Mariah Gese<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shirley: A Novel<\/i> will be released by Blue Rider Press on June 12th<\/sup> for $25.95.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Shirley Jackson became a household name with her popular works The Lottery <\/i>and The Haunting of Hill House,<\/i> horror classics that paved the way for modern greats like Stephen King. Jackson penned psychological thrillers and sinister commentaries on small town American life, herself something of a recluse with few interviews to explain her mysterious persona. Susan Scarf Merrell\u2019s upcoming book Shirley: A Novel<\/i> attempts to delve into her enigmatic personal life in an homage woven around a character study of Jackson.<\/p>\n The story takes place in bucolic Bennington, Vermont in 1964, where Jackson lived with husband Stanley Hyman, a literary critic. In Merrell\u2019s novel, Jackson and Hyman have an intellectual marriage, where an uncanny codependence exists despite infidelity and emotional abuse. This is witnessed by Rose and Fred Nemser, a fictional newly wedded couple staying with the family for a year while Fred teaches under Hyman at Bennington College. In a series of domestic yet nightmarish encounters, Rose becomes a disciple of Shirley\u2019s, yearning to understand her sometimes mystical and downright terrifying mind. The relationship devolves into a strange, mother-daughter friendship; when Fred follows in Stanley\u2019s cheating footsteps, the women bond further but this time in a twisted hatred over their limited options. Shirley, a relatively liberated housewife, contrasts with repressed child-bride Rose to infuse the story with the frustrated feminism of the 1950s.<\/p>\n Though not a psychological thriller like Jackson\u2019s own work, Shirley<\/i> guesses at the environment that produced such horror classics. As narrator Rose develops more involved neuroses about Shirley, the story itself drips with the anxiety and secrecy that drove Jackson to write. Rose becomes convinced that Shirley years ago killed one of Stanley\u2019s amorous students, Paula Welden, who disappeared into the Vermont wilderness and has never been found. Rose finds herself drawn to the place Welden vanished, jealous of the Hyman children, and suspicious of Stanley\u2019s intentions towards her. When she becomes convinced Shirley murdered Welden, Rose is banished from the house, forced to reconcile her mixed feelings towards her new baby and her hatred for her lecherous husband. The Nemsers eventually reconcile their marriage, and ten years later undertake a research project on the Hyman-Jackson household. Both search for evidence that they mattered to the infamous couple, but realize success lies in forging a path for themselves with mutual respect and love.<\/p>\n The Nemsers are clearly meant to mirror the Hymans in their fall from naivet\u00e9, at the climax of the story matching mistrust and cruelty with the older couple.\u00a0 Rose pays surprisingly little attention to their new baby at this point, a focus that drove much of the novel\u2019s first half yet peters out thematically after Fred\u2019s cheating. Although Rose and Fred\u2019s struggle to achieve a mature marriage drives most of the exposition, the story also questions the nature of love and its manifestations. Jackson\u2019s peculiar brand of love asserts itself as seductive and intimidating intellectualism, mixed with an indifference that sets Rose against the Hyman children. This also characterizes Jackson\u2019s marriage with blas\u00e9 and roguish Hyman, resulting in their crippling codependence and flirty antagonism. Their household comes off as both reliable and treacherous.<\/p>\n Merrell reveals that being a female writer in the 1950s meant anxiety\u2014 an unstable lifestyle, fear over the reception of one\u2019s writing, repression of the true self in anything outside of prose. Shirley remains enigmatic: possibly criminal, possibly neurotic, loved fiercely by the people she most abuses. Her talent opposes Rose\u2019s domesticity, but results in the same crippling boredom and self-deprecation.<\/p>\n Despite Merrell\u2019s good intentions, the novel essentially fails to portray Shirley Jackson\u2019s inner life. Shirley remains a distant matriarch, betrayed by the weak prose style and Rose\u2019s immature narration. While Rose and Fred are necessary for the premise of the novel, serving as the lens through which Merrell explores the Jackson\u2019s marriage, Rose\u2019s preoccupation with money drives the story away from Jackson and any revelations concerning her enigmatic life. Rose herself fails to mirror Jackson or divulge the necessarily imaginative and secret inner life of a 1950s budding female intellectual. The novel loses a sense of driving plot, and becomes simply a domestic tableau of Jackson and Hyman\u2019s tumultuous marriage and Jackson\u2019s early death. The causes of both are glossed over, in the pursuit of Rose\u2019s anxieties.<\/p>\n Merrell succeeds in revealing but not developing the gender inequality of the 1950s, and the resulting marital problems that likely plagued Shirley Jackson among many other women. Although Merrell simplifies the female experience of that generation, her attempt at a character study of Shirley Jackson is the most successful aspect of the novel. Truthfully, just as much insight about Shirley Jackson could be ascertained by reading her work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mariah Gese Shirley: A Novel will be released by Blue Rider Press on June 12th for $25.95. Shirley Jackson became a household name with her popular works The Lottery and The Haunting of Hill House, horror classics that paved the way for modern greats like Stephen King. Jackson penned psychological thrillers and sinister […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-written-by"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions\/231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}