Gradual alphabetical list of my Jackson reviews: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2024/02/15/my-reviews-of-stories-by-shirley-jackson/
Previous reviews of older or classic books: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/reviews-of-older-books/
When I read this book, my thoughts will appear in comment stream below…
1
ELIZABETH
“; Elizabeth’s office allowed of no concealment, and so she came to work of a Monday morning to find that directly to the left of her desk, and within reaching distance of her left elbow as she typed, the wall had been taken away and the innermost skeleton of the building exposed.”
The truly amazing scenes that open this novel — where has it been all my life? — contain the above ‘elbow’ trigger supreme, amidst a description of the listing or subsiding Museum building where 23 year old Elizabeth Richmond works as a clerk, with expressions such as ‘banking curve’ with regard to the tilted or canted exhibits, to which description I can do no justice here! But is this architectural difficulty connected with later references to E’s backache and migraine, after having dinner, a dinner considered important by her mannish aunt with whom E stays after her mother died, so important it is only the dinner’s subsequent brandy that loosens the aunt’s tongue in conversation after which she calls E KIDDO!
If one ‘elbow’ moment was not enough, there was yet another…
“Now, let’s see, this shaft down the building ought to pass somewhere close to Miss Richmond’s left elbow; will it, I wonder, trouble Miss Richmond to find one wall gone?”
Seriously, this material is a staggering example of Shirley Jackson fiction. Whether it is evaluated ultimately to be good or bad fiction, remains to be seen.
I have read so far up to…
“She did not hear Aunt Morgen pass down the hall, nor perceive Aunt Morgen’s belated conscientious glance in through her doorway; she did not hear Aunt Morgen whisper, ‘You all right, kiddo?’”