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  • Published: 6 March 2014
  • ISBN: 9780141391991
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 280

Hangsaman




An unsettling story of a teenage girl's self-destruction from the author of The Lottery

Natalie Waite, daughter of a mediocre writer and a neurotic housewife, is increasingly unsure of her place in the world. In the midst of adolescence she senses a creeping darkness in her life, which will spread among nightmarish parties, poisonous college cliques and the manipulations of the intellectual men who surround her, as her identity gradually crumbles.

Inspired by the unsolved disappearance of a female college student near Shirley Jackson's home, Hangsaman is a story of lurking disquiet and haunting disorientation.

  • Published: 6 March 2014
  • ISBN: 9780141391991
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 280

About the author

Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson was born in San Francisco in 1916. She first received wide critical acclaim for her short story 'The Lottery', which was published in 1949. Her novels - which include The Sundial, The Bird's Nest, Hangsaman, The Road through the Wall, We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House - are characterised by her use of realistic settings for tales that often involve elements of horror and the occult. Raising Demons and Life Among the Savages are her two works of nonfiction. Come Along With Me is a collection of stories, lectures, and part of the novel she was working on when she died in 1965.

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Praise for Hangsaman

The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable ... It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse

A. M. Homes

Shirley Jackson is one of those highly idiosyncratic, inimitable writers ... whose work exerts an enduring spell

Joyce Carol Oates

Shirley Jackson is unparalleled as a leader in the field of beautifully written, quiet, cumulative shudders

Dorothy Parker