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LET ME TELL YOU

Name: LET ME TELL YOU
Author: Shirley Jackson
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9766-8

NEW STORIES, ESSAYS, AND OTHER WRITINGS

by Shirley Jackson ; edited by Laurence Jackson Hyman & Sarah Hyman Dewitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015

There’s an old-fashioned feel to Jackson’s language and setups, but her stories never fail to deliver. For fans of...

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Unpublished and uncollected work by the celebrated author of The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and other neo-Gothic chillers.

It’s fitting that this gathering by Jackson, who died half a century ago, should open with a perfectly crafted little story called “Paranoia.” Unfolding with the to-the-second pacing of a Twilight Zone episode, it finds a seemingly blameless fellow being pursued on a crosstown bus, into shops, and down city streets by an affectless fellow in a “light hat.” He’d like to tell the cops—but what is there to tell, apart from the fact that someone seems to be tailing him? Good thing his wife is waiting for him at home, but….Best known for her short story “The Lottery,” Jackson had a knack for finding the sinister in the ordinary; when presented with creepier props, she could really go to town, as when, in an early story, a young child threatens to steal away a doll belonging to a mild-mannered spinster of a schoolteacher, “a limp thing, with a gourd for a head and a scrap of red silk for a dress.” If you ever needed an explanation for why poltergeists always find their ways into homes with children, there it is. Even the pieces classified as domestic humor have an arch edge, as with one story that finds a mother wondering who left a hose out to freeze: “Not that the question is of the slightest importance, anyway. What’s important is to get it thawed out and put away. Let the dead past bury its dead, I firmly believe.” That’s a lot of portent for a stretch of rubber—and when Jackson gets to the frying pan and the scissors, things get dicier still. The volume closes with Jackson’s reflections on her work, in which she recounts dreams of closed gates and secretive conversations, nicely bracketing that paranoiac exercise that begins the book.

There’s an old-fashioned feel to Jackson’s language and setups, but her stories never fail to deliver. For fans of midcentury suspense, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Pub Date: July 28, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-8129-9766-8

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: April 27, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LETTERS OF SHIRLEY JACKSON
by Shirley Jackson ; edited by Laurence Jackson Hyman with Bernice M. Murphy

- BOOK REVIEW
SHIRLEY JACKSON'S "THE LOTTERY"
by Shirley Jackson adapted by Miles Hyman illustrated by Miles Hyman

- BOOK REVIEW
The Really Good Witch
by Shirley Jackson

- SEEN & HEARD
‘Lost’ Shirley Jackson Story Has Been Published

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
GO SET A WATCHMAN
by Harper Lee

- SEEN & HEARD
The Snowy Day Is NYC Library’s Most Popular Book

- SEEN & HEARD
ALA Releases List of 2020’s Most Challenged Books

- SEEN & HEARD
NYT Readers Voting on Best Book of Past 125 Years

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.