My edition had some of her other short stories, too. They were also worth reading. I had no idea she was the niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe and was such a prominent campaigner. Her short stories Making a Change (1911) and If I Were A Man (1914) were also pretty interesting. (They're not horror, tho.)
A story where "circumstances that once described the fate of real people will now pass as classic horror" -- that pretty much is precisely what freaks me out about this story. Yes.
That's exactly what gets me every time, too. There is very little that is as horrifying as finding out that fictional horrors were fact, even more so when it was not a single incident.
I have a just moved on the the other book on the Halloween bingo list that falls into the same category: Shirley Jackson's account of the Salem Witch Trials.
I think I may need to return to Granny after that!
That's why she's such a great author -- she has a pitch-perfect sense for what will work to best effect. Did you know that most of the "original" readers of "The Lottery" actually thought she was relating facts when the story was first published in the New Yorker?
Yes, I thought it was one way to show that the is a fundamental difference between a child and the woman, and how treatment is, effectively, aimed at a child but not the adult. Like there was no difference.
I have a just moved on the the other book on the Halloween bingo list that falls into the same category: Shirley Jackson's account of the Salem Witch Trials.
I think I may need to return to Granny after that!