The Letters of Shirley Jackson

by Shirley Jackson

  (harlequin: where did you say she was?

  me: at camp.

  harlequin: oh.)

  applegate is furious at dad. the other day applegate caught a splendid bird, slightly larger than he was; we think it was a blackbird, and he brought it live into the bathroom where it promptly flew up onto the coatrack and sat there yelling and cursing and applegate sat on the floor and wondered what to do with this thing. i finally persuaded dad to help and he worked out a plan; the idea, he said, was to get the bird outside, which seemed very reasonable, so he cornered the bird and kept it at bay with the buggy whip, while i snatched applegate and put him in the front room and shut the door. then dad shut the door into the kitchen and opened the back (study) screen door and with the buggy whip herded the bird into the summersalt room and finally gave him a little flick with the whip and the bird shot out the door smack into faun malkin who was just coming in. faun malkin, who is not used to being hit in the mush with a blackbird, fielded it like barry on a low grounder and went tearing off with a mouthful of blackbird and no idea what to do with it and when i let applegate out of the front room he could not understand why dad had taken away his bird and given it to faun malkin. he was so angry that he went out and got two mice one after another and left their heads in the kitchen and when dad reminded him that mice were an unclean sacrifice he got another mouse and drowned it in bix’s water dish, so it would maybe get clean that way. he now believes that nothing will please dad and i think he has given up.

  i have almost gotten my voice back which is good because i have to lecture at the college in ten days. we are going to new york next week leaving laurie to feed the fish and i am going shopping and to see some movies and we will celebrate lulu and gramp’s anniversary with them. laurie is doing all his own cooking; he doesn’t want to go to restaurants with us, so he cooks himself cube steaks and hamburgers. last night he made steaks for Corinne*24 and she said they were good. dad and I have been wandering all over for dinners.

  love,

  mom

  • • •

  “Dear, you know the doctor said you weren’t to carry anything heavy—”

  [To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]

  wednesday [August 1960]

  dear mother and pop,

  first of all i want to tell mother happy birthday—little early, I know, the new yorker subscription is renewed with our love, and a record will be arriving which i do not recommend your listening to.*25 anyway, happy birthday from all of us.

  everything is fine here, and the kids are all well. it has been a wonderful summer for all of us. stanley and i have kept busy here at home, writing, although not so much as we should have, and i have not cooked a meal except breakfast since the kids left. we have been going out for lunch at some small local place, and then go exploring for dinner. there are only one or two good restaurants near here, but during the summer of course new england comes to life. we have been as far as fifty miles away to try a special place. we got a list from friends and from books, and are really having a lovely time at it. we are trying to get to a place which life magazine’s cookbook calls one of the fifty top restaurants in the united states, but although it is only about seventy miles from here, there does not seem to be any way to get there. we would have to go to brattleboro and then turn around and come back down another road; very confusing. we are getting to know the country around us, which we never did before. we always left town in one of two directions—either into new york state, going to the city, or into massachusetts, going to the kids’ camp or to boston, so we never explored further into vermont. half the fun of going, of course, is the little open car. we spent a week in new york city early in the summer, seeing agents and publishers and such, which is always a tiring experience (everyone drinks before lunch, which is very hard on us rustic types). we also spent a week in suffield, connecticut, where i go every year for my writers’ conference, and this year stanley came along as kind of semi-staff, which meant that while i was out teaching every morning he stayed in our room and worked on his book, and then sat in on a couple of panel discussions and gave one evening lecture. that was a lot of fun, since i love suffield and have a lot of good friends there and this year stanley was able to meet them and see the place.*26 i also gave an evening lecture, which i am getting to enjoy doing. i am much less nervous about public speaking than i used to be, and may end up doing lecture tours yet.

  our plans are to go to salem next week; i have always felt that i ought to see salem since i wrote a book about it, and am very anxious to see the old houses there. we are trying to decide whether to go to new york to meet laurie’s boat;*27 he has apparently been having the time of his life. he has written twice, long excited letters. he and one of the boys spent about ten days in greece, staying with the boy’s relatives, and laurie had a chance to see how a greek family lives. he was shocked at how poor they were, and how much we take for granted here at home that they regard as luxuries. they got into trouble with the police in yugoslavia, since they tried to go through the country without proper visas, and got hauled off the train and scolded, neither of them understanding a word, and the police took away all their cash—about twenty-eight dollars, laurie said—and they can’t seem to get it back without going back to yugoslavia and fighting all that red tape. the american counsel in athens told them to forget it; the last we heard they had left greece and were hiring a car to go through italy and briefly to paris and then on to holland where they sail from rotterdam on the fifteenth. the boat trip was also great; the boat was a kind of college cruise ship, full of american college kids, and laurie and the other boys in the band were just part of the crowd, rather than being made to feel like the hired help. it has been, altogether, a great experience for him and i only hope he comes home prepared to settle down to college.

  we saw the other kids in camp last sunday, and hardly recognized them. barry is so tan that it is a shock, and his hair has been bleached by the sun so he looks very different; he is also two inches taller; the girls are both tan and have been concentrating on taking off weight, which is an improvement in both, although i never thought i would see the day when sally worried about weight. sally is what they call a senior girl, which is the oldest girl’s group in the camp. she is the youngest of the senior girls, but fits in with them beautifully, and has surprised everyone this year by being more interested in the camp dances than in climbing the roof of the recreation hall. joanne is doing astonishingly well as a junior counselor, and the kids are very fond of her. the camp director says they can use her any year she wants to come. i think she is a little bored by it, however, and would prefer something else next summer, something more like a real job. she still wants to try summer theatre, but there doesn’t seem to be much chance.

  it hardly seems possible that summer is nearly over; i wish the two worst winter months went this fast. we are getting lonesome for the kids and it seems too quiet now, although we liked it for a while. oh, we have a new floor in the kitchen, back hall, and bathroom. we bought a new fourteen-foot couch for the front room where we have the television and stereo, and it looks beautiful; sectional and curved, with finally plenty of room for people to sit down. stanley and i sit every evening and listen to records; we are particularly interested in harpsichord right now, and it’s wonderful on the stereo records. no more jazz, not until laurie gets home. we have been buying lots of records on what we save on the phone bill with all of them gone.

  remember, i do not advise your listening to the record we sent you, but a very happy birthday, anyway. lots and lots of love,

  s.

  • • •

  [To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]

  wednesday [fall 1960]

  dearest mother and pop,

  i thought that just for amusement you might want to know the current standing of HILL HOUSE; perhaps it is becau
se i never had a book so successful, but I just love to count it over.

  anyway, (i just love this sum) the movies paid $67,500. my share of the reader’s digest is going to be about twenty thousand, with a possibility of more if it sells beyond their average figure. they have also taken an option on foreign sales for another four thousand. the paperback rights have been sold for a sum which the agent said i didn’t need to know because it would only make it harder for me to add. the english rights have sold, and the agent said sadly that she had felt it wiser to close the hollywood deal without going further into the broadway rights. on top of everything else, sales on the book itself are great; it has paid off its advance and is making a profit. sold four thousand copies last week. it might even make the best seller lists.

  the publisher is now talking about a new book, which he expects will do as well on the strength of this one. he is so pleased because you know they took me on and gave me a prodigious advance on faith, and this has paid them off well.

  we do look forward to paying all our debts. once we are in the clear with the world we can save the rest for things like college for the kids. it will be wonderful to know that everything is paid. mostly it’s the mortgage on the house and a bank loan, and things like dentist bills. also, one item is eighteen hundred owed to you, accumulated over the past twenty years, and you can expect that to be coming along.

  i don’t know anything at all about the movie itself. the contracts have not even been signed, but i expect i will know something early next year. all i do know is that it will not be a low-budget movie, like the last one, because they could hardly pay me so much without expecting to get it back.

  i have arthritis again, in the ends of my fingers, and cannot type for longer than a few minutes without trouble. i have had it off and on for the past several years, and the doctor says that eventually i will have to use an electric typewriter but i am afraid of them. anyway it’s lucky that i don’t have anything to write. my agent has been after me for a long time to come into one of the big new york hospitals with a specialist to see if something can be done but that is silly, since i would probably end up not able to type at all. it’s your fault, anyway; it’s inherited. the doctor says it’s also an occupational disease, that pianists have it, and the only practical relief is aspirin, and applications of oil of wintergreen, which is an awful cure. i smell like a bubble gum factory, and the wintergreen gets into the sheets and the pillows and the chocolate pudding. anyway except for smelling awful i don’t really mind it. it is a great excuse to sit around and read.

  i want to get all this money changed into gold pieces and sit on the floor and play with them, but stanley says the government would find out.

  lots and lots of love to you both.

  s.

  • • •

  [To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]

  monday [September 5, 1960]

  dear mother and pop,

  this being labor day i am in the last stages of the confusion of school clothes and laundry. the weather has turned quite cold and now they say that we may be in the path of that new hurricane.

  mother’s letter came this morning, and so i will answer all the questions in it; i have the feeling i have written you all this before but will try again; laurie is building a bookcase just behind me and the sawing makes it difficult to concentrate.

  here goes:

  the paper edition of the lottery was done without any reference to me. all reprint rights belong to my former publisher who does not like me and so is trying to squeeze every possible nickel out of what rights he has. he has authorized reprints of several books, all awful as far as cover pictures and copy are concerned, but i can’t do anything about it, and probably won’t get any money to speak of.

  the record sounds funny because i was concentrating on going slow; the tendency with something like that, particularly the elaborate setup with mikes and recorders, is to hurry up and get it over with as fast as possible. i will never make another record, if i have any say. i think this one is horrible, and cannot listen to it. also the legal complexities are awful; most of the recordings or readings are by poets, whose material is not usually copyrighted in more than one form, but these two stories i read are copyrighted as plays and as stories and nbc owns right now the television rights to lottery and raised a howl when they heard that it was being recorded. the record company blandly assumed that my agent would okay their contract which has always been all right for the poets, but the contract automatically gave folkway records all dramatic rights to both stories, and it took two months of lawyers fighting to get a contract which would save the stories for me. now the record cannot be played publicly at all, not even on a radio program. you can buy it in record stores, but it costs six bucks.

  the book about the cats and children is what i was calling the baby-book. i did it for money. i was asked to do thirty thousand words and the idea was that my name would only appear in some small note somewhere; the book was not in any sense to show that it was by me or edited by me or anything, but they went ahead and put my name all over it and there’s nothing i can do. i have not even seen a copy, but have asked that i be given the author’s regular complimentary copies and will send you one when i get them. it is called special delivery and i am not very proud of it.

  my new book is coming along slowly; i had lunch with the publishers in new york this summer and they asked if i could finish next spring. i don’t think i can, but they are wonderful and always give me as much time as i want. i have a couple of good housekeeping articles scheduled; i am now doing one for them every other month, and am in october and december, i think. that is just about the only magazine work i am doing.

  the kids are all well, and busy as usual. laurie, who leaves for college tomorrow, is trying to finish up all his odd jobs, hence the bookcase. he is going to goddard college, in upstate vermont; it is a very small coeducational college, very new, modeled after bennington. he has bought himself a model a ford, which is his dearest love. it will not go faster than thirty-five, and he has had it patched up—brakes, for instance—and is going to have it painted and will then take it to college. next weekend he comes home again—it is about a three hour drive in a real car—because he is playing an important job with his band, the last one for a while.

  * * *

  —

  wednesday

  i had to give up on this letter because the hammering got so loud. now laurie has gone, and everyone else is back at school. laurie drove up yesterday and called last night to say that everything was fine, except for a slight flat tire on the way. he likes the college, says nearly everyone plays the guitar, and the place is full of folk singers, but he has found a trombone player and a piano player.

  most of our summer plans fell through because stanley had a slight accident; he tripped over a light cord and fell, smashing his jaw against a radiator, although thoughtfully missing the fireplace and the iron woodbox. he did not, for some strange reason, break his glasses, but he did break one tooth and a dental bridge, which snapped and cut his mouth. he was an awful mess altogether, and—since of course it happened on sunday morning, when not a dentist is to be found in bennington—had a perfectly terrible time with the broken tooth. the doctor finally gave him some dope that got him through sunday and on monday morning our local dentist took one look at the broken tooth and said it required a surgeon dentist, and since the only surgeon dentist stanley trusts is in new york, we took off for new york that afternoon. at the very best it is a four hour trip, and this was about the very worst; we drove, of course, and about halfway hit a cloudburst, one of the kind that is so heavy you can’t drive, no visibility, and have to pull over to the side of the road. we were on the taconic parkway, so of course there was no place to go inside and have coffee or anything, so we just sat, stanley getting more and more unhappy as the dope began to wear off, and me
just cursing. the unspeakable cloudburst followed us all the way down; it would stop raining for ten minutes or so and we would go tearing off down the road—covered with flashing signs, every mile, reading SLIPPERY WHEN WET CAUTION DANGER—and then the rain would start again and we would have to stop. it finally took us about six and a half hours, and by the time we checked into the hotel stanley was very miserable, so we filled him up with dope and then sat and had three drinks each and then he began to feel better. the next day he went to his surgeon dentist and they found that they had to take out five teeth and make a new bridge. they took out the five teeth and we drove home, stanley considerably happier, and the following week he had to go down again to have the bridge put in, and i said i just couldn’t make that drive again, but would drive him to albany where he could get a train and be in the city in three hours. my plan was to drop him at the train station and come home, driving back to albany—about an hour’s trip—the next day to meet him; consequently i was wearing an old skirt and sweater and old shoes; luckily i had my enormous pocketbook which has just about everything i need in it, because about half an hour from albany we hit a cloudburst, worse than the week before. i made a few choice remarks about never never driving him to a dentist again and we came down the hill which leads to the albany road into a flood. i have never seen anything like it. the cars were bumper to bumper for about five miles, with water flowing by like a river. we were three blocks from the railroad station with about ten minutes to catch the train, when the car stalled, just stopped dead. i said i would get out and get help and opened the door and the water outside was level with the car floor, so i closed the door again and we sat there, with a line of cars in back of us blowing their horns. traffic was going the other way in the other lane just as slowly and then a taxi driver stuck his head out going the other way and said lady you better move that car; the fire engines are coming. i said it was just too bad about the fire engines; they would have to run over me, and then the first fire engine came whipping down the road with the sirens screaming, but the taxi driver and a truck behind him skittered over to the far side of the road and the engine zipped around me and got itself somehow down the middle of the road between the two lines of traffic, and so did two more engines behind it.