Today’s newsletter continues my review of Shirley Jackson’s less-known novels.
Sometimes I wish there was a list of books titled “Read These Before You Die.” They would be books I’d never heard of before, but which spoke directly to my heart. Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman, published in 1951, is one of them.
Though lacking the high profile of The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the desperate emotional journey of Natalie Waite is equally engrossing. She is the 17-year-old daughter of a moderately successful writer whose relationship with the girl is long on intellect and short on love. There is, in fact, no trace of love in her family. Invisible walls separate Natalie from her parents, her brother, and from each other, to the point that their conversations are almost painful to read. Her father’s Sunday afternoon social gatherings do nothing more than flatter his own ego. During the most recent one, Natalie escapes into a private world in which an imaginary police detective grills her about an unspecified murder.
Shortly before leaving for college, Natalie experiences a traumatic incident that she tries desperately to forget, insisting to herself that “nothing happened, nothing happened.” She repeats the assertion in the journal in which she records her thoughts and observations. College turns out to be as disappointing as home, with the other freshmen in her dorm forming a society from which she is pointedly excluded. A promising relationship with a professor and his wife goes sour when the wife turns out to be a drunkard and the husband unfaithful. Events escalate to a miserable Thanksgiving visit to her family. Returning to college, Natalie forms a relationship with an imaginary companion named Tony. On a richly detailed journey of enticing conversations, Natalie must decide whether to commit herself to Tony’s dark path or trust in her own judgement.
Every page of this book is an achievement. Some of its narration is so exquisitely crafted as to be breathtaking. I could go on and on about Natalie’s observations of the physical world, her fantasies, her father’s pomposity, the sharing with her mother that never takes place. Jackson manages to involve us in Natalie’s sad young life to the point that we fear for her soul. In my judgement, only J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye compares favorably with it. Yet somehow, it manages to be a monument to the inner strength that God gives us if we will only call it forth. That’s why I hope my literary searches will continue to turn up treasures like Hangsaman. This is a five-star book if there ever was one.
Chevron Ross's novels include Weapons of Remorse, The Seven-Day Resurrection, and The Samaritan's Patient. Click here for more information.