The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson (1916-65). From the early 1940s through the mid-1960s, Jackson wittily remade the genre of psychological horror for an alienated, postwar America. The title story, one of the most anthologized stories in American fiction, explores the idea of conformity through a small village that sacrifices one of its citizens each year (the lottery “winner!”) to ensure a good harvest. The collection also includes the disturbing and mysterious "The Daemon Lover,"; "Charles," the hilarious sketch that launched Jackson's secondary career as a domestic humorist. Here too are Jackson's masterly short novels: "The Haunting of Hill House" (1959), the tale of an achingly empathetic young woman chosen by a haunted house to be its new tenant, and "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" (1962), the unrepentant confessions of Miss Merricat Blackwood, a cunning adolescent who has gone to quite unusual lengths to preserve her ideal of family happiness.
Total Points: 3 (AFilip 3)