Story #24: It's time for a montage
More words than you ever expected about verb forms
It’s time to talk about time. Specifically, how Shirley Jackson shows the passage of time in her second memoir, Raising Demons. It’s one of her big themes, as she grapples with her children growing up and changing before her eyes. And it’s an inevitable thing for her to deal with, given that the story unfolds chronologically.
Not surprisingly, she has more than one way to do this. Next week, we’ll look at how she uses specific objects to connect her past and present. This week, we’ll look at how she uses a montage effect to move the story along—advancing the story while also adding colour and texture.
The story
Present
We’ve already looked at this passage before, in Story #22, when we looked at parallelism (or in as I suggested, the lack thereof). Now let’s look at how Jackson uses this paragraph to advance time. On page 116:
Father's Day was duly observed; the weather grew warm; the incredible day arrived and school was out for the summer. Sally's nursery school had a little party for the old ones who were graduating into kindergarten the next fall. Jannie was promoted to the third grade. Laurie was promoted to the sixth grade. My husband was invited to teach at the girls' college just outside our town, and accepted, planning to start in the fall when Jannie went into third grade and Laurie into sixth grade and Sally into kindergarten.
This montage allows Jackson to speed things up. Jackson’s marking time in a number of ways. First, she uses calendar time: Father’s Day. Next, she uses natural time: impending summer. Finally, she uses human, or maybe developmental time, showing us how everyone is changing: promotions to a new grade and a new job. At the centre of it all, of course, is dear Shirley, trying to hang onto things while everything around her is shifting.
I won’t revisit the broad underlying structure of this paragraph (see Story #22 for that analysis) but I do want to point out the semicolons in the first sentence.
Father's Day was duly observed; the weather grew warm; the incredible day arrived and school was out for the summer.
They lend a sense of gravitas, forcing the reader to stop and consider each piece before the next. If we replace the semicolons with commas, we can see that the sentence keeps going, without the pauses that the semicolons invite.
Father's Day was duly observed, the weather grew warm [and] the incredible day arrived and school was out for the summer.
It’s funny because as much as Jackson is using a montage to advance time forward, she’s also inviting us to slow down and consider the events that comprise the montage. The version with semicolons also creates tension as we get to the third, final piece of the sentence, which must be cause for such excitement in their house: the incredible day arrived and school was out for the summer.
Finally, look at the verb tenses here. This paragraph is written in the simple past tense: Father’s Day was observed; the weather grew warm; the day arrived.
Most memoirs are written in the past tense. What elevates them above a straight retelling of the past is what Sven Birkerts calls the double perspective. In his excellent (and short) book, The Art of Time in Memoir, he explains that the double perspective allows the writer to report a moment in the past, but position it “both in its original setting and in the relativistic continuum” (page 14).
Put another way, Jackson the writer is using the past tense—the “relativistic continuum” that Birkerts refers to—while Jackson the character, in the original setting, is thinking in the present tense. Hold onto those ideas while we look at more examples.
Future
Several months and 80 pages later, we’ve come nearly one year forward. It’s not quite summer vacation, but it’s pretty darn close. On page 202:
Before the children were able to start counting days till school was out, and before Laurie had learned to play more than a simple scale on the trumpet, and even before my husband's portable radio had gone in for its annual checkup so it could broadcast the Brooklyn games all summer, we found ourselves deeply involved in the Little League.
Again, notice how Jackson marks time in several ways. Summer vacation hits both calendar and natural time while Laurie’s trumpet skills mark human time. The annual radio checkup adds an extra layer with the idea of cyclical time.
I love the texture of the radio. I get the sense of ambient noise all summer, the chatter of the baseball announcer and the cheer of the crowd. The detail of Brooklyn games—not Yankee games—also adds details about her husband, never mind being an excellent lead-in to a story about Little League.
The verb forms allow Jackson to lurch us forward, then back, in time. Before this passage even begins, we’re used to occupying the present tense of the story—which is written in the simple past tense.
But then Jackson lurches us into the future1: Before the children were able, Laurie had learned, the portable radio had gone in. This verb construction is the past perfect. The past perfect indicates that one action has been completed before the other—so by the time Laurie learns his trumpet scales, the Little League will be done.
And after giving us a glimpse in to the future, she has to bring us back to the present of Jackson the character. She does that by going back to the simple past tense: we found ourselves deeply involved…
Jackson also uses before to help orient the reader in this passage, setting up the idea that there’s a specific chronology to these events. Before appears three times in this paragraph (there’s that rule of threes again), before each event. It also gets extra emphasis the third time around with and even before the radio gets serviced.
Past
So far Jackson has looked at the present and future, so you can guess where we’re going next. On page 220, near the beginning of the fourth and final chapter of Raising Demons, Jackson is watching Laurie, her eldest, play Little League baseball. It’s hot. She says:
I sat in the shade and figured out that there were only seventeen more days before school started. Sally and Jannie were going to need new winter coats; a year from now I would be getting Barry ready for kindergarten. The first winter we were in our new house, when Laurie used to go sledding on this hill, he could stand just about where I was sitting now, and see our back porch, and I used to signal him that it was time to come home by hanging a dish towel over the porch rail; I could not see the back porch now because the trees were still thick. In another few weeks, I thought, the leaves would be coming down again. School, birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the long spring days, and then another summer. I could hear cheering from the ball field. The years go by so quickly, I thought, rising; he used to be so small.
I love this vignette, especially the dish towel on the porch rail. I love how Jackson connects the physical spaces of this scene: the house, the hill, the baseball field. It used to be Jackson in the house and Laurie on the hill, and now it’s Jackson on the hill and Laurie in the baseball field. The spaces are still connected but people’s places have shifted and Laurie’s world is getting bigger. It’s symbolic of Laurie’s growing up, his increasing independence and the distance between home and not-home. There’s also a sense of Jackson trying to pull Laurie back to her, much as the dish cloth called him home when he was younger.
The dish cloth is a highly specific detail of this story. As we discussed in Story #23, that specificity creates universality. The dish cloth is a proxy for how Laurie—and accordingly, the rest of her children—is growing up, and how all children everywhere grow up, much to the pride and grief of their parents.
Bookending this memory, Jackson shows us how time marches on. Calendar time (school, birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas) collides into natural time (the long spring days, and then another summer) while human time is marked in winter coats and kindergarten. Meanwhile, she juxtaposes Laurie’s growth—getting older, getting bigger—with the circularity of the natural world: leaves would be coming down again; …and then another summer.
Now let’s look at the verb forms. (My analysis is a bit shaky here, so if I’ve missed something or made a mistake, please let me know!)
At the opening, we’re in the present tense of Jackson the character. From there, Jackson careens us through time, thinking about the future (the winter coats), then the past (the dish towel), back to the future (the impending calendar events).
Let’s break this down sentence by sentence.
I sat in the shade and figured out that there were only seventeen more days before school started.
Jackson the writer is writing about the past; but Jackson the character is thinking about her present. So we get the simple past tense here.
Next, Jackson the character thinks about the future.
Sally and Jannie were going to need new winter coats; a year from now I would be getting Barry ready for kindergarten.
The verbs in this sentence tell us that we’re in the past, thinking about the future. First: were going to need. Were is the past tense of was, so that tells us we’re in the past; however, going to is future-looking. In combination, were going to tells us that we are situated in the past and thinking about the future. Next: would be getting. Would is the past tense of will; when we say we will do something, we are thinking about the future. In this respect, would is an economical word that tells us when we are (in the past) and when we’re looking (to the future).
Then, Jackson the character thinks about the past.
The first winter we were in our new house, when Laurie used to go sledding on this hill, he could stand just about where I was sitting now, and see our back porch, and I used to signal him that it was time to come home by hanging a dish towel over the porch rail; I could not see the back porch now because the trees were still thick.
First, Jackson gives us we were in our new house. This puts us back in Jackson the character’s present tense.
Now that we’re back in the same time, she casts her mind to the past: Laurie used to go sledding; I used to signal him. In English, used to describes a habitual or repeated event in the past that has since been completed. So used to tells us that this scene—Laurie sledding, Jackson putting a dish towel on the rail—happened frequently in the past, but it no longer happens.
Finally, Jackson the character brings us back to the story’s present with I could not see the back porch now…
She continues in the story’s present:
In another few weeks, I thought, the leaves would be coming down again. School, birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the long spring days, and then another summer. I could hear cheering from the ball field.
I thought is a subtle action, but it’s an action nonetheless. It takes us out of Jackson’s head and back into the physical world—sitting on the hill, watching the baseball game. It also takes us back to the story’s present, with the simple past tense.
The last part of the paragraph careens through time again. She thinks of the future—the leaves would be coming down again. Then we’re back in her present—I could hear cheering.
Finally, she lands her punch:
The years go by so quickly, I thought, rising; he used to be so small.
Jackson starts in the story’s present before thinking again about the past: he used to be so small. The verb analysis here is almost heartbreaking. Remember, used to tells us things that were habitually and frequently true in the past, but are no longer true. Laurie used to be so small, but he is not so small anymore.
Notice who says this: Jackson the character. Here’s what it looks like if Jackson the writer says it (emphasis mine):
In another few weeks, I thought, the leaves would be coming down again. School, birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the long spring days, and then another summer. I could hear cheering from the ball field. The years go by so quickly; he used to be so small.
First, this is telling, not showing. Second, it’s jarring—having Jackson the writer here pulls us out of Jackson the character’s head, and it feels like someone’s just intruded on our tender moment.
Why it works
There are so many examples of Jackson moving time along in Raising Demons, and these three examples show us how she can use the montage technique to achieve different effects. She uses them enough in the book that they become familiar when they come along, and as readers we understand their function. Meanwhile, she provides enough variation that it doesn’t get old.
Importantly, Jackson doesn’t just tell us a bunch of facts in the montage. She uses them to share details of what’s going on, to provide background, to give us a hint of what’s going on in her head. She shows, she doesn’t tell. She adds details—like the radio playing Brooklyn games all summer and the dish towel on the porch—that add wonderful texture.
Finally, Jackson is in such control of her craft here, wending verb forms here and there as she thinks about different times in the story. I’ve talked a lot about verb tenses, more than I ever thought I would. In breaking this down, I’ve learned more about how much information is telegraphed by verbs.2 I never realized the word economy of the verb would, how a single word can situate us in the past tense and look to the future, all at once.
Also notice how she shifts the reader in time, especially in the third passage. She starts in the story’s present, then looks forward; then brings us back to the present before looking to the past. Because she moves us stepwise, we can follow the chronology without getting lost. This is the paradox of great writing: when it’s done well, the reader doesn’t even notice all the strings holding things together.
What we can learn from it
Just as I didn’t expect to write 2700 words about how Shirley Jackson uses commas, I didn’t expect to do a deep dive into verb forms. What I’m learning is that the drier material from English class has tremendous effect on style.
I’m also fascinated by the delineation between Jackson the writer and Jackson the character. As I mentioned earlier, Sven Birkets talks about the need for a dual perspective in memoir. We need the on-the-ground reporting of the person in the moment, but without the added context or understanding from the writer in the future, we don’t get the full significance of the event. In writing a memoir, the writer needs to choose which version of him or herself to put on the page: the writer or the character? And that decision may be completely different on a different page or in a different scene.
Between these two elements—the two perspectives of the writer and the link between verb form and style—there is a ton that you can do. You can see how Jackson uses them to create proximity and intimacy in her work and alternately, when she pulls back and allows the reader to fill in the gaps. There’s a ton of potential here that I don’t quite know what to do with yet, but the mere fact that I'm starting to see it is exciting.
And hey, if you managed to read to this point, congratulations—you just read 2800 words about verb forms. That’s worth celebrating too. Grown-up elves all around.
Share this newsletter like you’d share cookies with a grown-up elf.
In Jackson’s horror fiction, she looks forward in a way that we call foreshadowing—giving us a detail or two that will turn out to be significant down the road. That doesn’t apply so much to her memoirs, where these details are mostly to add texture to a scene. For example, there are other mentions of Laurie playing, or learning to play, the trumpet later on in the book, but it’s extra colour for a scene rather than the focus of it.
It also makes me appreciate how difficult it must be to learn to speak and write English as a non-native speaker!