
Life Among the Savages
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Narrated by:
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Lesa Lockford
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By:
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Shirley Jackson
About this listen
In her celebrated fiction, Shirley Jackson explored the darkness lurking beneath the surface of small-town America. But in Life Among the Savages, she takes on the lighter side of small-town life. In this witty and warm memoir of her family's life in rural Vermont, she delightfully exposes a domestic side in cheerful contrast to her quietly terrifying fiction. With a novelist's gift for character, an unfailing maternal instinct, and her signature humor, Jackson turns everyday family experiences into brilliant adventures.
©1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953; renewed 1975, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981 Shirley Jackson; renewed Laurence Hyman, Joan Schnurer, Barry Hyman, and Sarah Webster (P)2015 Dreamscape Media, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Overall
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-
Overall
-
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-
-
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By: Shirley Jackson
-
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Overall
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Performance
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"The Lottery," one of the most terrifying stories of the twentieth century, created a sensation when it was first published in the New Yorker. "Powerful and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery" with 24 equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate her remarkable range - from the hilarious to the truly horrible - and power as a storyteller.
-
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Title List:
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By: Shirley Jackson
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- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
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Performance
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Seventeen-year-old Natalie Waite longs to escape home for college. Her father is a domineering and egotistical writer who keeps a tight rein on Natalie and her long-suffering mother. When Natalie finally does get away, however, college life doesn’t bring the happiness she expected. Little by little, Natalie is no longer certain of anything - even where reality ends and her dark imaginings begin. Chilling and suspenseful, Hangsaman is loosely based on the real-life disappearance of a Bennington College sophomore in 1946.
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-
Julia Whelan’s narration in sweet perfection …
- By Karenique on 12-29-21
By: Shirley Jackson
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- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter, Kimberly Farr, Karissa Vacker, and others
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the publication of her short story “The Lottery” in the New Yorker in 1948 received an unprecedented amount of attention, Shirley Jackson was quickly established as a master horror storyteller. This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides listeners with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the “The Possibility of Evil” and “The Summer People”.
-
-
Spoilerific Foreword
- By Erik N on 10-29-21
By: Shirley Jackson, and others
-
The Haunting of Hill House
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Four seekers have come to the ugly, abandoned old mansion: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of the psychic phenomenon called haunting; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a lonely, homeless girl well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the adventurous future heir of Hill House.
-
-
Well written horror tale
- By C K White on 02-11-14
By: Shirley Jackson
-
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- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter, Dion Graham
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Overall
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When the Halloran clan gathers at the family home for a funeral, no one is surprised when the somewhat peculiar Aunt Fanny wanders off into the secret garden. But then she returns to report an astonishing vision of an apocalypse from which only the Hallorans and their hangers-on will be spared, and the family finds itself engulfed in growing madness, fear, and violence as they prepare for a terrible new world.
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Overall
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Hugely Entertaining (If You Like English History)
- By Jean Ogg on 10-09-23
By: David Mitchell
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We Have Always Lived in the Castle
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Six years after four family members died of arsenic poisoning, the three remaining Blackwoods—elder, agoraphobic sister Constance; wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian; and 18-year-old Mary Katherine, or, Merricat—live together in pleasant isolation. Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic to guard the estate against intrusions from hostile villagers. But one day a stranger arrives—cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune.
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The narration changed my interpretation
- By jaspersu on 10-28-12
By: Shirley Jackson
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The Bird's Nest
- By: Shirley Jackson, Kevin Wilson - foreword
- Narrated by: Linda Jones, Mark Bramhall
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Elizabeth is a demure 23-year-old wiling her life away at a dull museum job, living with her neurotic aunt, and subsisting off her dead mother’s inheritance. When Elizabeth begins to suffer terrible migraines and backaches, her aunt takes her to the doctor, then to a psychiatrist. But slowly, and with Jackson’s characteristic chill, we learn that Elizabeth is not just one girl - but four separate, self-destructive personalities.
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Great audio version
- By jaspersu on 10-21-21
By: Shirley Jackson, and others
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The Devil and Mrs. Davenport
- A Novel
- By: Paulette Kennedy
- Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Missouri, 1955. Loretta Davenport has led an isolated life as a young mother and a wife to Pete, an ambitious assistant professor at a Bible college. They’re the picture of domestic tranquility—until a local girl is murdered and Loretta begins receiving messages from beyond. Pete dismisses them as delusions of a fevered female imagination. Loretta knows they’re real—and frightening.
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I didn’t think I would Like this book
- By Bonnie on 01-14-25
By: Paulette Kennedy
What listeners say about Life Among the Savages
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- Sara
- 01-23-16
Stories From A Quirky Family
These eccentric stories of family life during the 1940's are centered in an old rambling house in very rural Vermont. This semi autobiographical collection of scattered memories loosely organized is funny, unusual and engaging. Jackson gives her children the freedom to express themselves and explore life in a very different world from the one in which we now live. I found a thread of subtle fear and spookiness running just under the surface of many of these stories. A hint I guess of the other, darker writing that Jackson is best known for. In the end this was an enjoyable look back in time.
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36 people found this helpful
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- Lee the reader
- 08-06-18
An Unexpected Comedy Gem
Believe it or not, I first read this in 5th grade from my Weekly Reader Book Selection. It is NOT a 5th-grade book. I was just a voracious reader. But I "got" the book. I enjoyed it from the "savage child" part, not the harried mother, but it was just as funny then as it is now.
This book has become a cult classic, in the Erma Bombeck mold, by one of the very greatest of writers. It was originally published in multiple short story form by one of the great short story writers of America. I say unexpected because the writer is Shirley Jackson - yes "The Lottery" Shirley Jackson, "We Have Always Lived In the Castle" Shirley Jackson - but this book is uproariously funny, with a preoccupied professor husband who chases bats through the living room with his rifle, a daughter who "magics" the refrigerator door to unstick it, a son who comes home every day telling stories of a non-existant classmate, and a fairy child, Sally.
There is no horror in it unless you are horrified when she robs her child's piggy bank to pay the furnace man in pennies.
I loved this book. The narrator is just right. I loved Shirley's telling of how she learned to drive, of how she walked into the house she would learn to love in Vermont with the great columns that no one else wanted because it was too old, of her adventures trying to take her imaginative children shopping, of her trying to deal with her hunting cats. I have to tell you, the story of the cats and chipmunk and the tall plant and the hunting rifle had me laughing out loud in the car. For sensitive souls, I'll spoil it by saying here the husband is a terrible shot.
This is a true life story so the four kids really existed, as of course did Shirley and the house in Vermont where people go to see it on a Jackson pilgrimage. It is set in the 50's so it is filled with chocolate pudding, stick shifts, kids playing cowboys (pardner) and ashtrays. I enjoyed this in 5th grade, I loved it when I read it when I was older, and when it came out in Audible I laughed my face off. And best of all, if you like it, there IS a sequel, and it is GOOD, Raising Demons. After all, Shirley Jackson IS considered one of the great American authors.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Tomsde
- 02-14-16
Before Erma Bombeck There Was Shirley Jackson
Known primarily for her chilling short story, "The Lottery" and her novel The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson wrote a lot of other things. I think it's safe to say that she pioneered the satirical housewife memoir genre of literature. This is a humorous and yet compelling book about the ups and downs of being a housewife (while she was still working a s a writer) and the bitter-sweet transformation of children into adulthood. I loved this book and highly recommend it for someone who wants something funny and yet touching. Although a series of anecdotes, the book reads likes a novel and is linear--unlike more contemporary writers like David Sedaris--and I liked that a great deal about it. If you're looking for creepy, ironic stories, this isn't one of those--but this is excellent light reading fair for someone who wants to relax and listen to a good book. I am a Bombeck fan, and I think it's safe to say that if you are a Bombeck fan as well you can't go wrong with this book--although I don't know if Bombeck had read this book--it seems as if it was influential.
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8 people found this helpful
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- S. Willigrod
- 01-04-20
Delightful
Great fun to listen to. Wonderful narration (perfect accent) and great humor-I laughed out loud!!
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1 person found this helpful
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- escoocoo
- 02-04-23
So Much Fun!!
This book was written by Shirley Jackson about her often totally hysterical experiences with her children when they very young. I read the book years ago and loved it then. Listening to it now is a great treat as this narrator, Lesa Lockford, adds an additional layer of enjoyment to the overall experience.
This book (and a later book, RAISING DEMONS, also written about her children) offers us
an altogether different but very funny and delightful side that, having experienced her more sinister writing, you may be unaware of.
I love this book and heartily recommend it!! ☺️
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- Eliza
- 05-27-17
1950s domestic comedy is NOT Father Knows Best
Before Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess) and the internet and the plague of mommy bloggers (no offense--most of them are wonderful), Shirley Jackson wrote about her family for various women's magazines, which actually paid money. If you only know Shirley Jackson from "The Lottery" and "The Haunting of Hill House," this book & its sequel, RAISING DEMONS, are a revelation of understated humor, satire, and even spookiness. My family used to laugh out loud reading these (okay, maybe we were a little weird, too). Narrator Lesa Lockford is appropriately deadpan and gets it.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Sheryl McCallister
- 01-05-22
Better than NO audio
Life Among the Savages is an old, dearly missed friend--the library sale copy I had for years having gone walkabout some time ago. And while I don't think this particular narrator truly GETS the humor in this particular group of short pieces, stitched together from Jackson's life as a 1950's mom.....on balance, having this is better than not having it. Although I'm hoping the sequel. will be better served by a different narrator.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amydoodle
- 11-18-22
Not typical Shirley Jackson
Couldn't finish this. It's not funny. Kids are whiney brats. Nothing interesting ever happens.
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- Timothy F.
- 05-15-22
Diary
Reads like a diary of a young mother circa 1940. Very dated. I read it when I was younger. It did not age well.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-01-21
This is a boring book only made worse by listening
Boring characters and how many times can you say...."he said" then she said then said then she said.
One of the most dull books I have listened to.
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