The Letters of Shirley Jackson

by Shirley Jackson

  then the next day we went out to ross to see family friends. ross is my favorite country. it’s across the bay, and as soon as you get across the fog disappears and it’s warm and beautiful. my great aunt lives around there and i remember going across in the train to see her when i was about six. i remember the magic names that used to mean little towns covered with flowers and warm and colorful and gay. i loved that ride up there, and going past the towns again made me very happy. the names! corte madera, larkspur, ross, san rafael, san anselmo…mother and pop met in san anselmo and i spent the first four years of my life there.

  the day ended in one of the nastiest situations i have ever seen. you see, i’m in the dog house with my father. as a matter of fact, he is not angry, but just completely through with me. it’s because of grapesofwrath. i think i told you…he refused to let me read it and i read it anyway and then he asked me what i thought of it and i said i liked it and he said why and i said because it was well written (my one valid excuse for my father) and he said it was communistic and i said so what and my father said california was full of the dirty reds and he thought it was terrible and i didn’t say anything and he went on and i kept my mouth shut and he raved against the dirty reds and finally i couldn’t stay quiet any longer so i said something mild about how the reds probably weren’t as bad as he thought they were and he lost his temper completely and wouldn’t talk to me. and there was nothing i could do. so that night in ross we had been drinking mint juleps all day and both my father and i had had too many drinks and then at dinner…there were about twenty people there…the people at my end of the table were singing and at pop’s end they were discussing politics and i had had about seven glasses of wine and four or five glasses of champagne and so had pop and everyone was very gay and suddenly there was one of those silences and my father said from way down the table “my daughter’s one of those reds” and everyone looked at me and the men on each side of me turned said oh, really, isn’t that sort of silly and i just sat and looked at my father and he was a little drunk and he looked mad and sort of ashamed but very hurt. and i know he was ashamed of me and only trying to make it sound funny so it would be sort of a joke and everyone would laugh and he could think about it afterwards and think that maybe he did have a daughter who was a red but it was funny. he doesn’t really think i’m a red but he does think i’ve got a lot of damn fool ideas. and the people who were singing yelled at me to sing the internationale and teach them some of “those damned red songs” and i looked at mother and she was laughing at me and barry was laughing at me and pop was being ashamed and the people all around me were waiting for me to sing the internationale and i said i was sorry i didn’t know it and wasn’t my father silly but it didn’t make any difference they all kept after me and said sing the internationale are you really a red so i upset my champagne and everyone had to get up and clean it up and they forgot about me. except that my father doesn’t speak to me any more and ignores me completely and just looks at me if i say anything to him. and i don’t know what did it exactly…and i used to think such a lot of my father but then i think of just sitting there with him staring at me and looking so funny and his making everyone wait while he embarrassed me…stanley, please help me.

  we saw a lot of old friends…not dot…and they haven’t changed and our old home hasn’t changed and the eucalyptus trees are the same and burlingame is still nice but i want you. i love you so and i wish to hell i could come home to you and i’m afraid you’ll have to marry me quick and take me away because i’ve got a hunch that if this keeps up much longer my father isn’t going to let me come back to school and he is certainly going to get me the hell away from you. and of course i’m not going to let that happen so remember i warned you there’s going to be trouble in the jackson family and i don’t know whether it would be wiser to start it myself and get it over with or just let pop work up to it and let it be really good. they’ve started mentioning jokingly that wouldn’t it be nice if shirley could stay in san francisco and work here instead of going back to school and wouldn’t you like it shirley.

  so for christ’s sake are you prepared to help me.

  cat

  • • •

  [To Stanley Edgar Hyman]

  saturday [August 13, 1939]

  auntie darling,

  disregard my last letter. everything is under control. no harsh words, no disagreeable scenes; poppa says how did you like the book meaning grapes of wrath and i said not so good so everything is nice on account of i lost my guts and figured i’d sort of like to go back to school in september and so he speaks to me now and even though he isn’t overly cordial and still is in no mood to recognize me as his daughter and heir there will be no open warfare for a while yet and anyway he’s leaving for home next week and there won’t be any chance for trouble.

  san francisco is nice only i am bored. i got my picture drawn and i saw a flea circus and i had lunch with relatives being one grandmother one great aunt one great uncle one uncle and it was hell because they all said how i changed and was i doing any writing and i wriggled and finally went off in a corner and read a book. and my great uncle wanted to talk politics and no one would listen to him only he got me into a corner and told me about Communism the Red Menace or How He Won the War. and he told me that i would be surprised about communism that he knew all about it and it was criminal and they ought to send those people back where they came from and some of his best friends were communists and they were undoubtedly misguided if they didn’t like this country and he really knew some nice people were communists and i should look around and i might discover that there was one of those Menaces among my very friends. it is because of the bridges trial*47 of course and people always ask us new yorkers what they think back east. i have learned better than to argue now and yet it makes me so mad. if i only knew more. i went to a little lending library to see if i could get ulysses and she gave me instead a book called laborspy which she said was fascinating. so i took it out and it is one of those startling-expose-of-the-labor-racket-in-our-midst books, and two chapters of it made me sick so i went back to the chess book the people left in the bookcase here.

  and we went down to burlingame again because one of mother’s friends had decided to give a party for barry and me and she had invited twenty-three of the children we grew up with. since i was the oldest there (all my contemporaries have left town!) and the rest were from one to ten years younger than i, i had a howlingly good time. i also used to be able to beat the hell out of any and all attending only most of them are six feet high now and look down on the top of my head in an annoyingly condescending manner. i was about to go mad when a young man (of course neither barry nor i recognized anyone at all and had to be introduced) tapped me on the shoulder…he knew me because i was one of the guests of honor…and said hey where the hell’s the liquor. i embraced him as a brother and led him to the liquor and he mixed each of us a good stiff drink and said he needed that my god had i ever seen such a mob. i said no who was he anyway and he said don’t you remember me i lived across the street for fourteen years my name is jim and i said hello have you got a cigarette and he said hey you turned out better than it seemed six years ago do you know that you and i are the only two people here who drink and smoke and i said no but in that case let’s stick together. so we stuck together and he has turned into a very nice man considering that he never used to be able to hit a baseball and we made him fielder all the time and he never had a chance to play much and he told me who everyone was and we both decided that we belonged somewhere else and we shot crap in a corner and he beat me only i beat a funny little person who came along and said he used to swipe my bicycle and he knew more good stories than anyone i have met since my brother unburdened his soul to me the other night over dinner. so it turned into a rollicking evening and i had a wonderful time at last and enjoyed myself more than any other time here.

  and unfortu
nately barry and i now have a fifty-foot yacht at our disposal and we must do something with it. a friend lent it to us because he never uses it and he says we MUST play with it only we are scared because we don’t know how to play with a yacht so mother said that since it was going to be barry’s birthday we must give a dinner party on the yacht and invite all our little ex-playmates which means no drinking and a jolly evening talking about old times and how lloyd broke his arm trying to climb the walnut tree and how howard’s dog was poisoned by old mrs o’neill and what ever happened to peeweeroberts anyway. and sooner or later someone will drag in the old scandal about how shirley was caught kissing the boy next door or about how shirley and david got locked in the barn for two hours and they didn’t mind (we didn’t either; i haven’t had so much fun in years and i was so goddamned dumb too) or how they used to play hide and seek in the old pasture and shirley and ben…or shirley and alfie…the hell of it is that david and alfie and ben and all the rest will be right there…all except the boy next door who moved away and they DO say that his mother married again and her new husband is the leader of the union somewhere and of course she was that type anyway and do you remember the time that she…

  what a past. i swear i’d forgotten most of it until these people started telling me about it. there were only five girls in the neighborhood and three of them were always sore at me.

  it hurts a little to think about it now, and i sort of wish i hadn’t come back. i am constantly embarrassed…more at what i remember than at what people say, of course, but it was such a foolish life, and i’m glad as all hell to be out of it. i mean, that idiotic and constant terror of being noticed that i used to have and that used to lead me, of course, to do all those foolish things. gone? huh.

  i must go to bed anyway, which spares me from a prolonged discussion of the jackson complexes. so, my darling, write me.

  i love you,

  cat

  • • •

  [To Stanley Edgar Hyman]

  monday [Aug. 21, 1939]

  dear o’hyman,

  i’m so sorry i can’t answer your last letter but i inadvertently tore it up and it fell in the fire. so sorry.

  i’m happy to hear that you’re enjoying yourself and not working too hard. and i hope you can arrange for your lovely new friends to give you some of their money. of course you can use it.

  why didn’t you sell the ring? a hundred and forty dollars would buy a lot of condoms.

  did you ever think of marrying for money?

  i’m afraid my activities wouldn’t amuse you. of course there’s the fair, and friends to see, and shopping and all the other stupid things we do, but probably the only news of interest would be that i have decided not to buy a chess set (after all, i couldn’t afford it) and shall return to syracuse with an appropriate gift for my roommate.

  i’ve met some nice people (not very rich, though), and i suppose i’m having a nice time.

  i threw away the silly present i had for you; i’m afraid it’s not luxurious enough.

  the only thing that might interest you is that i met a gentleman the other night (a very wealthy man) who said he’d give me a job if i wanted to stay in the west. i don’t know how serious he was, but i’m half inclined to take it. i’d make some money anyway.

  barry and mother send their regards,

  shirley

  • • •

  [To Stanley Edgar Hyman, handwritten]

  tuesday night [August 22, 1939]

  Stanley,

  It’s 12:30 and I’ve been sitting here for half an hour trying to write this. The family’s asleep and I can’t use the typewriter.

  I’m sorry I wrote you such a nasty letter yesterday. It was unnecessary. I know, and stupid. I was just taking my bad temper out on you, and I hope you understand. Somehow your letter, with its visions of wealthy, (O, so wealthy!) lovelier girls, being with you when I couldn’t—well, it made me miserable. It was a terrifically silly thing to do. And I am sorry. And I was jealous, but now I’m trying to apologize and admit I acted like a fool. Is it ok? I didn’t mean it, you must know, and especially about staying here—for a day I thought I would, but I guess I couldn’t do it.

  Can you really miss me when you’re with those girls? do you go on loving me just the same, and, really, do you ever wish you were rid of me? I’m so far away, and maybe I read things into your letters when they aren’t there—

  And I miss you so, and every letter I open I’m afraid of what it’s going to say—why shouldn’t I be afraid, Stanley? They sound good, those girls.

  I’ll be home in less than three weeks—one more week in San Francisco. I’m very glad. My father had a letter from the university saying how proud he should be of me for my splendid academic standing—he was so pleased. he has a sort of feeling of at-last-she’s-passed-something—it makes for harmony.

  I want to come home to you, because I love you. And I won’t be jealous again—God willing. Write me right away? (letters just don’t come any more!)

  * * *

  —

  Wednesday

  I feel even worse this morning—got your letter. I feel all reassured and good. Except that that other letter will be waiting for you when you get back to Syracuse—there’s no way I can get this one to you in time. So I feel terrible. Why do I do such things?

  Anyway I love you tremendously and think it will be nice when I can tell you so again—and I mean show you—

  S.

  • • •

  [To Stanley Edgar Hyman]

  saturday, aug. 26, 1939

  darling,

  it’s sort of silly, i admit, but i think i’m sick. i have been kept in bed for two days and am likely to spend several more here…i try to write with ernest balanced on my knees and it is not successful…of all the goddamned stupid things to do…mother is so upset, because barry got sick just before we left and now i get sick just before we go home and mother is beginning to feel that it is really more than she can stand. the only doctor we know in town is on his vacation and his substitute has been so busy that we can’t find him and i swear i think i’ll die before we find him. what have i got? barry swears i have just what he had, i think it’s tonsilitis, but mother (dear mother!) is possessed by an uneasy suspicion that it is mumps. my throat is all swollen and uncomfortable and white and the only way i can look around is by turning all of me because my neck doesn’t work, and i feel thoroughly stuffy and unpleasant and feverish and i wish to hell i’d stayed home where i belonged and had hay fever. i can’t sleep. and i can’t eat. and all i can smoke is what i sneak when mother is out, and it tastes terrible. by god, i wish i were dead. and guess what started it. you and your goddamned ideas. yeah. you thought it would be swell if i did these things. yeah. so what did i do? i went on a roller coaster.

  we went on a yacht with many people and i was slightly drunk and so when we got to the fair i said something eager about merry-go-rounds and everyone said no roller coasters. and barry was there and that unpleasant little norman and a lot of strangers and norman was so scared of the roller coaster that i forgot myself and laughed lightly and said oh COME on norman i’ll take care of you and the damned fool said ok so there was i holding norman’s hand and people putting me in the roller coaster and i was thinking of how you would finally hear of it (new york girl killed in accident at fair; shirley jackson, 23,*48 of rochester new york was killed today when…) and on top of everything else i had made a last request and it was for a good stiff drink so i got three and jesus i don’t know if you have even a rough idea of how i felt but it was certainly not good. and i had to sit in the roller coaster while we waited for it to start and i was so scared but i was so drunk that it never dawned on me that i didn’t have to go and anyway norman was so scared that if i had gone away he would have tu
rned into a gibbering idiot. and i don’t have the slightest recollection of what the roller coaster was like only that when it was over i opened one eye and said sure i’ll go again and i had been in the last seat the first time and the second time they moved me to the front seat and i saw where i was going and i nearly fell out and when it was finally over i couldn’t walk. and then people kept putting me on something and taking me off and buying me a drink and then putting me on something else and sometimes i was upside down and sometimes i was going around and sometimes i was being still and everything else was moving. and somewhere along in there norman got very sick and went home to die. by the time they got me back to the boat i was just as sick as norman only oddly enough it was different because when they got me home they discovered i had a temperature and i couldn’t eat or anything and when i saw my throat on the inside it was all white and funny. somewhere along that afternoon i had twisted my neck which combined quite unpleasantly with the swelling. and i would most probably be a well woman today if i hadn’t gotten myself so drunk and dizzy and upset and thoroughly jolted. and i was supposed to go to a very nice party indeed this afternoon and evening and i was supposed to go to burlingame tomorrow and to see the wizardofoz on monday and now i sit home and nurse my temperature.

  and i took all yesterday afternoon to read your book because my mind doesn’t work very well on account of my head being so big and stuffed with cotton so i can’t hear and anyway i think the book sounds pretty good. i would like to wait and tell you how good i really think it is until i can rediscover the items which i liked so much…your examples i think are splendid…but i can’t write it now.