Review: The Letters of Shirley Jackson edited by Laurence Jackson Hyman

 

The Letters of Shirley Jackson, is a mammoth undertaking by Jackson’s son Laurence Hyman, assisted by his three siblings, along with Shirley Jackson historian Bernice Murphy to compile correspondence spanning over thirty years of Jackson’s life—from her days as young college student up to her final letter six days before her untimely death at age 48 from a heart attack. These letters and line drawings, thankfully preserved by Jackson’s family and associates at the advice of her agents and lawyers, serve as the closest we will ever get to a true Shirley Jackson autobiography. 

In the 621 pages of this book, you finally get to meet the real Shirley Jackson. Not only do you see glimpses of the Jackson that we’ve become familiar with— a loving, devoted mother of four sharing tales of domestic life, as well as the wickedly brilliant writer of some of the revered novels of the past century, but you also learn about her the Shirley we never got to know. She voiced her fears and frustrations as a writer in letters to her agent and publishers. We read numerous letters of domestic life with her husband Stanley Hyman and their four children and their life in Vermont sent to her parents and friends to keep them up to date on their comings and goings. Heartbreakingly, you see Shirley’s growing agoraphobia, the pain caused by turmoil in not only her marriage caused by Stanley’s infidelity and harsh criticism of her work, and the slow descent in health leading up to her death.

This was my favorite of all the books I read in 2021. I read through it greedily, wanting to know more about my hero and idol, to hear her own thoughts in her words. As much as I loved the book and learning more about Shirley, my heart was breaking knowing that the closer I got to the end of the book would also be the end of her life. And with this book, as in life, I wish we had more.

5/5 Stars

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a review copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions of the work and its author are my own.