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Shirley Jackson on Not Getting It
Filed under: The Katharine Wheel: On Fiction Tagged: Benjamin Chambers, newyorker.com, Shirley Jackson
The Poynter Institute’s blog on journalism published an interesting column by Roy Peter Clark last month on the hazards of satire. The column’s real topic had to do with the infamous Obama cover, but contained some fascinating material from Shirley Jackson on responses from New Yorker readers to her story, “The Lottery,” whose 60th anniversary of publication was just the other day.
From Clark’s column:
[Jackson’s] essay called “Biography of a Story” begins this way: “On the morning of June 28, 1948, I walked down to the post office in our little Vermont town to pick up the mail. … I opened the box, took out a couple of bills and a letter or two, talked to the postmaster for a few minutes, and left, never supposing that it was the last time for months that I was to pick up the mail without an active feeling of panic. … It was not my first published story, nor my last, but I have been assured over and over that if it had been the only story I ever wrote or published, there would be people who would not forget my name.”
The column goes on from there, and makes for hair-raising reading for anyone who has faith in the intelligence of the average reader. (But see Paul Morris’ vision of what her story would’ve looked like it if it had gone through rewrite today.)
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Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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Comments
I have read no fiction by Jackson other than “The Lottery,” but I have read that essay, and it made a tremendous impression on me.
I gotta look it up.