Book Review: Hangsman by Shirley Jackson

[juushika]

Title: Hangsaman
Author: Shirley Jackson
Narrator: Julia Whelan
Published: Books on Tape, 2021 (1951)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 552,500
Text Number: 2071
Read Because: fan of the author; audiobook borrowed from Multnomah County Library
Review: The indicative slimness of a blurb: a 17-year-old girl in the 1950s leaves the claustrophobic domesticity of her family for her first year at an all-girls' college. But much of the novel happens in the protagonist's involved imagination or in the space between scenes. If this were anyone but Jackson, I wouldn't've had the patience for the excruciating minutiae of the first third; but it is Jackson, so the humiliating social anxieties are as beautifully figured as they are tedious. But the glimpses between, marginal and implied, disjointed and imagined and super gay, overshadow the text as it progresses, culminating in a remarkable final third. This isn't my new favorite Jackson, but that's hardly a fair critique; it really landed for me, and I can imagine a successful reread in a few years.

Comments

[radiantfracture]

I was not aware of this particular Jackson novel, and it sounds worth checking out!

[juushika]

I have "Jackson's entire oeuvre" on my TBR as a long-term goal, or I probably wouldn't have run across it either. But I'm glad I did! Definitely recommended; I hope you enjoy it, if/when.

[radiantfracture]

i found it for a dollar so I'm in.

[lokifan]

Intriguing!