According to the publishers official description, hangsaman is loosely based on the reallife disappearance of a bennington college sophomore in 1946. Shirley jacksons hangsaman is one of the strangest books ive ever. For several paragraphs there is no narratorial she thought or she said. Anyway, i chose hangsaman as my first shirley jackson, and i am glad i did. Hangsaman by shirley jackson 1951 literaryladiesguide. Its a radical example of infected narration, something that hangsaman also experiments with in the section just before natalies adventure with tony, as natalie, roaming the campus on a dark, rainy november night, imagines the dorms and faculty houses as miniatures, doll houses, with the people inside as mannikins. Then she makes a solitary friend, a fellow student named tony. Login register for bookmarks and favorites home series archive. Hangsaman is jacksons second novel, and was first published in 1951. Jackson was also a selfproclaimed witch, and hangsaman may be the closest she came to casting a spell with words.
This brief synopsis is from the 20 reissue edition penguin. Adult page 6 corvallisbenton county public library. George washington black, nicknamed wash, is an elevenyearold slave. It is a novel written with awareness that it is a novel, but playing with the form. For awhile i wasnt even sure if one of the characters, tony, was real. But i know very little about jackson, and even less about hangsaman and its the kind of book that sends you searching immediately for other peoples ideas of what it is youve just read. Hangsaman by shirley jackson 1951 these little words. What better way to snap out of a reading fugue than to take a minivacation into the past.
I am certain that tony was not a real person at allshe was someone natalie invented in her mind. Questions regarding hangsaman by shirley jackson spoilers. Natalie seemed to have a very overactive imagination and i found myself. The second of jacksons published novels, hangsaman is a bildungsroman centering on lonely college freshman natalie waite, who descends into madness after enrolling in a liberal arts college. Shirley jacksons horror novel hangsaman was inspired by. This is where the back jacket copy schizophrenia and i demon lover diverge. All of your questions are valid especially regarding tony, but i would recommend later reading the book again, keeping them in mind. Scientific intrigue and race relations are the engines that drive this novel. Chantillys tony tong had threatened to kill his wife for years. This months osw readalong pick is hangsaman by shirley jackson. Things take a very strange turn when natalie makes friends with tony. We came up with the idea towards the end of 2012, when both ana and thea were feeling exhausted from the neverending inundation of new and shiny and often overhyped books. Additionally it seems the theft in the dorm and all of those bizarre events were natalie. The novel focuses on the protagonist, seventeen year old natalie waite, who is preparing to leave home for college.
Old school wednesdays is a weekly book smuggler feature. Logo designed by the wonderful kmont in march 20, we asked you for. However the author cheats a bit by having outside characters interact with the imaginary girl. Hangsaman, for me at least, is one of those books that, after you finish reading, you have to look to an external source to tell you what the hell you have just read. According to the publishers official description, hangsaman is loosely based on the reallife disappearance of a bennington college sophomore in 1946 loosely being the key word. Hangsaman is the dark and unsettling tale of a young woman named natalie waite as she sets off into the world of college.