In Short: Shirley Jackson’s "The Summer People” with Lesley Finn

Known for her chilling psychological novel The Haunting of Hill House, her creepy bildungsroman We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and her iconic short story, “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson was a genius at making the most ordinary situations unsettling and ominous, and at peeling back the layers of respectability that hide society’s harsher truths. Her 1950 short story “The Summer People” is a masterpiece that turns the simple tale of a middle-aged couple renting a summer home in small-town Vermont into a slow-cooking nightmare

The group will trace Jackson’s layered narrative skills—how she makes her readers look over their shoulders and invites them to reflect on class and regional tensions, all in one sentence. The group will also consider why summer as a season is such a perfect fit for horror and suspense, and how Jackson mobilizes this alignment to stir up questions about capitalism, aging, and agency.