Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings

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 only grown more exalted. As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this compilation of 56 pieces--more than forty never before published. 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, household budgets and 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. This collection showcases Jackson's radically different modes of writing side by side, showing her to be a magnificent storyteller, a sharp, sly humorist, and a powerful feminist.--Adapted from book jacket.