Shirley Jackson’s son on the work his mother left behind, INCLUDING (gasp!) a “new” story The New Yorker is running:
Shirley always steadfastly refused to explain her fiction; she would usually smile and tell people, “It’s just a story.” She firmly believed that her books would speak for themselves. After her death, in 1965, my father wrote, in his introduction to “The Magic of Shirley Jackson,” “I think that the future will find her powerful visions of suffering and inhumanity increasingly significant and meaningful, and that Shirley Jackson’s work is among that small body of literature produced in our time that seems apt to survive.” Shirley’s stories and novels, and her thoughts about writing, continue to be relevant; these stories, written in the middle of the last century, still resonate beautifully.
Katie Heaney on vampires and Renfield syndrome, disappointingly titled “Drinking Someone Else’s Blood Does Not Make You a Vampire”:
A 1983 study called “Clinical Vampirism: A Presentation of 3 Cases and a Re-Evaluation of Haigh, the ‘Acid-Bath Murderer,’” argues that 1940s English serial killer John Haigh, indeed known as the “Acid Bath Murderer,” fits the Renfield bill, even if that terminology had yet to be applied. Authors Hemphill and Zabow cite Haigh’s own confessions, in which he claimed to have killed nine people, cut into their necks, and drank a cup of blood from each. He dreamed of blood, he’d said, dripping off trees. (Curiously, in what I guess is an attempt to highlight the weirdness and notability of Haigh’s blood fixation, the authors write: “Haigh, non-violent and sociable, murdered 9 people.” So, almost non-violent.)
John Leavitt, who always has the best link roundup suggestions, pointed out “all the art from The Goldfinch on one Pinterest board.”
The Billfold talks to a young man about aging out of foster care:
Was there any support system in place to help you transition out of foster care? Employment or school assistance?
Not as much as I had hoped nor as much as I was told there would be. As for while I was in the system, there were services aplenty. When I was emancipated, I was left at (a homeless shelter) and that was essentially the end.
Actually a perfect couple.
A commission! A commission! A reader has donated $50 for someone to write something informative and clever and great about Kym Worthy, the Detroit prosecutor working through the rape kit backlog. Please send me pitches!
Are you working towards queering the suburbs?
