Shirley jackson kids

Among all the charming stories in Shirley Jackson’s two charming midcentury memoirs of raising four charming children in the charming town of Bennington, Vermont, the one that I urge anyone who might ever want to write about his family to study like the Talmud is about a boy called Charles.

Charles is a classmate of Jackson’s son Laurie, who at this point very early in Life Among the Savagesis in kindergarten. (This summer Penguin is reprinting Savages, first published in 1953, along with its follow-up Raising Demons, first published in 1957.)

Charles is bad.

Shirley jackson interesting facts

On the first day of kindergarten he is spanked for being fresh with the teacher. He whacks a girl on the head with the seesaw and yells throughout story hour. Laurie’s daily updates on Charles’ misdeeds, which often force the entire kindergarten class to be kept after school, soon turn Charles into a kind of icon among the Jackson family: Laurie is told he’s being a Charles when he pulls a wagon full