Shirley Jackson är en av mina favoritförfattare. Jag har läst en samling med hennes noveller, samt hennes mest kända romaner: den gotiska mysterieromanen We Have Always Lived in the Castle och skräckberättelsen The Haunting of Hill House (båda finns på svenska antikvariskt och på bibliotek).
De är två korta, otroligt täta romaner med fler lager än många 500-sidorsböcker. Dessutom har de två av de mest fantastiska inledningar som jag har läst:
We Have Always Lived in the Castle:
My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead.
The Haunting of Hill House:
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
Den sistnämnda boken har filmatiserats två gånger, då med titeln The Haunting. Versionen från 1963 i regi av Robert Wise är helt makalös och råkar vara en av mina favoritfilmer.