Author: BLISS. JACKSON
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781934819975
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Fiction. Asian & Asian American Studies. From fragmented ransom notes to hanging footnotes, contemporary fairy tales to coded text, interconnecting pieces of modal flash fiction to backwards fractal narratives about gradual blindness, transgressive listicles to how-to guides for performative wokeness, variable destinies in downtown Chicago to impossible dating applications, counterfactual relationships to the French translation of adolescence, the conceptual, language-driven short stories in COUNTERFACTUAL LOVE STORIES AND OTHER EXPERIMENTS are an exploration of not just mixed-race/hapa identity in Michigan (and the American Midwest), but also of the infinite ways in which stories can be told, challenged, celebrated, and subverted.
Counterfactual Love Stories and Other Experiments
Author: BLISS. JACKSON
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781934819975
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Fiction. Asian & Asian American Studies. From fragmented ransom notes to hanging footnotes, contemporary fairy tales to coded text, interconnecting pieces of modal flash fiction to backwards fractal narratives about gradual blindness, transgressive listicles to how-to guides for performative wokeness, variable destinies in downtown Chicago to impossible dating applications, counterfactual relationships to the French translation of adolescence, the conceptual, language-driven short stories in COUNTERFACTUAL LOVE STORIES AND OTHER EXPERIMENTS are an exploration of not just mixed-race/hapa identity in Michigan (and the American Midwest), but also of the infinite ways in which stories can be told, challenged, celebrated, and subverted.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781934819975
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Fiction. Asian & Asian American Studies. From fragmented ransom notes to hanging footnotes, contemporary fairy tales to coded text, interconnecting pieces of modal flash fiction to backwards fractal narratives about gradual blindness, transgressive listicles to how-to guides for performative wokeness, variable destinies in downtown Chicago to impossible dating applications, counterfactual relationships to the French translation of adolescence, the conceptual, language-driven short stories in COUNTERFACTUAL LOVE STORIES AND OTHER EXPERIMENTS are an exploration of not just mixed-race/hapa identity in Michigan (and the American Midwest), but also of the infinite ways in which stories can be told, challenged, celebrated, and subverted.
A Lot Like Fun - Only Different
Author: Jack Livingston
Publisher: Nfb Publishing
ISBN: 9781953610058
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Author Jack Livingston Describes the Book"Clearing out the high school with a smoke bomb prank in our senior year, raising a family of pigs in a village yard, saving a drowning man in Singapore, and overcoming the trauma of a childhood abduction are part of my friend, Chris Kelley's past. I knew little about them. To me, Chris was the guy who was always up for doing two fun things in one day (sometimes three). When Chris was diagnosed with Pick's disease (a rare type of dementia) in his mid-fifties, it signaled the end to what we had taken for granted. It changed our friendship. No longer would I follow him on epic adventures he planned. These days, I take him for hikes, hold both sides of our conversations, and help him across a two-foot stream. But because I didn't want to forget the times we'd had together, I started to write, and as a result found out there was more to my friend. In A Lot Like Fun -- Only Different I share incredible stories of our improbable friendship where Chris met life head on while I asked, "Are you sure we want to do this?" It contains dozens of stories and photos from our past that contrast 'current day' Chris, diminished by Pick's, with the Chris I knew so well. No longer are we barreling down the 219 to ski or mountain bike the Bent Rim Trail, and celebrating with a 'couple tree' beers. We aren't breaking trails with our snowshoes in the Adirondack High Peaks or cruising through Appalachia on the way to a 24-hour mountain bike race. We still get together every week. And I look forward to those times. It's fun -- only different. Chris greets me with a smile and a hearty laugh. He doesn't speak, but I know if he could, he'd tell me, 'Thanks for coming out, Jack. Today was great.' And then it breaks my heart when he stands next to my car, wanting to ride home with me and I have to tell him, 'Chris, you're riding with your brother. I'll see you next week, okay buddy.' And I hear his words of the past. 'Good deal.'"
Publisher: Nfb Publishing
ISBN: 9781953610058
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Author Jack Livingston Describes the Book"Clearing out the high school with a smoke bomb prank in our senior year, raising a family of pigs in a village yard, saving a drowning man in Singapore, and overcoming the trauma of a childhood abduction are part of my friend, Chris Kelley's past. I knew little about them. To me, Chris was the guy who was always up for doing two fun things in one day (sometimes three). When Chris was diagnosed with Pick's disease (a rare type of dementia) in his mid-fifties, it signaled the end to what we had taken for granted. It changed our friendship. No longer would I follow him on epic adventures he planned. These days, I take him for hikes, hold both sides of our conversations, and help him across a two-foot stream. But because I didn't want to forget the times we'd had together, I started to write, and as a result found out there was more to my friend. In A Lot Like Fun -- Only Different I share incredible stories of our improbable friendship where Chris met life head on while I asked, "Are you sure we want to do this?" It contains dozens of stories and photos from our past that contrast 'current day' Chris, diminished by Pick's, with the Chris I knew so well. No longer are we barreling down the 219 to ski or mountain bike the Bent Rim Trail, and celebrating with a 'couple tree' beers. We aren't breaking trails with our snowshoes in the Adirondack High Peaks or cruising through Appalachia on the way to a 24-hour mountain bike race. We still get together every week. And I look forward to those times. It's fun -- only different. Chris greets me with a smile and a hearty laugh. He doesn't speak, but I know if he could, he'd tell me, 'Thanks for coming out, Jack. Today was great.' And then it breaks my heart when he stands next to my car, wanting to ride home with me and I have to tell him, 'Chris, you're riding with your brother. I'll see you next week, okay buddy.' And I hear his words of the past. 'Good deal.'"
Hangsaman
Author: Shirley Jackson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101616768
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Shirley Jackson's chilling second novel, based on her own experiences and an actual mysterious disappearance Seventeen-year-old Natalie Waite longs to escape home for college. Her father is a domineering and egotistical writer who keeps a tight rein on Natalie and her long-suffering mother. When Natalie finally does get away, however, college life doesn’t bring the happiness she expected. Little by little, Natalie is no longer certain of anything—even where reality ends and her dark imaginings begin. Chilling and suspenseful, Hangsaman is loosely based on the real-life disappearance of a Bennington College sophomore in 1946. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101616768
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Shirley Jackson's chilling second novel, based on her own experiences and an actual mysterious disappearance Seventeen-year-old Natalie Waite longs to escape home for college. Her father is a domineering and egotistical writer who keeps a tight rein on Natalie and her long-suffering mother. When Natalie finally does get away, however, college life doesn’t bring the happiness she expected. Little by little, Natalie is no longer certain of anything—even where reality ends and her dark imaginings begin. Chilling and suspenseful, Hangsaman is loosely based on the real-life disappearance of a Bennington College sophomore in 1946. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
What About Me
Author: D. John Jackson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781544519005
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 170
Book Description
Have you ever felt unseen, unheard, misjudged, or misunderstood? In What About Me: Walking the Tightrope as a Black Man in America, D. John Jackson, a Fortune 50 corporate leader with over thirty years of engineering and business leadership, shares a simple, powerful message: Your life matters. Your dreams matter. And you can achieve them, no matter who you are or where you're starting out. Through the stories and lessons of his own personal journey, Jackson proves time and again that what you say and do can change the trajectory of your life. Written specifically for young Black men and boys in America today, What About Me speaks to, and for, all marginalized or underrepresented voices with a call of courage and perseverance. When young Black men and boys are fully appreciated, when we all come together through stories of success and hope, this country will finally reach its true potential.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781544519005
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 170
Book Description
Have you ever felt unseen, unheard, misjudged, or misunderstood? In What About Me: Walking the Tightrope as a Black Man in America, D. John Jackson, a Fortune 50 corporate leader with over thirty years of engineering and business leadership, shares a simple, powerful message: Your life matters. Your dreams matter. And you can achieve them, no matter who you are or where you're starting out. Through the stories and lessons of his own personal journey, Jackson proves time and again that what you say and do can change the trajectory of your life. Written specifically for young Black men and boys in America today, What About Me speaks to, and for, all marginalized or underrepresented voices with a call of courage and perseverance. When young Black men and boys are fully appreciated, when we all come together through stories of success and hope, this country will finally reach its true potential.
Distracted
Author: Maggie Jackson
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1615920005
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
This is an important book...a harrowing documentation of our modern world's descent into fragmentation, self alienation, and emptiness-brought on, to a large extent, by communication technologies that distract us, dislocate us, and destroy our inner lives.--Alan Lightman, author of the bestselling Einstein's Dreams and National Book Award finalist The Diagnosis and MIT professorThis fascinating book on America's collective ADD is a wake-up call to all of us to take back our lives, turn off the technology, and focus on paying attention to what makes us human and fulfilled.--Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School Professor and author of America the Principled and ConfidenceWe have oceans of information at our disposal, yet we increasingly seek knowledge in online headlines glimpsed on the run. We are networked as never before, but we connect with friends and family via e-mail and fleeting face-to-face moments that are rescheduled and interrupted a dozen times. Despite our wondrous technologies and scientific advances, we are nurturing a culture of diffusion, fragmentation, and detachment.In this new world, something crucial is missing: attention-the key to recapturing our ability to connect, reflect, and relax; the secret to coping with a mobile, multitasking, virtual world. How did we get to the point where we keep one eye on our Blackberry and one eye on our spouse-in bed? We can contact millions of people worldwide, so why is it hard to schedule a simple family supper? Most importantly, what can we do about it? Distracted vividly shows how day by day, our hyper-mobile, cyber-centric, interrupted lives erode our capacity for deep focus and awareness. The implications for a healthy society are stark.Attention is the building block of intimacy, wisdom, and cultural progress. Jackson makes it clear that if we squander our powers of attention, our technological age could ultimately slip into cultural decline. And yet we are just as capable of igniting a renaissance of attention by strengthening our skills of focus and perception, the keys to judgment, memory, morality, and happiness. Jackson reveals the astonishing scientific discoveries that can help us rekindle our powers of attention in a world of speed and overload. She offers us a wake-up call, and reasons for hope.Distracted is an original exposé of the multifaceted nature of attention, an engaging and often surprising portrait of postmodern life, and a compelling roadmap for cultivating sustained focus and nurturing a more enriched and literate society. More than ever, we cannot afford to let distraction become the marker of our time.Maggie Jackson (New York, NY) is an award-winning author and journalist who writes the popular Balancing Acts column in the Boston Globe. Her work also has appeared in The New York Times and on National Public Radio, among other national publications. Her acclaimed first book, What's Happening to Home? Balancing Work, Life and Refuge in the Information Age, examined the loss of home as a refuge.
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1615920005
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
This is an important book...a harrowing documentation of our modern world's descent into fragmentation, self alienation, and emptiness-brought on, to a large extent, by communication technologies that distract us, dislocate us, and destroy our inner lives.--Alan Lightman, author of the bestselling Einstein's Dreams and National Book Award finalist The Diagnosis and MIT professorThis fascinating book on America's collective ADD is a wake-up call to all of us to take back our lives, turn off the technology, and focus on paying attention to what makes us human and fulfilled.--Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School Professor and author of America the Principled and ConfidenceWe have oceans of information at our disposal, yet we increasingly seek knowledge in online headlines glimpsed on the run. We are networked as never before, but we connect with friends and family via e-mail and fleeting face-to-face moments that are rescheduled and interrupted a dozen times. Despite our wondrous technologies and scientific advances, we are nurturing a culture of diffusion, fragmentation, and detachment.In this new world, something crucial is missing: attention-the key to recapturing our ability to connect, reflect, and relax; the secret to coping with a mobile, multitasking, virtual world. How did we get to the point where we keep one eye on our Blackberry and one eye on our spouse-in bed? We can contact millions of people worldwide, so why is it hard to schedule a simple family supper? Most importantly, what can we do about it? Distracted vividly shows how day by day, our hyper-mobile, cyber-centric, interrupted lives erode our capacity for deep focus and awareness. The implications for a healthy society are stark.Attention is the building block of intimacy, wisdom, and cultural progress. Jackson makes it clear that if we squander our powers of attention, our technological age could ultimately slip into cultural decline. And yet we are just as capable of igniting a renaissance of attention by strengthening our skills of focus and perception, the keys to judgment, memory, morality, and happiness. Jackson reveals the astonishing scientific discoveries that can help us rekindle our powers of attention in a world of speed and overload. She offers us a wake-up call, and reasons for hope.Distracted is an original exposé of the multifaceted nature of attention, an engaging and often surprising portrait of postmodern life, and a compelling roadmap for cultivating sustained focus and nurturing a more enriched and literate society. More than ever, we cannot afford to let distraction become the marker of our time.Maggie Jackson (New York, NY) is an award-winning author and journalist who writes the popular Balancing Acts column in the Boston Globe. Her work also has appeared in The New York Times and on National Public Radio, among other national publications. Her acclaimed first book, What's Happening to Home? Balancing Work, Life and Refuge in the Information Age, examined the loss of home as a refuge.
Deviant Desire
Author: Jackson Marsh
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781798895108
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
The Victorian East End lives in fear of the Ripper and his mission to kill rent boys. Silas Hawkins, nineteen and forging a life on the streets could well be the next victim, but when he meets Archer, his life changes forever. Young, attractive and rich, Archer is The Viscount Clearwater, a philanthropist, adventurer and homosexual. When Archer suspects the Ripper is killing to lure him to a confrontation, he risks his reputation and his life to stop the madman's murders. Every man must play his part, including Silas. Secrets must be kept, lovers must be protected, and for Archer and Silas, it marks the start of their biggest adventure - love. A mashup of mystery, romance and adventure, Deviant Desire is set in an imaginary London of 1888. The first book in the on-going The Clearwater Mysteries series and mixes fact with fiction. The series takes the theme of loyalty and friendship in a world where homosexuality is a crime. Insta-love, physical romance, mystery and murder. Praise for Jackson Marsh "Intensively researched." "No usual tried tropes here. Great story, natural dialogue, well-developed characters, and an unpredictable plot." "Amazing. Jackson Marsh has written a compelling mystery and a wonderful love story both at the same time."
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781798895108
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
The Victorian East End lives in fear of the Ripper and his mission to kill rent boys. Silas Hawkins, nineteen and forging a life on the streets could well be the next victim, but when he meets Archer, his life changes forever. Young, attractive and rich, Archer is The Viscount Clearwater, a philanthropist, adventurer and homosexual. When Archer suspects the Ripper is killing to lure him to a confrontation, he risks his reputation and his life to stop the madman's murders. Every man must play his part, including Silas. Secrets must be kept, lovers must be protected, and for Archer and Silas, it marks the start of their biggest adventure - love. A mashup of mystery, romance and adventure, Deviant Desire is set in an imaginary London of 1888. The first book in the on-going The Clearwater Mysteries series and mixes fact with fiction. The series takes the theme of loyalty and friendship in a world where homosexuality is a crime. Insta-love, physical romance, mystery and murder. Praise for Jackson Marsh "Intensively researched." "No usual tried tropes here. Great story, natural dialogue, well-developed characters, and an unpredictable plot." "Amazing. Jackson Marsh has written a compelling mystery and a wonderful love story both at the same time."
Life's Little Instruction Book
Author: H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc
ISBN: 1558531211
Category : Conduct of life
Languages : en
Pages : 24
Book Description
A collection of advice on how to live a happy and rewarding life.
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc
ISBN: 1558531211
Category : Conduct of life
Languages : en
Pages : 24
Book Description
A collection of advice on how to live a happy and rewarding life.
Survival Math
Author: Mitchell Jackson
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 1501131737
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
“A vibrant memoir of race, violence, family, and manhood…a virtuosic wail of a book” (The Boston Globe), Survival Math calculates how award-winning author Mitchell S. Jackson survived the Portland, Oregon, of his youth. This “spellbinding” (NPR) book explores gangs and guns, near-death experiences, sex work, masculinity, composite fathers, the concept of “hustle,” and the destructive power of addiction—all framed within the story of Mitchell Jackson, his family, and his community. Lauded for its breathtaking pace, its tender portrayals, its stark candor, and its luminous style, Survival Math reveals on every page the searching intellect and originality of its author. The primary narrative, focused on understanding the antecedents of Jackson’s family’s experience, is complemented by survivor files, which feature photographs and riveting short narratives of several of Jackson’s male relatives. “A vulnerable, sobering look at Jackson’s life and beyond, in all its tragedies, burdens, and faults” (San Francisco Chronicle), the sum of Survival Math’s parts is a highly original whole, one that reflects on the exigencies—over generations—that have shaped the lives of so many disenfranchised Americans. “Both poetic and brutally honest” (Salon), Mitchell S. Jackson’s nonfiction debut is as essential as it is beautiful, as real as it is artful, a singular achievement, not to be missed.
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 1501131737
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
“A vibrant memoir of race, violence, family, and manhood…a virtuosic wail of a book” (The Boston Globe), Survival Math calculates how award-winning author Mitchell S. Jackson survived the Portland, Oregon, of his youth. This “spellbinding” (NPR) book explores gangs and guns, near-death experiences, sex work, masculinity, composite fathers, the concept of “hustle,” and the destructive power of addiction—all framed within the story of Mitchell Jackson, his family, and his community. Lauded for its breathtaking pace, its tender portrayals, its stark candor, and its luminous style, Survival Math reveals on every page the searching intellect and originality of its author. The primary narrative, focused on understanding the antecedents of Jackson’s family’s experience, is complemented by survivor files, which feature photographs and riveting short narratives of several of Jackson’s male relatives. “A vulnerable, sobering look at Jackson’s life and beyond, in all its tragedies, burdens, and faults” (San Francisco Chronicle), the sum of Survival Math’s parts is a highly original whole, one that reflects on the exigencies—over generations—that have shaped the lives of so many disenfranchised Americans. “Both poetic and brutally honest” (Salon), Mitchell S. Jackson’s nonfiction debut is as essential as it is beautiful, as real as it is artful, a singular achievement, not to be missed.
On Michael Jackson
Author: Margo Jefferson
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307277658
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
The renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning cultural critic brilliantly unravels the complexities of one of the most enigmatic figures of our time in this passionate, incisive, and bracing work of cultural analysis. Who is Michael Jackson and what does it mean to call him a “What Is It”? What do P. T. Barnum, Peter Pan, and Edgar Allan Poe have to do with our fascination with Jackson? How did his curious Victorian upbringing and his tenure as a child prodigy on the “chitlin’ circuit” inform his character and multiplicity of selves? How is Michael Jackson’s celebrity related to the outrageous popularity of nineteenth-century minstrelsy? What is the perverse appeal of child stars for grown-ups and what is the price of such stardom for these children and for us? What uncanniness provoked Michael Jackson to become “Alone of All His Race, Alone of All Her Sex,” while establishing himself as an undeniably great performer with neo-Gothic, dandy proclivities and a producer of visionary music videos? What do we find so unnerving about Michael Jackson’s presumed monstrosity? In short, how are we all of us implicated? In this stunning book, Margo Jefferson gives us the incontrovertible lowdown on call-him-what-you-wish; she offers a powerful reckoning with a quintessential, richly allusive signifier of American society and popular culture.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307277658
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
The renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning cultural critic brilliantly unravels the complexities of one of the most enigmatic figures of our time in this passionate, incisive, and bracing work of cultural analysis. Who is Michael Jackson and what does it mean to call him a “What Is It”? What do P. T. Barnum, Peter Pan, and Edgar Allan Poe have to do with our fascination with Jackson? How did his curious Victorian upbringing and his tenure as a child prodigy on the “chitlin’ circuit” inform his character and multiplicity of selves? How is Michael Jackson’s celebrity related to the outrageous popularity of nineteenth-century minstrelsy? What is the perverse appeal of child stars for grown-ups and what is the price of such stardom for these children and for us? What uncanniness provoked Michael Jackson to become “Alone of All His Race, Alone of All Her Sex,” while establishing himself as an undeniably great performer with neo-Gothic, dandy proclivities and a producer of visionary music videos? What do we find so unnerving about Michael Jackson’s presumed monstrosity? In short, how are we all of us implicated? In this stunning book, Margo Jefferson gives us the incontrovertible lowdown on call-him-what-you-wish; she offers a powerful reckoning with a quintessential, richly allusive signifier of American society and popular culture.
Let Me Tell You
Author: Shirley Jackson
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812997670
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Book Description
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • From the renowned author of “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House, a spectacular volume of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, essays, and other writings. Features “Family Treasures,” nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Short Story Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American writers of the last hundred years. Since her death in 1965, her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more exalted. As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this astonishing compilation of fifty-six pieces—more than forty of which have never been published before. Two of Jackson’s children co-edited this volume, culling through the vast archives of their mother’s papers at the Library of Congress, selecting only the very best for inclusion. Let Me Tell You brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best known for, along with frank, inspiring lectures on writing; comic essays about her large, boisterous family; and whimsical drawings. Jackson’s landscape here is most frequently domestic: dinner parties and bridge, household budgets and homeward-bound commutes, children’s games and neighborly gossip. But this familiar setting is also her most subversive: She wields humor, terror, and the uncanny to explore the real challenges of marriage, parenting, and community—the pressure of social norms, the veins of distrust in love, the constant lack of time and space. For the first time, this collection showcases Shirley Jackson’s radically different modes of writing side by side. Together they show her to be a magnificent storyteller, a sharp, sly humorist, and a powerful feminist. This volume includes a Foreword by the celebrated literary critic and Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin. Praise for Let Me Tell You “Stunning.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Let us now—at last—celebrate dangerous women writers: how cheering to see justice done with [this collection of] Shirley Jackson’s heretofore unpublished works—uniquely unsettling stories and ruthlessly barbed essays on domestic life.”—Vanity Fair “Feels like an uncanny dollhouse: Everything perfectly rendered, but something deliciously not quite right.”—NPR “There are . . . times in reading [Jackson’s] accounts of desperate women in their thirties slowly going crazy that she seems an American Jean Rhys, other times when she rivals even Flannery O’Connor in her cool depictions of inhumanity and insidious cruelty, and still others when she matches Philip K. Dick at his most hallucinatory. At her best, though, she’s just incomparable.”—The Washington Post “Offers insights into the vagaries of [Jackson’s] mind, which was ruminant and generous, accommodating such diverse figures as Dr. Seuss and Samuel Richardson.”—The New York Times Book Review “The best pieces clutch your throat, gently at first, and then with growing strength. . . . The whole collection has a timelessness.”—The Boston Globe “[Jackson’s] writing, both fiction and nonfiction, has such enduring power—she brings out the darkness in life, the poltergeists shut into everyone’s basement, and offers them up, bringing wit and even joy to the examination.”—USA Today “The closest we can get to sitting down and having a conversation with . . . one of the most original voices of her generation.”—The Huffington Post
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812997670
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Book Description
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • From the renowned author of “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House, a spectacular volume of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, essays, and other writings. Features “Family Treasures,” nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Short Story Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American writers of the last hundred years. Since her death in 1965, her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more exalted. As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this astonishing compilation of fifty-six pieces—more than forty of which have never been published before. Two of Jackson’s children co-edited this volume, culling through the vast archives of their mother’s papers at the Library of Congress, selecting only the very best for inclusion. Let Me Tell You brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best known for, along with frank, inspiring lectures on writing; comic essays about her large, boisterous family; and whimsical drawings. Jackson’s landscape here is most frequently domestic: dinner parties and bridge, household budgets and homeward-bound commutes, children’s games and neighborly gossip. But this familiar setting is also her most subversive: She wields humor, terror, and the uncanny to explore the real challenges of marriage, parenting, and community—the pressure of social norms, the veins of distrust in love, the constant lack of time and space. For the first time, this collection showcases Shirley Jackson’s radically different modes of writing side by side. Together they show her to be a magnificent storyteller, a sharp, sly humorist, and a powerful feminist. This volume includes a Foreword by the celebrated literary critic and Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin. Praise for Let Me Tell You “Stunning.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Let us now—at last—celebrate dangerous women writers: how cheering to see justice done with [this collection of] Shirley Jackson’s heretofore unpublished works—uniquely unsettling stories and ruthlessly barbed essays on domestic life.”—Vanity Fair “Feels like an uncanny dollhouse: Everything perfectly rendered, but something deliciously not quite right.”—NPR “There are . . . times in reading [Jackson’s] accounts of desperate women in their thirties slowly going crazy that she seems an American Jean Rhys, other times when she rivals even Flannery O’Connor in her cool depictions of inhumanity and insidious cruelty, and still others when she matches Philip K. Dick at his most hallucinatory. At her best, though, she’s just incomparable.”—The Washington Post “Offers insights into the vagaries of [Jackson’s] mind, which was ruminant and generous, accommodating such diverse figures as Dr. Seuss and Samuel Richardson.”—The New York Times Book Review “The best pieces clutch your throat, gently at first, and then with growing strength. . . . The whole collection has a timelessness.”—The Boston Globe “[Jackson’s] writing, both fiction and nonfiction, has such enduring power—she brings out the darkness in life, the poltergeists shut into everyone’s basement, and offers them up, bringing wit and even joy to the examination.”—USA Today “The closest we can get to sitting down and having a conversation with . . . one of the most original voices of her generation.”—The Huffington Post