Private Demons - The Life of Shirley Jackson by Judy Oppenheimer (1988)

A biography of Shirley Jackson (1916-65), the author of "The Lottery" and The Haunting of Hill House.

Book Review:  The lives of authors aren't always that interesting, but Private Demons was definitely interesting, and Shirley Jackson's life was definitely not what I expected.  Shirley Jackson is best known for writing "The Lottery," one of the most mystifying and anthologized American short stories, and The Haunting of Hill House, as well as other novels.  Private Demons is a well written and quick reading biography that gives a complete history of Jackson's short life, as well as numerous key insights into her writing.  Not that her writing was literally autobiographical, but reading the facts of her life opens up the reader's understanding of her fiction.  As Judy Oppenheimer notes about Jackson: "No longer was she simply transcribing from reality ... now she was becoming adept at taking the bare bones of reality and giving them a twist, infusing them with some of the fears and horrors and distortions swirling around in her own mind."  Jackson's family took an immense amount of her time: she was not a solitary recluse pounding away at a typewriter in a garret.  It's a wonder she wrote at all.  She was surrounded by her four children, who both informed and influenced her writing.  She had a lifelong difficult relationship with her mother.  Most challenging, however, was her husband, who Jackson credited with enabling her to publish, but readers will make their own conclusions about his complex effect on her writing. Jackson and her family lived in North Bennington, Vermont, and her husband taught at Bennington College. The town was a major element in some of her writing, including the novel Hangsaman, which was set at the College (as was Donna Tartt's novel The Secret History; Tartt attended Bennington College). Private Demons is an excellent and informative biography, which I strongly recommend to any Shirley Jackson fans -- there are many clues to her writing within, tho I'd caution anyone from taking it all too literally.  One caveat: although the book seems open and uncensored, it was written with the assistance of Jackson's four children, and I can't speak to whether that had any limiting influences on the author. [5 Stars]