want to look at the author before she was famous, this is an interesting collection to dive into — with caveats.
The challenge in writing this kind of review is holding four books simultaneously in your head and trying to remember what it was about each book that appealed or detracted. In the case of The Road Through the Wall, there is, unfortunately, more to hate than like. Though the book is said to be based on Jackson’s childhood growing up in small-town California in the mid-‘30s, it could very well double as a satire about a gated community or suburb in the post-World War II era. The problem with the book is its ambition. It has at least 30 major characters, without descriptions indicating who’s who, so it’s easy to get lost in this plodding tome built largely on dialogue. Jackson was most successful when she was writing a little more compactly, as she did later in her career with The Bird’s Nest. The Road Through the Wall is a start, but it’s inherently flawed.
Hangsaman is a difficult sophomore novel. It is the story of a young girl going off to college who has a very bad thing happen to her, and the question is does this very bad thing enable the protagonist to start losing her mind and seeing people who don’t exist. As you can tell, this is a confusing novel — I wasn’t even sure what it was about until I read the plot synopsis on the web after I was done reading it. The problem with the book is that there are no signposts or things that would indicate that the narrator is scrambling her proverbial marbles. It is played straight, and that works against the book in some regards. Still, there are some interesting vignettes of campus life to make the work intriguing. It would have been better if these scenes strung together a little more coherently, however.
The Bird’s Nest sees Jackson finally starting to hit her stride. There are fewer main characters, which improves the focus of the read, and the plot sizzles along. The story is about a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder and the efforts of a psychiatrist to treat her. While this is the most compulsively readable book in this collection, it does have its warts. The book is overlong, and it doesn’t always make sense (why would anyone want to coat the interior of a refrigerator with mud is beyond me). Still, from a psychological point of view, The Bird’s Nest is quite riveting. There are twists that you won’t see coming, even if some of the plot points are a little murky at times.
Finally, The Sundial is a darkly comic work about a family of wealthy survivalists who shack up in their sprawling mansion fearing that the apocalypse is about to descend on them. What makes the work tick for those who have already read We Have Always Lived in the Castle is that many of the themes of the later work get a frenzied workout here — it’s almost as though The Sundial is a demo tape of something that would evolve into something else a bit later in the author’s career. However, Jackson is up to her old tricks here, piling on character after character with no indication as to who’s who and who’s doing what, really. Many of the characters, as well, are simply unlikable. To that end, The Sundial is a failed experiment. There is promise in these pages, but the story as a whole doesn’t congeal as it should and some readers will be skipping pages just to get to the end sooner.
Overall, this collection of novels is a bit of a mixed bag. If you’ve read the much superior We Have Always Lived in the Castle (and, in saying it is superior, that doesn’t mean that it is perfect, either), you may be disappointed to learn that these earlier novels are not quite as good as the author’s late-career high watermarks. Still, if you really are curious and want to know how Jackson got to her wildly more successful novels of the period between 1959 and 1962, this collection handily collects everything she wrote as a novel before then. The collection is a bit disappointing in that there aren’t too many frills — the most notable thing it offers is a timeline of the author’s career that really doesn’t do much to colour what made Jackson, well, Jackson. However, this comes thankfully at the end of the volume, meaning that you won’t have spoiled any of the preceding stories as some collections are wont to do by putting a foreword upfront. Four Novels is, thus, an okay proposition. It won’t light your world on fire, but it may give you a deeper appreciation for a widely anthologized writer. If that’s what you’re looking for, well, then, here you go. Enjoy, with some reservations!
Shirley Jackson: Four Novels of the 1940s & ’50s was published by Library of America on October 20, 2020.
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You may also be interested in the following review: Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com
