SHIRLEY JACKSON in paperback!
Dear friends, I'm excited to let you know that the paperback of SHIRLEY JACKSON: A RATHER HAUNTED LIFE arrives in stores today. The book has a beautiful new cover with an eerie yet domestic feel:
The book had an incredible first year out in the world. In The Washington Post, my idol Elaine Showalter called it a "sympathetic and masterful biography [that] both uncovers Jackson's secret and haunting life and repositions her as a major artist." Neil Gaiman called me "the biographer Jackson needed" and said my book made him "want to reread every word Jackson ever wrote." Lena Dunham said it was "one of the best literary biographies" she's ever read. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Edgar Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Plutarch Award, a Board of Directors Award from the Shirley Jackson Awards, and the Christian Gauss Award from Phi Beta Kappa. And—perhaps the most exciting news of all—a movie deal is in the works.
I'd be so grateful if you'd help me spread the word now about the paperback. Here are a few ways you can do so:
Follow me on social media—Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram—and react to or share my posts.
Post about the book on your own social media accounts—especially with pictures!
Add it to your Goodreads list, if you have one.
Review it on Amazon.
Suggest it to your book club. When my schedule and geography permit, I'm happy to do book club visits, in person or via Skype.
Request it at your local library.
Come to an event! This weekend, I'll be at the Brattleboro Literary Festival and the Harrisburg Literary Festival.
Last but not least, please buy the book, for yourself or a friend. Here are links to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Indiebound.
Very best,
Ruth
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."—Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House