Shirley Jackson and rising dread

i delved into the The New Yorker: Fiction podcast with the May 1, 2020 episode, “Kristen Roupenian Reads Shirley Jackson.”

the short story being discussed is Jackson’s 1943 “Afternoon in Linen” and i was intrigued by Roupenian’s assertion that, based on one word towards the end, it is indeed a horror story.

like a lot of people, my introduction to Shirley Jackson was “The Lottery” in high school english. (quite the introduction, to be fair.) but last fall, i read “The Summer People” and now want to read everything she’s ever written.

i love the way Jackson does rising dread. you’re drawn in by the domestic and the familiar so matter-of-factly, and then… oh, something’s not quite right. or as Roupenian puts it:

“The feeling that I have when reading a Shirley Jackson story is that things feel flat and a little overly simple, and then they open up in this really kind of wrenching way and then you feel kind of like you're in a free fall…”