Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed on 11/6/2018 + 1221 more book reviews

The Road Through the Wall is Shirley Jackson's first novel. It tells the story of the people residing on Pepper Street in a small town outside of San Francisco in 1936. The people that live on the street are mostly a very unpleasant bunch with Jackson showing the darker side of humanity even in what could be anyone's very quiet neighborhood. The residents are condescending, bigoted, and for the most part mean-spirited. This includes the adults as well as the children living there. For example, they refuse to socialize with the neighborhood's one Jewish family or with a working mother of a disabled child who rents a home on the street. The story has a lot of characters that are sometimes hard to keep track of but Jackson tells the story in a series of short vignettes and her prose makes the story easier to follow for the reader. The novel also has a very chilling ending in the usual Jackson style.

Jackson loosely based the novel on her childhood, growing up in an affluent California neighborhood. She also admitted that she wrote the book, in part, to get back at her parents, whom she resented for their narrow-mindedness and greed, stating that a writer's first novel has to be the one in which they get back at their parents.

I have read a few other novels by Jackson, most recently WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN A CASTLE, and have always enjoyed them. Overall, I would mildly recommend this one.

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