Full name: Shirley: A Novel

Author: Susan Scarf Merrell Year: 2013 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Fiction, Historical fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780399166457 9780147516190 0399166459 0147516196

Two imposing literary figures are at the center of this captivating novel: the celebrated Shirley Jackson, best known for her short story The Lottery, and her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman, a literary critic and professor at Bennington College. When a young graduate student and his pregnant wife--Fred and Rose Nemser--move into Shirley and Stanley's home in the fall of 1964, they are quickly cast under the magnetic spell of their brilliant and proudly unconventional hosts. While Fred becomes preoccupied with his teaching schedule, Rose forms an unlikely, turbulent friendship with the troubled and unpredictable Shirley. Fascinated by the Hymans' volatile marriage and inexplicably drawn to the darkly enigmatic author, Rose nonetheless senses something amiss--something to do with nightly unanswered phone calls and inscrutable accounts of a long-missing female student. Chillingly atmospheric and evocative of Jackson's own classic stories, Shirley is an elegant thriller with one of America's greatest horror writers at its heart. Similar books: The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber The Fifth Column by Andrew Gross From the Ashes by Jeremy Burns The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl The Conjuror's Bird by Martin Davies Annapolis by William Martin The Fields by Conrad Richter Domino by Ross King The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter The Coin of Carthage by Bryher Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard The Earthly Paradise by C. S. Forester The Immigrants by Howard Fast The Swan Gondola by Timothy Schaffert Foxfire by Anya Seton The Darwin Conspiracy by John Darnton The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson Poison by Kathryn Harrison The One Man by Andrew Gross The Girl in Green by Derek B. Miller