The only recording of Shirley Jackson

June 22, 2024 4:08 AM

“It is possible, thanks to the magic of the internet. In 1960, five years before her death, Shirley Jackson recorded readings of “The Lottery” and “The Daemon Lover” for an outfit called Folkways Records—the only time we know of that she ever recorded performances of her own work.”
posted by cupcakeninja (10 comments total)

Direct links:

The Lottery

The Daemon Lover
posted by nicwolff at 4:48 AM on June 22 [2 favorites]

Pretty sure we could do a whole post on Folkways Records (there probably already is one!). So many great things under that name. Apparently it's part of the Smithsonian now.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 5:06 AM on June 22 [5 favorites]

"[Smithsonian Folkways] was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Records, donated the entire Folkways Records label to the Smithsonian. The donation was made on the condition that the Institution continue Asch's policy that each of the more than 2,000 albums of Folkways Records remain in print forever, regardless of sales."

What a smart move on the part of the family. The entire collection is an absolute treasure.
posted by Silvery Fish at 5:56 AM on June 22 [7 favorites]

For $5/month the relatively new Friends of Folkways gives you streaming access to the entire back catalog (including all of the many labels they've absorbed over the years. Thousands of hours of music, spoken word, field recordings, stuff resists classification). It's really something.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:39 AM on June 22 [10 favorites]

Shirley Jackson is amazing and two of her collections, Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons, are fantastic and well worth buying or checking out. She had a great sense of humor and timing.

Another favorite is the short story, One Ordinary Day with Peanuts, which inspired Harlan Ellison's The Man Who Rowed Chris Columbus Ashore, from the Slippage collection.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:25 AM on June 22 [6 favorites]

I literally just re-read "The Daemon Lover" and a few other stories from that collection, and this could not be more timely--or more weird. I don't know why, but I always read Jackson in a kind of southern voice. I know she's not at all Southern! But maybe because the time she's writing about is the time I associate with my grandparents--ladies with hats and gloves still, cigarettes everywhere, cheap rent and grocery stores where you tell the grocer what you want. So to hear her actual voice is playing up the wrongness in the stories!
posted by mittens at 7:29 AM on June 22 [2 favorites]

Related.
posted by Paul Slade at 7:35 AM on June 22 [1 favorite]

Wow, priceless. Thank you so much!
posted by Dashy at 9:06 AM on June 22 [1 favorite]

So excited about this!
posted by aspersioncast at 9:49 AM on June 23 [1 favorite]

I was excited until learning it didn’t have any actual tips about WINNING the lottery.

Regular tales of conformity gone mad seem far too common these days.
posted by Huggiesbear at 12:50 PM on June 23 [1 favorite]