the lottery, 75 years on
how shirley jackson's story changed me
It was summer 1974. I was twelve. I remember the hum of the air conditioner in my bedroom, and how the blast of cold air felt good on my sunburn. After a day at the beach, I was ready to curl up with a good book, and I started in on the book of Shirley Jackson stories I checked out of the library. I decided to read The Lottery first, because my mother recommended it.
I read the story three times that night, and at no point did I feel less anguished, horrified, or dumbfounded by the ending. I remember goosebumps rising on my sunburned flesh. I remember my breath coming in quick bursts. And I mostly remember thinking, I want to read more like this. I want to write like this. I want to read and write stories just like this.
I slept fitfully that night, my mind filled with thoughts of what happened before and after the story we read. There was so much left unsaid, yet what was said was enough. I made up a voice for Mrs. Hutchinson and with that voice she screamed in my head “It isn’t fair!” over and over again. I imagined the first stone hitting her, how that would feel both physically and emotionally. I thought about Tessie Hutchinson watching her husband and children approach her with stones in hand. I imagined the second stone, the third stone, I wondered how many stones it would take to render her unconscious, to kill her, to end the ritual.
For days after, I thought about nothing but The Lottery, and Shirley Jackson, and writing horror. I wanted to be able to craft a story that would leave people shocked. But I knew then what I still know now; there is no way to minic Jackson’s writing, and there was no way to replicate what she pulled off with The Lottery. She barely told us anything, yet we end up knowing so much. You could not read this story without thinking about it for hours or days after. Its purpose is to haunt you. I wanted more like that. I wanted to be haunted. Until then, I had been reading whatever the librarian pointed me toward in the children’s area; lots of adventure and magic and happy ever after books. I felt so grown up after I finished The Lottery. I was moving on from kids’ stuff.
The same year I read The Lottery, Stephen King came out with Carrie. I devoured that book, along with Peter Benchley’s Jaws, which I considered a horror novel. I outgrew the children’s room at the library and started wandering the fiction stacks in the young adult section, seeking out horror and weirdness. I wanted stories that would unsettle me in the way The Lottery did. Shirley Jackson led me down a path I would stay on for the rest of my life as far as reading, and guided my choices as to writing.
I read the story again this morning, and still I got chills at the end. I gasped at Mrs. Hutchinson’s words as if it were the first time I read it. I will spend all day thinking about the story, thinking about how Shirley Jackson built us an entire world in a few short pages, how it didn’t need to be anything more than that, how she staged a nightmare so eloquently.
I am forever indebted to Jackson for my love of unsettling stories, for the years I spent creating my own short stories, and for the occasions when I stop and think about the end of The Lottery and shudder all over again.
You can read The Lottery here.
This is a great read: various authors discussing their reactions to The Lottery.