Excellent book on the many faceted author, daughter, wife, mother, speaker, teacher, rumored witch, friend, animal lover, baker, lover of big older houses, tarot reader, lover of food - hater of diets, observer of life and amazing story teller. Shirley Jackson wrote from her own experiences to set the stories then allowed her creativity to flow embellishing details here and there to bring tales to life that seem so true, they must be fact based - her literature often created big stirs in the communities she lived in at the time because the descriptions of locations and people hit way close to home. Shirley and her husband and children were always seen as eccentric, odd or unusual by their neighbors and there was never a whole lot of visiting between them. Neighbors always considered Shirley and her family, "Outsiders." It became food for thought and delicious stories as Shirley exorcised the demons through her literary works. She often dealt with painful experiences from different periods in her life by allowing her characters and plot lines to deal justice for her. So inspiring. Ruth Franklin's book tells many behind the scenes details of Shirley Jackson's life, fleshing out the author in such a 4-dimensional way the reader is both drawn in and shownby bringing the participants outside the pages and into the room with the reader so much so they are fairly tangible. A great telling of a great lady. I would highly recommend this book to anyone from Middle-school up to infinity. Many will be inspired by Ms. Jackson's style and insights into the craft of writing and how to tranform gathered information into Gothic classics. A wonderful telling of a wonderful writer's life and how even bad times can be purged through a roiling of the gut onto the page. Truly excellent.
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