A review by snailslowreader
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

When I bought The Lottery and Other Stories, I was expecting a collection of horror short stories. After all, that’s how Google had classified it. But even though Shirley Jackson is known for her horror (see The Haunting of Hill House), that’s not quite the label I would have chosen. There’s no blood, no serial killers, and only the occasional supernatural element. 
 
Contemporary critics of Jackson dismissed her, using the casual term “domestic fiction” to describe her work without giving it any higher “literary” status. Jackson was the unconventional breadwinner of her family, but also took great joy in being a mother, and often wrote stories about housewives or working women. These were the types of women who felt like their dreams had fallen flat, who constantly envied their neighbors, and who were determined to preserve an image of success to others around them. When Jackson wasn’t writing about women, she wrote about young people—for example, children: the ideas they absorb or don’t from adults and how they are perceived by adults. Within The Lottery and Other Stories, I tended to gravitate towards these stories, because in addition to being a little humorous, they revealed pettiness, jealousy, fear, and condescending natures so clearly. Jackson’s use of characterization was clever and refreshing, a nice break from other books I have read, where I thought the main characters’ positive qualities were unrealistic. 
 
The writing itself is unembellished, which turned out to be beneficial for the book. Jackson zeros in on carefully worded dialogue and the small gestures of her characters. Here, we can observe the greatest strength of these stories: readers are left to figure out the characters for themselves in the span of a few pages. It’s when the characters choose to laugh or how they greet a stranger that reveals key parts of their personalities. While reading the book, it was easy to get caught up in Jackson’s precision, as I sometimes had to flip back and reanalyze each detail if I felt like I missed the “purpose” of the story. 
 
The quality of the collection varies; there’s something to gain from each story, though I can’t say the themes are exactly revolutionary. But the collection is cohesive and—when well executed—satisfying and admirable. Sometimes, the ideas that Jackson had in mind were too subtle. Or I found myself thinking, “Have I read about this situation before in an earlier story?” However, there was another reason for this feeling of repetition, apart from Jackson’s actual concepts. All of the stories are set either in a village, a city, or on a mode of transportation between a village and a city. Each atmosphere felt drearily familiar by the time I was in the middle of the collection. That could’ve been Jackson’s intention, but nonetheless it didn’t make for the most enjoyable reading experience. 
 
Apart from their subject matters, most of the stories had another similarity: the curious recurrence of a character named James Harris, a reference to the Scottish ballad “The Daemon Lover.” The ballad is about a disguised Devil luring a married woman out to sea, promising her treasure, but in the end sinking the ship she’s on. James Harris appeared similarly as an elusive man who seems to slip through the fabric of existence as he brings out the insecurities and dissatisfaction from the women he encounters. The original title of this book, The Adventures of James Harris, is in this sense more fitting than The Lottery and Other Stories, what the title was changed to for marketing purposes. Ultimately, Jackson shows us, it’s your own desires that are your greatest weaknesses. 
 
Perhaps the lingering dissatisfaction readers may feel after finishing the book stem from their expectations of its title. “The Lottery”—Jackson’s brilliant and most famous work—explored the power of a mob mentality. The only other story that had a comparable theme is the excellent “Flower Garden,” which is about narrow-minded racism in a small town. “Flower Garden” didn’t have the same dark ending as “The Lottery,” yet the subtle elements of Jackson’s writing were fully present in “Flower Garden.” The story centered around a young single mother, Mrs. MacLane, who moves into a town and fascinates her neighbor, Mrs. Winning. I appreciated how though the readers were explicitly introduced to some of Mrs. Winning’s aspirations at the beginning, the rest of her motivations weren’t as clearly stated, while still permeating the story and becoming apparent towards the end. This type of longer story that focused on character relationships is rarer in the collection, but offered the advantage of matured themes and recurring motifs, unlike shorter, hit-or-miss stories that focus on a few moments. “Trial By Combat,” for example, a story about the parallel lives of multiple women, could’ve been even more powerful if it was just a little longer. 
 
RECOMMENDED STORIES (in order of appearance): “The Daemon Lover,” “The Renegade,” “Flower Garden,” “Elizabeth,” “Men With Their Big Shoes,” “The Lottery”
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