“Shirley Jackson‘s fiction, which marries the ordinary with the supernatural, often speaks to the inhumanities people are prone to when given half a chance. Her most famous story on the subject, ˝The Lottery,˝ was written after rural Vermont residents painted a swastika on her house (her husband, a professor at Bennington College, was Jewish). Yet keen observation and a sense of humor pervade many of her works, especially her very funny essays on raising four kids.” (Literary Witches, 19)
