#shirleyjackson

See tagged statuses in the local BookWyrm community

Update! I'm delighted that my " by : Exploring a Campus " one-month module with SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) via is now a candidate for October 2025. It's a good fit for the most haunting month of the year.

Hangsaman is psychological study of a young womanโ€™s coming of age; a dark Gothic mystery; a critique of gender roles, family dynamics, & higher education; a meditation on trauma & mental illness; a fictional answer to a real-life , & an ancestor of todayโ€™s storytelling.

More info here: https://blackberry.signumuniversity.org/space/modules/iteration/2249/

Pictured is the banner for Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson: Exploring a Gothic Campus Mystery with Signum University. The background image is of a woman's face in profile with the wind whipping her hair.
Pictured is a Kindle cued up to read Shirley Jackson's Hangsaman, propped against a reproduction of New England headstone illuminated by a candle.
Pictured is the opening page of the novel Hangsaman with a Dark Academia pin (showing a classical bust encircled by a snake) resting on it.

๐Ÿญ๐Ÿฏ ๐——๐—ฎ๐˜†๐˜€ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐—›๐—ฎ๐—น๐—น๐—ผ๐˜„๐—ฒ๐—ฒ๐—ป: "๐—ช๐—ฒ ๐—›๐—ฎ๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ ๐—”๐—น๐˜„๐—ฎ๐˜†๐˜€ ๐—Ÿ๐—ถ๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ๐—ฑ ๐—œ๐—ป ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—–๐—ฎ๐˜€๐˜๐—น๐—ฒ" ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ๐—ถ๐—ฒ๐˜„ ๐—ฏ๐˜† ๐—ฆ๐—ต๐—ถ๐—ฟ๐—น๐—ฒ๐˜† ๐—๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐—ธ๐˜€๐—ผ๐—ป -

Dreamlike interior dialogue which supplied its own sublimated horror, but in contrast to the horror without?

https://buff.ly/4fnw7nv

This year I've been delighted to join SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) with . This week I'm wrapping up teaching my first module, which is on The Haunting of Hill House by . Itโ€™s been so much fun!

Currently my March module candidate is up for vote for until 2/1: A Haunting on the Hill by . I hope you'll join me!

https://youtu.be/N3n7LyNDGDw?si=JvEVWkuPgCWvlUPG

For more information on my offered modules, please visit http://blackberry.signumuniversity.org/r/DFQwln

Perhaps my last Shirley Jackson audio story for the night, this was a trippy beauty. Jackson's writing is so specific, so descriptive, that it lends itself well to audio. In all the stories I listened to, there is a common theme of travel, of going into the unknown, and a realization of one's precarious existence in the midst of a foreign situation. I highly recommend them all. ๐Ÿ–ค
https://youtu.be/OypmpGEbfp8?si=bLrBTAt1Uc38kfG9

reviewed Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson: Hangsaman (Paperback, 2013, Farrar, Straus and Young, Penguin Books)

Seventeen-year-old Natalie Waite longs to escape home for college. Her father is a domineering and โ€ฆ

My review of Hangsaman

Reading Hangsaman, it's easy to see why Shirley Jackson is so widely celebrated as a prose writer. She has an acerbic wit, but her voice is always kept subordinate to the characterisation of the protagonist. She writes beautiful descriptions, but only so far as required by the story. It is this combination of natural talent and control that imo sets Jackson apart as a writer.

Hangsaman is, ultimately, a coming of age story centered on the protagonist, Natalie's journey from home, to college, to self-discovery. Jackson's signature motifs of paranoia, repressed saphic desire, and all-encompassing patriarchical oppression are very much in effect.

Natalie is far from a 'perfect' victim, however: she is no Tess. She is deluded, egotistical and misanthropic; and the bracing honesty of her characterisation prevents the text from ever descending into polemic. Hangsaman is cold cynical realism all the way down.

It's dark, it's scathing, it's funny. โ€ฆ