Anything but ordinary

After Shirley Jackson’s death in 1965, her children found a treasure trove of unpublished short stories in Jackson’s attic. They cleaned them up, without changing much, and compiled this book: Just an Ordinary Day, adding in some published short stories (from various magazines and newspapers) at the end. While my familiarity with Jackson lies mostly with her horror — The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House — this collections covers a variety of genres. In fact, it contains very little horror; instead it focuses on strange happenings in domestic lives, and the secret lives that “ordinary” people live. And even the “horror” falls into multiple categories — like the little story about the devil that had me cracking up on an airplane.

I loved just about every one of the stories, especially the ones with little twists at the end. The settings seem both very 1950s, and appropriate for modern day (as one of her children points out in the intro, the only real glaring anachronism comes from the incessant smoking…). Lots of great little lines, like: “I suppose the mothers of most twelve-year-old boys live with the uneasy conviction that their sons are embarked upon a secret life of crime.” Just little glimpses in not-so-normal lives. Whether or not you like Shirley Jackson, or the horror genre — you’ll probably find something here to enjoy.