Review: Hangsaman

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

• My rating: 5 of 5 stars ⭐
• Read via audiobook while playing Dressmaker
• View all of my book reviews

I've been quite a fan of Shirley Jackson for a while, so naturally, I'm trying to casually work through her bibliography. I read The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived In The Castle before the establishment of this blog, but I have a post where I have reviewed each short story in The Lottery and Other Stories.

In truth, I never knew Jackson had stories outside of the three I have previously read until just a few weeks ago, when I saw a video recommending The Sundial. Perhaps I should have known, considering how well-known she is and how We Have Always Lived In The Castle is always specified as being her final novel, but the idea there were seldom-spoken-of books never really occured to me. I'm very happy to have finally dived into these older works of hers, though I can only source them as audio through Libby, which is far from my prefered for prioritized medium. But my boyfriend bought me Dressmaker earlier this week (and I intend to make a post showing off the dresses I have and will make in it!) which gives me a pleasant excuse to listen to a book for a change!

Anywhoo, enough of preamble. My Goodreads review is as follows:

Genuinely shocked this isn't widely recognized as a cornerstone of "weird girl lit" (outside of the introduction to the Penguin edition, that is).

And it's true! The introduction of the Penguin edition I listened to was from a professor discussing how Hangsaman was regreatably left out of a college class on weird novels due to not being read yet, and I found myself wishing I was still in my old monster literature class, just so I could discuss it's more gothic elements. Every single scrap of the novel was so interesting, from the main character, Natalie's, relationship with her father, to the looming threat of sexual predation faced by college students (which is, of course, as relevant as ever), to the complexities of female friendship.Perhaps the professor from the introduction would be well-done by teaching an entire class on Jackson, which Hangsaman as an underrated star?

But enough about me, so read some Jackson.