The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson: A Preview and Reading Schedule
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson: A Preview and Reading Schedule
Join us starting October 10 to read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House with Ruth Franklin
We're delighted to have Ruth Franklin joining us to host an October APS Together reading of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. We start Tuesday, October 10 and finish just before Halloween. Ruth's daily notes will be posted here every morning. A preview, and the reading schedule, are below; along with some additional upcoming publications and events with A Public Space.
A Note from Ruth Franklin
Fall is upon us, the season of fuzzy sweaters, pumpkin spice lattes, and ghosts. How better to celebrate the imminent chill in the air—it will cool off soon, won’t it?—than with one of the all-time horror classics: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1958). Jackson wanted Hill House to be “the kind of novel you really can’t read alone in a dark house at night,” and by all accounts she succeeded: many consider the book one of the scariest ever written.
But Hill House is much more than a ghost story. It’s a story about dysfunctional families and all the damage they can wreak; about the madness that can arise from too much rejection and too many dreams deferred; about feeling isolated even—or especially—when surrounded by people; about longing to go home, wherever home may be. More than anything else, it’s a story about fear, and what the things we’re afraid of can tell us about who we are. “It is fear itself, fear of self that I am writing about,” Jackson once wrote.
It's also gorgeously written. Stephen King called its legendary first paragraph one of the finest descriptive passages in the English language, “the sort of quiet epiphany every writer hopes for: words that somehow transcend the sum of the parts.” It’s a master class in creating and dispelling tension, in using description to create a mood, and in ambiguity—critics are still debating whether Jackson intended the ghosts to be real or just a figment of the characters’ imagination. Every page has gems of style. And it’s very funny.
It's also short—fewer than 250 pages—and tightly paced. We’ll proceed slowly, taking time to savor Jackson’s language and dissect her techniques. For Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, my biography of Jackson, I looked closely at her drafts and notes for the novel, as well as pictures of houses she used for inspiration and the ghost stories she drew upon, both well-known and obscure. I’ll bring in this information as it becomes relevant.
I’ve read The Haunting of Hill House at least half a dozen times; I love it so much that I have a tattoo inspired by it. I can’t wait to read it again with you.
Daily Reading
Day 1 (October 10). Chapter 1, Part 1-3
Day 2 (October 11). Chapter 1, Part 4-5
Day 3 (October 12). Chapter 2
Day 4 (October 13). Chapter 3, Part 1-3
Day 5 (October 14). Chapter 3, Part 4
Day 6 (October 15). Chapter 3, Part 5
Day 7 (October 16). Chapter 4, Part 1 – first half
Day 8 (October 17). Chapter 4, Part 1 – finish
Day 9 (October 18). Chapter 4, Part 2-5
Day 10 (October 19). Chapter 4, Part 6
Day 11 (October 20). Chapter 5, Part 1
Day 12 (October 21). Chapter 5, Part 2-4
Day 13 (October 22). Chapter 6
Day 14 (October 23). Chapter 7, Part 1-2
Day 15 (October 24). Chapter 7, Part 3-4
Day 16 (October 25). Chapter 8, Part 1-3
Day 17 (October 26). Chapter 8, Part 4-8
Day 18 (October 27). Chapter 9, Part 1
Day 19 (October 28). Chapter 9, Part 2 - end
September News from A Public Space
"Some words carry so much awareness inside them I can't read them at night. I can only read them during the day."
—Corinna Vallianatos, "A Lot of Good It Does Being in the Underworld" (A Public Space No. 31)
A Public Space No. 31
An issue of misreadings, translations, and making the unspeakable known. Subscribe or reserve your copy of the fall issue here.
Han Ong | The Story Instinct
Saturday, September 23
Where does a story begin? What is a good end point? What is the bridge between the two? A Master Class to sharpen your skills of selection that comprise so much of the task of story writing. Register here.
Starting Out: The Editor-Writer Relationship
Tuesday, September 26 | Brooklyn
Join A Public Space Writing and Editorial Fellows Lydia Mathis, Cory Howell Hamada, Kyle Francis Williams, and Kate Doyle for a reading and conversation with APS associate managing editor Ruby Wang about lessons learned, insights gained, and early experiences in publishing. Bring your questions. Details available here.
Brooklyn Book Festival
Sunday, October 1 | Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza
Visit A Public Space editors, contributors, and friends at Booth 301, to browse titles, subscribe to the magazine, learn about upcoming projects, enter raffles, and mingle with fellow readers.
Ruth Franklin is the author of the book Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, and was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2016. She is also the author of A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction (2011), which was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Writing. Her criticism and essays appear in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the New York Review of Books, Harper’s, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in biography, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, a Leon Levy Fellowship in biography, and the Roger Shattuck Prize for Criticism. She teaches nonfiction writing in the MFA program at the Columbia University School of the Arts. Her biography of Anne Frank is forthcoming from the Yale Jewish Lives series.
Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) was the author of six novels, two memoirs, and more than 200 short stories. She is widely acclaimed for her stories and novels of the supernatural, including the well-known short story “The Lottery” and the best-selling novel The Haunting of Hill House.
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I am so excited for this!
Yay!! I’m so glad APS Together is back and that we are reading this book!!