It had been literally scraped clean, down to the wood in the walls. I knew what he meant when I saw the house. Fielding says that he had fixed up the house a little. But they take it, as it’s the only rental in the area, and their big-city landlord really is serious about having them evicted at the end of their lease. When they finally encounter the Fielding house (one of the oldest in town), they are nonplussed.
When Jackson and her husband are first investigating properties, the townspeople are crusty and reticent, emphasizing their hardiness by showing them houses that either don’t have heat or need to be introduced to the wonders of indoor plumbing. Like Raising Demons, Life Among the Savages begins with a move in this case, their relocation from New York to a small town in Vermont. Once she lets the characters take their natural courses, she mixes hilarity, generosity and insight in recounting the early years of her first two children, the birth and toddlerhood of her third, and the arrival of her fourth. The book’s most famous episode - when her eldest child goes off to kindergarten and reports on the anarchic doings of one Charles - is from this section of the book. Further, there are probably many authors who would give their eye teeth to write a book as good as Shirley Jackson when she’s trying too hard. That’s perfectly fine it’s the style of the era she was writing in, and she was aiming for the top of the market. Before that, the set pieces feel a bit like set pieces, and it has a sense of an author putting on her best story to sell to the slicks.
Just shy of halfway through Life Among the Savages, Shirley Jackson relaxes and lets her characters - her immediate family, for this is a memoir - tell their stories without too much authorial interference.
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