I am left feeling traumatised after reading Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery". I knew there was a reason that I wanted to read Shirley Jackson and that I also wanted to know as little about her work as possible before reading it. She terrifies the reader in this story and builds suspense in such a way that I read with a looming sense of dread and a tummy that was feeling decidedly uneasy and still is, for that matter.

The volume pictured isn't available until October and along with We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House is on my wishlist. "The Lottery" though is readily available online and is only five pages long; I urge you to read it but beware of losing your wits and perhaps your breakfast.

I cannot reveal much about the plot -nor do I want to- but suffice to say it is set in small-town America, concerns the yearly, ritualistic Lottery that occurs amongst the townspeople, and is a deeply unsettling exam of barbaric inhumanity. Upon publishing the short story in 1948 The New Yorker received a virulently negative response from its readers with hate mail and subsciption cancellation in abundance. To illicit such a strong response over a short story was unprecedented.

It is a long wait until October to read Jackson's other works.