Shirley: A Novel
Newly married and pregnant at 19, Rose joins her husband, Fred, when he accepts a posting as a graduate teaching assistant at Bennington College, working for Stanley Hyman.  The job comes with the so-called perk of living with Hyman and his wife, the notorious real-life author Shirley Jackson.  Rose is smitten with Shirley, in thrall not only to her authorial prowess but also to the rumors that swirl around her like so many poisonous arrows regarding accusations of witchcraft and Shirley’s role in the disappearance of one of Stanley’s student paramours.  Rose remains ever loyal, however, until Shirley accuses Rose of seducing Stanley in the wake of Rose’s discovery of Fred’s student dalliance.  Jackson has always been one of the more intriguing and misunderstood writers of her generation, a woman writer at the cusp of feminism’s second wave who nevertheless was erroneously dismissed for writing mere “domestic fiction.”  Merrell brings this complicated and compelling woman to life through the kind of taut and intimate thriller Jackson herself would have been proud to call her own. --Carol Haggas