NPR's Book of the Day Shirley Jackson’s biographer on the writer’s ability to find evil in the ordinary
Oct 29, 2025
Ruth Franklin, a biographer and critic, delves into the eerie world of Shirley Jackson, author of unsettling tales like "The Lottery" and "The Haunting of Hill House." Franklin explores Jackson's childhood and how it fueled her fascination with the "extraordinary evil" lurking beneath the mundane. They discuss the constraints faced by creative women in the 1950s and how Jackson’s domestic experiences shaped her haunting narratives. Franklin uncovers the dark humor in Jackson's writing and her enduring relevance in analyzing human darkness and mob psychology.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Childhood Shaped Her Darkness
- Franklin traces Jackson's dark worldview back to a difficult childhood and a controlling socialite mother who tried to mold her.
- Jackson felt unloved in the place that should have felt secure, and that shaped her fiction's anxiety.
Evil Hidden In Everyday Life
- Shirley Jackson saw extraordinary evil simmering under ordinary life because of a fraught childhood and a difficult relationship with her mother.
- That early insecurity informed her recurring theme of hidden danger within domestic settings.
Ambiguous Supernatural Or Psychological Threat
- Jackson's novels blur supernatural events and disturbed minds so the threat can be psychological or literal.
- This ambiguity deepens the terror by making domestic instability feel unresolvable.
