Shirley Jackson, Literary Writer
Horror and The New Yorker don’t typically mix, but Shirley Jackson made it happen!
Ed here: The older I get the more I reread and respect Shirley Jackson.
From The Criminal Element
Rarely does anyone think of The New Yorker magazine as a place to go to get a quick fix of horror fiction. And yet in 1948 that well-respected magazine published just such a story, which caused great controversy and stirred up a tremendous amount of hate mail. It also was the cause of numerous readers cancelling subscriptions.
The story was published during a time when many town governments across America sponsored weekly cash-prize lotteries as a means of bringing people into town from the surrounding farms to stimulate the postwar economy for the local merchants. The name of the story was, of course, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. You may read (or more likely re-read) it here.
The Lottery is so stunningly good I can see in my mind where I was sitting when I read it - the first time.
ReplyDeleteThis is surely one of the best short stories ever written. Jackson's essay about its initial reception is also fascinating.
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