Books by Laurence Hyman
“There’s a child who appears in her stories called Laurie—of course, Laurence Hyman is her son, who went on to edit this collection. These letters are from her teenage years all the way to the end of her life. There’s a letter to herself, about how alienating it is to be a writer. She reflects on the reception of her work that is really interesting, in terms of the history of women’s writing. She talks about her husband’s colleagues being in raptures as she reads from her newest novel for 30 minutes, and then the very next day she’s dismissed again as just the wife of Professor Hyman. So they tell us more about her, but also the ways in which women were forced to carve out space for themselves at this time, and how conscious she was of her reception—and how resistant to this idea that there’s a dichotomy between being a horror author and a mother and a wife.” Read more...
The Best Shirley Jackson Books
Joan Passey, Literary Scholar
Interviews where books by Laurence Hyman were recommended
The Best Shirley Jackson Books, recommended by Joan Passey
Shirley Jackson, the 20th-century horror author, has had a remarkable resurgence in popularity in recent years, with a series of screen adaptations bringing her writing to a new audience. Joan Passey, an academic at Bristol University and co-editor of an upcoming collection of essays on the ‘mother of horror’, selects five books that offer the best introduction to Shirley Jackson’s work.
