Shirley: A Novel by Susan Scarf Merrell

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING ELIZABETH MOSS AND MICHAEL STUHLBARG! Susan Scarf Merrell brilliantly weaves events from Shirley Jackson's life into a hypnotic story line* in this darkly thrilling novel about the author of The Haunting of Hill House and The Lottery. Two imposing literary figures are at the heart of this captivating novel: celebrated author Shirley Jackson and her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman, a literary critic and professor at Bennington College. When a young graduate student and his pregnant wife--Fred and Rose Nemser--move into Shirley and Stanley's home in the fall of 1964, they quickly fall under the magnetic spell of their brilliant and unconventional hosts. While Fred becomes preoccupied with his teaching schedule, Rose forms an unlikely, turbulent friendship with the troubled and unpredictable Shirley. Fascinated by the Hymans' volatile marriage and inexplicable drawn to the darkly enigmatic author, Rose nonetheless senses something amiss--something to do with nightly unanswered phone calls and inscrutable accounts of a long-missing female student. Chillingly atmospheric and evocative of Jackson's own classic stories, Shirley is an elegant thriller with one of America's greatest horror writers at its heart. *The Washington Post Editorial Reviews Praise for Shirley Merrell brilliantly weaves events from Jackson's life into a hypnotic story line that will please Jackson fans as well as anyone in search of a solidly written literary thriller....Its merit lies in its inventiveness even as it draws inspiration from Jackson's own stories....[a] dazzling yet dark tale...One of the best things about Shirley is that you don't have to be familiar with Jackson's stories to enjoy it.--Carol Memmott, The Washington Post [A] totally explosive thriller starring the fascinating late author as the main character.--Entertainment Weekly Jackson has always been one of the more intriguing and misunderstood writers of her generation, a woman writer at the cusp of feminism's second wave who nevertheless was erroneously dismissed for writing mere 'domestic fiction.' Merrell brings this complicated and compelling woman to life through the kind of taut and intimate thriller Jackson herself would have been proud to call her own.--Booklist Brooding....A sidelong portrait of a category-defying writer dovetails surprisingly snugly with the drama of one young woman's coming-of-age.--Kirkus Reviews A compelling fictional tale.--Library Journal [A] precisely accurate look at the sexual and intellectual failures that real love must allow for and survive, and a darkly fantastical meditation on magic, revenge, love, and reality....The brilliance of Jackson's life and Merrell's writing is that they convey [a] depth and beauty...In the end, Shirley is a love story, albeit an unexpected and uncomfortable one--perhaps the only kind that could ever be told by or about Shirley Jackson.--The Daily Beast To the great literature of obsession we can now add Susan Scarf Merrell's brilliant and captivating Shirley, a novel as full of passion and intrigue as any traditional love story. The twist is that the obsessive in these pages is a quiet young academic wife and the object of her fascination is none other than gothic storyteller Shirley Jackson. A fantastically original book.--Ann Packer, author of Swim Back to Me and The Dive from Clausen's Pier Susan Scarf Merrell writes about desire, female friendship, and obsession with a true storyteller's sense of the human heart. Shirley Jackson and her husband Stanley Hyman, giants in the world of twentieth century letters, make for a brilliant intersection of vivid fiction and literary myth set in the vortex that is North Bennington, Vermont. Shirley is a love story that will keep you up all night.--Susan Cheever, author of e.e. cummings, a life - From the Publisher 2014-04-17 Fictional newlyweds spend a year living with the author Shirley Jackson in this brooding novel.Jackson, largely remembered as the author of macabre horror stories such as The Lottery, was married to Stanley Edgar Hyman, a literary critic who taught folklore at Bennington College. The couple lived just off campus in a sprawling house filled with books and cats and kids, and it's here that Fred and Rose Nemser come to stay in 1964. Fred, a graduate student, has been hired as Stanley's teaching assistant. While their husbands are occupied with adoring undergrads, a tentative camaraderie strikes up between Shirley and Rose, our narrator. The two women could not be more different. Meek Rose, pregnant at just 19, is in flight from a grimy childhood filled with secrets. Shirley, a mountain of a woman, is mercurial, droll and possessed of uncanny abilities. I know what cats think, she tells Rose, whose thoughts she also seems able to invade. No wonder the locals think she's a witch. Yet, as Rose discovers, Shirley is prey to demons of an altogether less supernatural nature, too. Everyone at the house drinks into the night, but she pops pills as well; and though she's accustomed to it, Stanley's philandering evidently pains her. When Rose learns of a student who went missing 18 years earlier, she's unable to resist the notion that Shirley had something to do with it. Merrell (Creative Writing and Literature/Stony Brook; A Member of the Family, 2000, etc.) is no thriller writer, but this unsolved mystery stokes an atmosphere of quiet menace. Her decision to blend fact and fiction adds to a lingering sense of uncertainty, with set pieces--including a cameo for Bernard Malamud--providing comic relief. A sidelong portrait of a category-defying writer dovetails surprisingly snugly with the drama of one young woman's coming-of-age. - Kirkus Reviews