The Lottery: Or the Adventures of James Harris (1948)
248pp, Fiction
Notes
2023-03-11
Reading Shirley Jackson’s short story collection The Lottery: Or the Adventures of James Harris and let me tell you, some of these stories are mighty bleak. I find myself frequently reminded of Ray Bradbury’s shorts from the same era (40’s, 50’s), but Jackson’s a kind of through-a-glass-darkly version of Bradbury, the setups and characters are familiar, the sympathies of the author lie in the same place but where Bradbury will often have a transcendent moment or at least a realisation of harm done (I’m thinking All Summer In A Day in the case of the latter) Jackson just lets her characters stew and will often double down. The last passage of The Flower Garden where the protagonist turns away from her erstwhile friend and walks away “with great dignity”, embracing her class position in the racist society, is a particularly effective gut punch.