Jackson seems to ask us how well we really know our neighbors, our family and our partners, even how well we know ourselves. Her characters are usually the same: the neglected housewife, the least favorite child, the seemingly quiet and unassuming man… and underneath, lurking behind the facade, evil. From wicked old ladies to serial killers, Jackson explores various degrees of evil in these stories. I have read Jackson’s most famous story “The Lottery” in several occasions (it is one of those short stories that people like to point to when explaining what makes a short story good) and was expecting a similar thing when I bought Dark Tales, which compiles 17 stories. This is perhaps why most of the things I’ve read by her leave me feeling a bit queasy: you can’t quite point out why you’re scared, but you are. Shirley Jackson’s writing is measured and subtle, focused on what happens within rather than without it is about leaving things out rather than about showing things, it is suggestive but never obvious. I’ve been a fan of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle because they really scared me, although not in a way that most horror books do.

For my last spooky read of the year (it’s almost Christmas!) I chose an author I’m familiar with.

Dark tales shirley