we have a pub date! and a cover! etc.

Updates from the Shirley Jackson Files, #8

Dear friends,

It's been a long time since my last update and there's a lot of news! First, my book is now officially available for pre-order on Amazon. Publication is set for September 27, a date I think Shirley Jackson would have approved of. Since Jackson had a sense about lucky versus unlucky numbers, her publishers would sometimes consult her before setting her pub dates. In Hangsaman, Natalie is happy to have room number 27 in her dorm because it contains "a seven for luck and a two for work ... adding, triumphantly, to nine." September 27 also happens to be the birthday of my husband, my biggest champion and a great Jackson enthusiast. So all in all, it's a good day.

The production team at Norton has created a beautiful design for the book. I'm excited for you to see all of it, but for now this will have to do:

I think the photo (a famous one by Erich Hartmann) makes Jackson look both glamorous and mysterious. Would love to hear your reaction!

There's a story behind the subtitle, of course. In an interview after her death, Roger Straus (of Farrar, Straus), Jackson's longtime publisher, called her "a rather haunted woman." Jackson clashed with Straus on a number of issues -- at one point she called him a crook in the middle of a cocktail party full of his authors -- and I was at first reluctant to let him have the last word on her. But it's such a good line that I couldn't resist.

In other news, Jackson was nominated posthumously for an Edgar award for best short story for "Family Treasures," a selection from Let Me Tell You. She won it twice already -- in 1961 for "Louisa, Please Come Home" and in 1966 (again posthumously) for "The Possibility of Evil." Still, there's no limit! I'd love to see her win it again.

That's all for this week. I'll be updating a little more frequently as publication approaches and there's more to share.

Till then,

Ruth

"No live organism can continue for long to exist under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." 

-- Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House