The Letters of Shirley Jackson

by Shirley Jackson

  That’s wonderful news about the story in Harper’s; I always figure that one of these smaller sales will inspire others, so that they invariably lead to good news very soon. I hope I’m right, anyway.

  I have a three-horse parlay I’m waiting on: news that we have the Vermont house we want, the arrival of this reluctant baby, and a story sale to enable us to move; I’m certain they’ll all happen within a few days of each other.

  Since Life Among The Savages is moving along, and I’m working exclusively on that and gave up Abigail primarily at John’s suggestion, do you think we could hit them for another fifteen hundred on it? On the grounds that I have given up the other book in favor of it, and it would be difficult to go on for the next few months working only on that without some money? I can’t write the last story until I find out what sex the new baby is, but I should have the whole manuscript for them before the middle of next year—if I know the baby’s sex by then.

  I keep doing more stories because I keep figuring by the next story I’ll be in the hospital.

  Best,

  S.

  • • •

  [To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]

  monday [November 12, 1951]

  dearest mother and pop,

  every time i talk to you on the phone i immediately sit down and write you a letter, because there’s so much i forget to say. i intended to write you this morning in any case, though, because i have all sorts of funny news.

  funniest of all is about the baby, of course. last friday i went to the doc and he said it looked as though i were ready to have the darn thing, so i should go home and buy a two-ounce bottle of castor oil, mix it with something i don’t particularly like—because i’d never be able to touch it again—and take it at eleven at night, followed by an enema, and then go right to bed. he said i should have about four good hours of sleep before the castor oil hit me, and then i ought to begin having pains about two hours after that. so i was all excited, and came home to stanley with an enormous bottle of castor oil and a bottle of cream soda, which i detest, and everyone began to get excited and say things about how nice it was to be able to choose the day when the baby came. the children all asked to stay up and watch me take the castor oil, and stanley got all nervous, and shaved, and put on a clean shirt, and ralph ellison, who has been staying with us, writing and building some sort of a radio set down cellar and holding himself in readiness for a midnight dash to the hospital, got his car turned around ready to race out of the driveway, and i got the house full of food. we played bridge friday night with the olsens, and they promised to observe a moment of silence at eleven saturday night, and to be ready in case ralph’s car wouldn’t start or something, and in bridgeport the doctor was all set and everyone was going around telling everyone else that well, by this time tomorrow it would be all over. stanley and ralph and i had so many old-fashioneds before dinner, to get my courage established, that we were all still feeling fine by evening, and at eleven o’clock i got my castor oil and put it in a glass, and it filled up about half the glass and looked worse than anything i’ve ever seen. i’ve never taken it before, you know, and the longer i looked at it the worse it seemed. i filled the glass up with cream soda and it looked even worse, and stanley and ralph, who were both a good deal more amused by it than i was, insisted on stirring it until it got into a sort of oily bubbly state and was perfectly dreadful looking. stanley sat on one side of me with a glass of water and ralph sat on the other side with a couple of dry cookies, that being the only thing i could think of that might counteract the oil, and after about half an hour’s discussion back and forth, me maintaining that the doctor could never have intended for me to drink this stuff, that it was obviously meant to pour into the car radiator, and stanley and ralph taking the position that only a coward would refuse to drink that teensy little bit of castor oil, i held my nose and got it down, and stuffed my mouth with cookies and stanley and ralph stared at me with real respect. i then had four drinks one after another, good whisky this time with no cream soda, and it turns out that i still feel the same way i always did about cream soda, but i shall never eat another cookie as long as i live. so i went through the rest of the unpleasant procedure, and then when it came time to go to bed found that i was certainly not going to be able to sleep. ralph went to bed on the theory that he was going to be awakened early and he wanted to be alert to drive, elmira put her head in the study door three or four times to ask how i felt, laurie woke up sometime in the night and said “hospital?”, stanley finally fell asleep on the couch, and i sat in the study and watched television until it went off, and then read a mystery. about three the castor oil hit me, and when i tiptoed upstairs to the bathroom i heard elmira leap out of bed and she opened her door and said “now?” and i said no, and when i passed ralph’s door he said was everything all right and i said yes, and toby came to the door of laurie’s room and watched me sort of nervously, so i decided i’d go to bed and i did, and about nine in the morning jannie came in and asked me tenderly how i felt, and i woke up and realized i felt wonderful, better than i have in months, with not the slightest sign of any kind of pain, and i got dressed and came downstairs, and everyone looked at me with a sort of icy stare, and virginia olsen was on the phone asking if i’d gotten to the hospital all right, and stanley had caught cold from sleeping on the couch all night, and everyone was sore at me, figuring that i’d obviously done something wrong. so i called the doctor and was sore at him, and he said oh, well, don’t take any more castor oil, and i promised him i certainly would not.

  stanley had a tragedy and is still in a nervous fever. he ordered two shipments of coins from germany, one of a hundred and fifty selected coins of the world, and the other of a hundred selected counterfeit coins of the world and the two shipments got mixed, so stanley got a package of two hundred and fifty coins of which a hundred were counterfeit. now whenever he has nothing better to do he takes out the box and works on it. at last report he had a hundred and three positively counterfeit coins.

  we’re definitely going back to vermont if we can, next year. i figure that after the baby is born (ha!) stanley and i will drive up and spend three or four days just looking at houses. stanley’s been commissioned to do four new long articles for the new yorker, which makes living in vermont easier than if he is doing the kind of editorial work he has been doing here. of course there’s no guarantee the new yorker will buy the pieces after they’re done, and four of them are a year’s work, but it’s sure enough to make our financial situation look more cheerful. this time of year is always bad for stories, and we’re both taking on whatever hack work we can get, like reviewing and writing on commission. i’ve been invited to lecture at the bread loaf writers’ conference next summer, which is quite an honor, although they only pay a hundred dollars and expenses for two days there—it’s in middlebury, vermont, and the most important writers’ conference of the summer. i told them i’d read unpublished stuff, which means i have to write some before july. nicest thing is that eight years ago i was invited to attend bread loaf as a student, and pay for the honor, and was sorry to turn it down because laurie was too small to leave at the time; now i go as a lecturer and i’m glad i waited. if the baby is born by then, of course. these are all either writers or graduate students in english, and they attend the conference by invitation only, so i have to figure out something good. i was originally asked to discuss the present state of american letters but the idea of my informing a set of graduate english students about the state of american letters reduced stanley to such a state that i wrote back and said i’d read instead.

  a boy at the eastman school of music wants to do a doctor’s thesis setting Lottery to music, the greenwich connecticut high school is presenting a pantomime performance of same for their high school graduation play, and a man in oregon is on his third year of trying to make it into a ballet. hangsaman has come out in england and the one
review i’ve seen remarks that it reads like a good british novel, which seems to be high praise.

  love to you both, see you soon.

  s.

  * * *

  • • •

  Barry Edgar Hyman is born on November 21, 1951.

  [To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]

  sunday [January 1952]

  dear mother and pop,

  i sold a story to the companion, which with your check—for which thank you again!—lifted us out of our financial hole, and they want more stories the same, so things look substantially brighter; my agent believes firmly that story sales come in threes, so she is now looking for two more quick sales and i hope she’s right. just finished a new story, too. very cheerful.

  we were house-hunting in bennington, and had bad luck except for one house, in a real fancy old neighborhood. we went on from bennington to northhampton, to smith college, stanley and laurie and i, driving over those mountains on roads covered with ice, fifteen miles an hour all the way, and me scared to death. laurie had a wonderful time at northhampton, since we stayed with old friends of ours, who have no children and don’t know what to do with visiting children, so after offering laurie all the books in the house they finally asked if he liked to paint? he said why yes, he did, and nancy immediately went to work and dug him up an easel, half a dozen pieces of cardboard, and a set of oil paints, which he has been wanting desperately. so laurie went right to work copying audubon birds from a set of dinner plates, and never moved from his easel again until we tore him away to go home.

  we went seeing about this teaching job which they haven’t offered me yet, and it turns out that Mary Ellen Chase—do you know her books?—has been teaching it for twenty-five years, using some of my stuff as texts, and wants very much to have me take over. so far she is the moving force in the deal, and since she is retiring she insists that she has the right to choose her successor, which is me. we were invited to have coffee with her the morning we were there, and went over to sit in her fancy georgian dining room, with three silver tea services on the sideboard, and drink coffee, and mary ellen, who is a fine funny old lady with a lot of great stories, described the course to me and asked if i thought i might like to teach it; she said flatly that she intended to have me do it, and asked if i would please consider it seriously. i never expected an open invitation from her to do it, and was a little bit staggered, and then really put the finish onto a wild morning by turning green and passing out cold on her dining room floor, the first time in my life i ever did such a thing. stanley was so stunned he said he just sat there and looked at me, and mary ellen chafed my wrists and slapped ammonia under my nose and everyone decided it was because she had invited me to teach her course, although i personally expect it was because i had done a lot of driving and perhaps a lot of drinking.

  we then went (mary ellen insisted that i lie down for a while first, and she gave me a little bottle of ammonia to carry with me) to have lunch in state with the english faculty, and i couldn’t eat and couldn’t talk, so just sat there while everyone else talked, and i certainly made a fine impression. i thought they were a lot of stuffy old fools, as a matter of fact. they kept saying that since we lived so close to new york we must get to a lot of concerts, and we kept saying well, we went to ball games all the time anyway.

  so we left smith unconvinced. heaven knows we wouldn’t live there; if they offer me the job with enough money i’d live in bennington and commute; it’s only one afternoon a week. since mary ellen practically runs the college, i imagine we’ll be hearing from them, unless she feels I’m too fragile a type to take on a teaching job.

  barry just woke up and said “bottle?” got to quit writing and feed him.

  lots of love to you both, and many thanks for everything.

  s.

  glad i kept this letter open; the feeleys called last night that they have an even better house, definitely for rent, same neighborhood, but much more modern, and larger.

  have been working on the book about the kids. nearly finished, thank heaven, except for the typing, which is a job of about a month. may get it to the publishers fairly soon, which means fall publication, which means an advance on a new book, already outlined. going to princeton tomorrow for a lecture on poetry (dearie me). did you see the story in harper’s?

  much love,

  s.

  • • •

  [To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]

  april 21 [1952]

  dear mother and pop,

  terribly sorry to let all this time go by without writing, and sorry, too, to miss your call the other day.

  up until the middle of last week we had no house to move into, although everything was set for us to move may first. all the houses we wanted in bennington failed to work out for one reason or another—and we were thinking of trying to get a new york apartment for the summer, about our last hope, when the feeleys called us from bennington and said that we could rent the faculty house next door to them until august fifteenth, so we did, and are moving up there may first. it’s a furnished house, beautifully located for us and the kids, and it gives us a few months to look around. we have to put everything into storage, including the books, and last weekend stanley’s father sent two men and a truck and two hundred cartons, and they started packing books. they got about half of them done, and are coming back this week, so we have a hundred cartons of books sitting in the living room.

  i am also within two pages of finishing my book, and am trying to get that done between packings. the kids are delighted over the whole thing, and can’t wait to get going, particularly laurie, who will be living right near all his old dear friends. we’re in the part of campus called the orchard, where there are lots of kids.

  love from all,

  s.

  • • •

  [To Bernice Baumgarten]

  April 25 [1952]

  Dear Bernice,

  Here is the baby; the first copy has gone to John Farrar. It’s a final draft, as I told you, except for two or three more stories I expect to add. I am so glad to get it out of the way that I could scream.

  We found a house for the summer last week and are moving next week, which is why I am a little bit hysterical—putting the children in storage, parking the books, dressing the furniture, and what not.

  Am actually going to spend the summer on the new book. I feel ten years younger with a roof over my head.

  Best,

  S.

  Skip Notes

  *1 The bookcases were built around doorways.

  *2 Peter De Vries, editor, and author of twenty-three novels including Blood of the Lamb, The Tunnel of Love, and Slouching Towards Kalamazoo.

  *3 Dorothy Canfield Fisher, prominent author and educationalist, lived near North Bennington, in Arlington, Vermont.

  *4 Louis Scher, founding member of a rare book finding service called the Seven Bookhunters—although there were actually only three—became a dear family friend whose visits were a delight for the Hymans and their entire social circle. He was named Joanne’s godfather.

  *5 Stanley’s mother, Louisa (Lulu) Marshak Hyman, married Moe (Moises) Hyman in 1915, four years before Stanley was born.

  *6 Hangsaman.

  *7 William Shawn is still assistant editor at The New Yorker. He will soon replace Harold Ross and become the legendary editor of the magazine for thirty-five years.

  *8 Ann Harding was a well-known actress.

  *9 Shirley wrote many short stories about Jannie’s group of colorful imaginary friends, the Ellenoys, who gathered a considerable following among her readers.

  *10 Hangsaman.

  *11 “The Summer People.”

  *12 Bernice’s letters to
Shirley are actually filled with complementary talk about the children, weather, food, travel, and many other subjects of common interest.

  *13 The friend Shirley named “y” (pronounced “ee”) when they lived in Rochester.

  *14 Shirley is actually only six and a half months pregnant, and her fourth child will not be born until late November.

  *15 Herbert Mayes was the mercurial editor of Good Housekeeping.

  *16 Abigail is a fantasy novel Shirley is writing, but never finishes.

  *17 Life Among the Savages.

  FOUR

  • • •

  Life Among the Villagers: 1952–1956

  I have just gotten a running start into section four, going like mad, pages piling up on all sides of the typewriter, and Stanley says it scares him to death. He read section three and was afraid to go to bed.

  —To Bernice Baumgarten, December 31, 1953

  The family has moved for the summer to a faculty house in the Bennington College Orchard vacated for a time by music faculty member Paul Boepple and family. Ralph Ellison helps with the move by driving Laurie, some cartons of Hyman valuables, and Toby the dog separately in his car. The Orchard is a collection of ten small two-story cottages arranged in three rows, and surrounded by apple trees, located about half a mile from the college campus and separated by a long hay meadow and path alongside a seasonal pond. It is about a mile from the small village of North Bennington and the Hymans’ previous house, and five miles from the much larger town of Bennington, Vermont. From the minute they arrive, the Hymans are surrounded by friends and colleagues: the Feeley family next door, writer Howard Nemerov and family, composer Lionel Nowak and family, and even their doctor, Oliver Durand, and his family live nearby in the Orchard.