I feel that Franklin's treatment of this fascinating author has done her subject a disservice in a number of ways: Franklin hasn't been able to escape the fact that Jackson's wasn't a life of fascinating events, but a life of the imagination. In other words, from a very early stage, Jackson did very little but write (think about writing, negotiate contracts for her writing, argue with her husband about her writing, try to persuade her unsympathetic parents that her writing was worthwhile ...) and Franklin struggles mightily with trying to make that stretch over 500 pages of text (600+, including bibliography and index)
One of her strategies to pad things out that I bitterly begrudged is that the obnoxious, parasitic and undermining husband is almost given co-star status: we hear almost as much about his life, career and deadening, high-lit-crit vanity projects as we hear about Jackson. He doesn't deserve it.
In fact, in an ongoing effort to make a living from her writing, everything Jackson "did" (raise four children, struggle with a narcissistic and serial unfaithful husband, live with the advantages and disadvantage of small-town USA, enjoy a "Madmen"-era attitude to food, drink and cigarettes that probably killed her at the tragically young age of 48) became fodder for her writing, whether it was translated into the dark kitchen-sink gothic fantasias that she is most famous for, or the humorous women's magazine treatments of her chaotic home life that were very popular (and made her a LOT of money) during her lifetime. but somehow didn't translate into the self-esteem that might have enabled her survive the undermining parents, unfaithful husband and chaotic lifestyle.
Provides a very interesting context for the great works that Jackson left for us. (I guarantee that you will never see âThe Haunting of Hill Houseâ or âWe Have Always Lived in the Castleâ in quite the same way again â¦) I just wish it had been a better book.
One of her strategies to pad things out that I bitterly begrudged is that the obnoxious, parasitic and undermining husband is almost given co-star status: we hear almost as much about his life, career and deadening, high-lit-crit vanity projects as we hear about Jackson. He doesn't deserve it.
In fact, in an ongoing effort to make a living from her writing, everything Jackson "did" (raise four children, struggle with a narcissistic and serial unfaithful husband, live with the advantages and disadvantage of small-town USA, enjoy a "Madmen"-era attitude to food, drink and cigarettes that probably killed her at the tragically young age of 48) became fodder for her writing, whether it was translated into the dark kitchen-sink gothic fantasias that she is most famous for, or the humorous women's magazine treatments of her chaotic home life that were very popular (and made her a LOT of money) during her lifetime. but somehow didn't translate into the self-esteem that might have enabled her survive the undermining parents, unfaithful husband and chaotic lifestyle.
Provides a very interesting context for the great works that Jackson left for us. (I guarantee that you will never see âThe Haunting of Hill Houseâ or âWe Have Always Lived in the Castleâ in quite the same way again â¦) I just wish it had been a better book.
