A review by ebees
The Man in the Woods by Shirley Jackson
4.0
I didn't realize that this story had its own Goodreads page and hey! it does! I've been reading Shirley Jackson's [b:Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings|23746546|Let Me Tell You New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings|Shirley Jackson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1421115824l/23746546._SX50_.jpg|43166993] and this story is the last one of the first Part of the book. Let Me Tell You is a book of several unfinished and unpublished stories found by Shirley Jackson's family after her death. The Man in the Woods in particular, was published in 2014 in The New Yorker found in this article
And this would be an explanation for why many of the reviews say that something is missing from the story. As there probably is. We don't know what Shirley Jackson wanted to do with the story, we don't know where it was supposed to go or how it was supposed to end. This makes for a very surreal read. I described it before as like you're going-with-the-flow in a dream and only after waking up do you realize it was off.
And this would be an explanation for why many of the reviews say that something is missing from the story. As there probably is. We don't know what Shirley Jackson wanted to do with the story, we don't know where it was supposed to go or how it was supposed to end. This makes for a very surreal read. I described it before as like you're going-with-the-flow in a dream and only after waking up do you realize it was off.