Life Among The Savages by Shirley Jackson

 

Life Among The Savages by Shirley Jackson.

This edition published 1st August 2019 by Penguin Modern Classics. Originally published 1952.

From the cover of the book:

A darkly funny account of family life from the author of The Haunting of Hill House and The Lottery.

'Sometimes, in my capacity as a mother, I find myself sitting open-mouthed and terrified before my own children'

As well as being a master of the macabre, Shirley Jackson was also a pitch-perfect chronicler of everyday family life. In Life Among the Savages, her caustically funny account of raising her children in a ramshackle house in Vermont, she deals with rats in the cellar, misbehaving imaginary friends, an oblivious husband and ever-encroaching domestic chaos, all described with wit, warmth and plenty of bite.

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If you enjoy your stories on the unsettling side, then you will surely have heard of the renowned Shirley Jackson, and may even have read some of her classic novels too, as I have. However, I was completely unaware that she had also written about her own life in two novellas - Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons, until now, and it has been an absolute joy to sip the first of these in quieter moments this month.

Life Among the Savages was originally published as a series of semi-fictionalised short stories by Jackson for women's magazines, which were subsequently collected together and published in novella form in 1952. This gives the book a feeling like you are dropping in on moments in the life of Jackson and her amusingly chaotic family, which I rather enjoyed, and it makes it an easy one to pick and put down as the mood takes you.

The novella begins as Jackson, her husband, their two small children, one dog and two cats move from New York to a ramshackle house in rural Vermont, and follows them through their trials, tribulations, family dramas, and the addition of two more children to the household over the next few years - ending at the point when child number four is born.

Jackson's style is witty and engaging as she regales you with incident after hilarious incident of trying to cope with domesticity in the sticks, and the antics of her brood (and husband) - issues with the large and rackety house, pet related pandemonium, and all manner of child-centred commotion provide fodder for her sharply observed attention. Much of this is atmospherically 1950s in nature, especially the family dynamics and social structure, which provide a fascinating view of small town America of the era, but there is so much in these pages that is relatable when it comes to the old parenting lark too.

I chuckled throughout, lapping up absurd situations such as oscillating squirrels; conversations at cross-purposes; imaginary friends, identities, and even whole families that must be considered in the most trying of situations; and many more golden moments. There is an aching poignancy underlying much of the comedy too, which is hard to put into words. 

This was an unexpected delight, in a style that I did not appreciate Jackson could write so well, given the difference between this comic gem and her darker novels. I cannot wait to pick up a copy of the next part of their adventures, Raising Demons.

Life Among the Savages is available to buy now in multiple formats.

About the author:

Shirley Jackson was born in San Francisco in 1916. She first received wide critical acclaim for her short story "The Lottery," which was published in 1948. Her novels--which include The Sundial, The Bird's Nest, Hangsaman, The Road through the Wall, We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House--are characterized by her use of realistic settings for tales that often involve elements of horror and the occult. 

Raising Demons and Life Among the Savages are her two works of nonfiction. Come Along With Me is a collection of stories, lectures, and part of the novel she was working on when she died in 1965. All are currently in print (Penguin). 

Two posthumous volumes of her short fiction are Just An Ordinary Day (Bantam) and Let Me Tell You (Random House). A graphic novel adaptation of "The Lottery" by Miles Hyman, her grandson, was published in 2016 (Farrar-Straus-Giroux). #

Also in 2016: Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson (Penguin Classics) and an authorized biography by Ruth Franklin: Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (Norton).