Last modified on Thu 17 Dec 2020 05.14 EST
A “lost” story by Shirley Jackson, in which the author of The Haunting of Hill House shows a microcosm of the racism and sexism in US society through a dissatisfied woman’s trip to a corner shop, is being published for the first time.
Adventure on a Bad Night follows Vivien as she goes out for an evening walk, leaving her husband George, and the monotony of her life, behind for a moment. “If she left right away she could stay out in the air for 20 minutes or so … before the night started being tomorrow morning, with breakfast and dusting and the telephone.” While out, she meets a pregnant immigrant who is being verbally abused by a shop clerk after asking for help. “I know that kind,” the clerk tells Vivien. “You think they can’t understand a word, but you say to them ‘Sure I’ll do it for you’ and they understand right off. All I do is yell at them till they go away.”