I have an MFA in short fiction and don’t do a damn thing with it. But I love a good collection of short stories that teach me something about craft. Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Other Stories taught me the art of the ominous subtext.
Jackson’s stories feature a lot of isolated or lonely people, who decidedly don’t get their happy endings. There is a dread running underneath (and sometimes overrneath…) her stories. Mundane details can say something about the character or the atmosphere. In one story a man fastidiously replaces his kitchen towel on its rod or carefully puts his gradually accumulated silverware in its special box. He’s decorated his apartment just-so, with a specific color scheme. There is something suffocating about his pristine apartment, in every considered step he takes while cooking a meal for his girlfriend, who lives across the hall in a very messy apartment (about which he plans to sternly lecture her). Something uncomfortable is underneath the surface of their relationship, and it can be seen in the extravagant meal his prepares, his girlfriend’s robust appetite, her careless invitation to a coworker to join them. In the end he is turned out of his own home after his girlfriend takes credit for the meal and the nice apartment and gives him the key to her apartment, waving goodbye as if he was the one living across the hall while she entertains her coworker. He slowly begins to clean her mess, while he is essentially cuckolded across the hall. His neat apartment reveals his over-controlling nature, while his girlfriend’s sudden, inexplicable claim over his life shows how little control he actually has.
Most of Jackson’s stories feature innocuous elements which are actually a portent of something disturbing or disruptive. An ordinary question, a passing moment, a neat apartment, a dark hallway—out of context they are mundane. But in Jackson’s hands, there is great tension below the surface. Then something breaks through at the end of the story, an unexpected horror or an unnerving revelation.
Which leads us of course to her most famous story, “The Lottery.” I clearly remember reading this story for the first time in school and being terrified by the ending. A friendly small town gathering hides a sinister purpose, another example of Jackson’s talent for unearthing the shark under the water.
Of note are several anti-racist stories that are very well done. I always hold my breath reading older literature—this collection is from the 40’s—hoping a favorite writer doesn’t have some awful story that will crush my regard. But Jackson’s stories decidedly judge the bigot and the characters are not offensive stereotypes.
The Lottery and Other Stories is a fairly easy read. The stories are quite short; a few cut off after a few pages, right in the middle of things, which is a little odd. But Jackson knows how to summon the uneasy feeling you get when something seems off by just a hair. The pressure Jackson builds is relieved at the end by an awful revelation. I enjoy that kind of thing. Give me a disturbing twist and I’m a happy girl.
The Lottery and Other Stories is for readers who like a little bit of literary creepiness and have short attention spans. The book made me want to read Jackson’s novels.
