Story #21: Tiny things that matter

Unwanted houseguests, old-crone wisdom and leaking fountain pens

Welcome back to Stories We Tell, and our little jaunt into Shirley Jackson land. This week, I want to look at the tiny details—often a single word—that make a huge difference to her writing.

These are all examples from Raising Demons, which, recall, is her second memoir about life with a brood of children. It’s quite a different book from her first memoir, Life Among the Savages, which is more lighthearted and charming. Raising Demons has a darker side to it, an edge, as we explore Jackson’s demons. That said, I also think it’s a more interesting book, structurally and thematically. I get the sense that Life Among the Savages came about as a way to collect the many short essays that Jackson had published elsewhere, whereas Raising Demons feels like a more cohesive work.

Anyway, I’m getting distracted. Let’s get to the excerpts.

The story

Of course

This first one comes early in the book, as Jackson chronicles how and why her family moves from their rented home—a white house with four pillars on the porch—and into their owned home—the one in town known for the tilted gatepost. Typical of Jackson and the small town they live in, the whole thing spirals out of control. We go from Jackson at breakfast, telling her family they need more space, to Jackson in the afternoon, fending off a woman who wants to move into their house.

It’s not just any woman, of course, it’s one Mrs. Ferrier. First, Ferrier and Jackson duke it out over the phone, with Jackson insisting they’re not moving and Fielding arranging to come view the place anyway. This is what happens when she tours the house:

In the study she nodded to my husband, turned completely around once, and then remarked that we seemed to be making no practical use of the space in our house. “This room would be much larger,” she said, “if you took out all those books.”

Mrs. Ferrier thought the master bedroom should have faced west, and she barely put her head inside the smaller bedrooms. “They would be much larger,” I told her, “if we took out the beds.”

Mrs. Ferrier fixed me with her cold eye. “If you took out the beds where would you sleep?” she wanted to know, and I followed her meekly downstairs.

It’s hard not to be on Team Jackson. Not only does Mrs. Ferrier not appreciate books—and implicitly, the knowledge, curiosity and empathy that comes from reading them—but she also rebuffs Jackson’s attempt at a joke. She wants the bedroom to face west, hinting that nothing is ever good enough for her. And of course, Jackson following her “meekly” downstairs establishes the power dynamic that we’re already well aware of. Jackson is subordinate in her own home.

In the next paragraph, Ferrier has mentally calculated it shouldn’t take them more than a couple of weeks to pack their belongings. Finally, her visit culminates in Jackson’s marked restraint, at least physically:

She smiled at me, which did not make me like her any better. “I thought someone had told you,” she said. “I was a Fielding before I married. I told the family that it was a pity to have the old family house falling apart in the hands of strangers; we owe it to the town, after all, to have Fieldings living here. So we are coming home again.” She sighed nostalgically, and I unclenched my fingers from the stair rail and said as quietly as I could that I was sure the villagers would be dancing in the streets when they heard that the Fieldings were coming home again. “Goodbye,” I added firmly, opening the front door. “I'll see you in a day or so, then,” Mrs. Ferrier said, and of course I did not push her down the front steps.

We get more details about Ferrier: fake smile, entitlement, and an overblown sense of history and nostalgia. We learn so much from her declaration of “the old family house falling apart in the hands of strangers,” as if Jackson and her family are squatters building bonfires in the living room, and not an accomplished writer and college professor raising a family (possibly of demons).

That serves to put us firmly on Team Jackson, especially as she reveals—by showing, not telling!—just how done she is with Ferrier’s visit.

First, Jackson juxtaposes the two women, Ferrier thinking of family lineage and days gone by; Jackson pointing out how anachronistic and displaced that sense of obligation is, as calmly as she can—her clenched fingers alert us to her growing physical and emotional distress:

She sighed nostalgically, and I unclenched my fingers from the stair rail and said as quietly as I could that I was sure the villagers would be dancing in the streets when they heard that the Fieldings were coming home again.

Finally we get the kicker, ever understated, here (emphasis mine):

“Goodbye,” I added firmly, opening the front door. “I'll see you in a day or so, then,” Mrs. Ferrier said, and of course I did not push her down the front steps.

This is more of Jackson’s comedic writing at play, with the punchline at the end of the sentence. She’s been remarkably composed this whole time, only hinting at how much she dislikes this awful woman, but here she reveals her inner desire to the reader. Of course makes all the difference here. It implies a sense of restraint that’s directly opposite the violence of actually pushing someone down the front steps. Further, it matches the sense of propriety that Mrs. Ferrier seems so keen to uphold.  

One way to see this is to remove of course and see what happens.

“Goodbye,” I added firmly, opening the front door. “I'll see you in a day or so, then,” Mrs. Ferrier said, and I did not push her down the front steps.

Meh. We get the same idea, but it just doesn’t land properly.

Except

It’s not just Jackson who lays out the barbs. This next bit focuses on her younger daughter Sally, who for a while has an antagonistic relationship with her father about her use of “magic.” Sally uses magic at school to hex a schoolmate, who seems traumatized by the event, and she tries using magic to unstick the family’s obstinate refrigerator door—only to have the door fall off its hinges entirely when her father, fed up with the whole thing, gets into the fray.

Here’s Sally at the dinner table one night:

She announced at dinner one night that when she grew up she was going to be a mean mean old lady who lived in a forest and people came to her for advice and spells, except, she added, turning to look directly at her father, except wicked trolls.

This seems like a simple sentence, but there’s a lot going on here. First, notice how Jackson frames the action of the scene: the deliberate look that Sally gives to her father as she implies that he is a wicked troll, undeserving of her old-crone wisdom. The use of “look directly” cues us to Sally’s absolute intention to direct this comment at her dad.  

Jackson’s sentence mimics the way that five-year-olds often speak, connecting ideas like train cars that have crashed into each other. We get the repetition of “mean mean old lady” which emphasizes just how mean Sally will be. It’s also a particular verbal tic of Sally: earlier in the book, she is portrayed as repeating key words of her statements, so this seems to be a natural evolution of her speech.

The magic of this sentence lies in the third-last word, except. Except is repeated twice in this sentence, and it’s so crucial that Jackson calls it out with “she added.” Also notice how it bookends the action of the scene (emphasis mine).

…except, she added, turning to look directly at her father, except wicked trolls.

If we take out the second except, we can see the glaring gap that it leaves:

She announced at dinner one night that when she grew up she was going to be a mean mean old lady who lived in a forest and people came to her for advice and spells, except, she added, turning to look at her father, wicked trolls.

We need the emphasis of the second except to drive home the comedic effect of the scene, and the gravity of Sally’s assertion.

Carefully

This last passage comes from the second half of the book, after Jackson’s husband informs her that his good friend Sylvia will be coming to visit and oh, by the way, Sylvia is a rather discerning woman and would Jackson take care to make sure the house is presentable?

Jackson responds thusly:

On Friday morning I vacuumed all the downstairs rooms and washed down more woodwork and did the kitchen curtains and scrubbed the kitchen floor and polished the copper bottoms on the saucepans and dusted the living room and washed the glass in the front door and cleaned off the top of my desk and carefully put my leaking fountain pen down on my husband's class notes.

Again we get a sentence that piles up on itself, and in this case it text-paints the relentlessness of the cleaning that Jackson undertakes. She takes us through the ground floor of the house, moving from typical activities like vacuuming before doing the extras, like polishing the saucepans. Then she takes us to working spaces to show the disconnect between the domestic and professional worlds—and she lands her punchline:

…and cleaned off the top of my desk and carefully put my leaking fountain pen down on my husband's class notes.

Here, carefully telegraphs her quiet rage and the deliberateness with how she chooses to show it. Unlike the previous two examples, I think this sentence still works without carefully. However, we lose two things if we lose carefully: we lose the emotional context of the situation, and we lose the pause that draws attention to the leaking fountain pen.

Jackson creates that pause with sentence structure. The rest of the sentence takes the form [verbed] the [noun], and as readers, we quickly learn that each verb marks a new activity. But with the leaking fountain pen, she inserts an adverb—carefully—that breaks the pattern, alerting us that there’s something different here. It makes us pay attention to what follows, and allows the leaking fountain pen to have full effect.

Finally, there’s the juxtaposition between the clean and the dirty. This meandering sentence puts us in a home that is becoming cleaner, first in big strokes then in the details, and then she finishes with the mental image of a pile of class notes getting stained with dark ink. It’s also a leak, not a spill—implying a slow burn, not a direct attack.¹

Why it works

Small things matter. As we can see in these passages, one or two words can make the difference between a sentence that lands its punch—and one that doesn’t.

Having spent a bit of time with Shirley Jackson, we can also see some of the hallmarks of her writing style. She loves to play with sentences that don’t use punctuation, for varying reasons. In the passage with Sally, it mimics a child’s speech; in the passage about housecleaning, it’s text-painting the unending to-do list.

She also loves to give us meandering sentences and then land with a punchline. The trick with punchlines is making sure that people are ready for them, even if you don’t want them to expect them. In David Byrne’s How Music Works, he shares a story about working on a musical-dance-performance-thing. Byrne recognized the importance of surprise for the audience, but struggled with timing his surprises. They didn’t land properly. His choreographer told him that when it comes to dance, you have to let the audience know that something is about to happen, and then you can deliver the surprise. Without the preparation, they won’t be looking in the right place.²

With that in mind, we can look at how Jackson makes sure we’re looking in the right place. I don’t see any obvious cues in the Mrs. Ferrier section (let me know if you do!) but there are definitely cues in the other two passages.

In the Sally story, we get the first introduction of except, then an interruption of Sally’s stream-of-consciousness to give us action, which is demarcated by commas. The interruption and commas alert us that something different is happening—so when Jackson delivers the repeated except, we’re primed for it. Something important is happening, and we get the gravity of being a wicked troll and being excluded for it.

Similarly, with the leaking fountain pen, Jackson sets up a pattern of housecleaning: [verbing] the [noun]. She takes it a bit further than we would expect (a trait of comic writing, which we looked at last issue), lulling us into a sense of complacency. Then boom! She violates her own pattern by introducing an adverb, and that makes our brains pay attention to what comes next: her small act of defiance against domestic tyranny and social expectation.

What we can learn from it

I’ve worked with a lot of writers, and one thing that always comes up is that strong writing relies on verbs and nouns. When you have the right verb and noun—a good, concrete word—you can convey far more meaning than you can be appending endless adjectives and adverbs. It’s the difference between “He walked quickly,” and “He sprinted.” One is flat; the other conveys a sense of urgency. It’s the character difference you get from a hat, a felt fedora or a baker’s cap spattered with raspberry coulis.

But then the question is, what is the role of an adjective or an adverb? Are they always superfluous? I think these passages from Shirley Jackson show us just how effective small words can be: of course, except and carefully are probably throwaway words to most writers, but she uses them to great effect.³

In The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac says, “One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”

Small things matter.

But I need to temper this with the flip side of things: that of course we need to sweat the small stuff, except when we are trying to get the words on the page. If we work too carefully in the drafting stage, we stunt ourselves and our stories.

Writing is as much editing—is more editing—than it is writing. Witness George Saunders and his editing practice. Witness you, with me, and your willingness to be present as I get out of my own way and follow ideas to some logical conclusion. Witness your ideas as they show up on the page, and then be willing to witness their evolution into whatever shape they are meant to be.  

And then, sweat the small stuff.

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1. The indirectness shows us how Jackson deals with conflict. Is it passive-aggressiveness? Or is it repression as a response to the unwritten rules of how a woman and wife is expected to behave? The latter is, of course, a theme of Jackson’s work.

2. This is a more artistic version of that old saw of Powerpoint presentations: tell them what you’ll tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them.

3. Technical point: of course and carefully are both adverbs. However, except is used as a preposition in the Sally passage.