Hangsaman, Shirley Jackson

★★★

“She brought herself away from the disagreeably clinging thought by her usual method — imagining the sweet sharp sensation of being burned alive.”

Hangsaman is one of the lesser known Shirley Jackson novellas, a tale based loosely on the real disappearance of a young college student from the university near Shirley Jackson’s Vermont home. 

Hangsaman follows Natalie, an odd girl floating through her freshman year at college burrowing deeper and deeper into her own haunted thoughts. She disassociates from the fellow students instead gravitating towards a lonely housewife of a young professor. Embroiled in the drama of the philandering professor and the self-harming housewife, Natalie begins to dream up scenarios and interactions. Her flights of fantasy become more unhinged as she withdraws from students, school, and her overbearing father, and soon she’s not sure what is real and what is entirely hallucinatory. 

As much as I loved Natalie’s biting assessments of those nearest to her — like one particularly sharp critique of her overweight neighbor — I wanted so much more for the plot. I grew tired of her father’s letters, her small bedroom, her fascination with a wholly unworthy professor. And much like Natalie, I spent the whole book waiting for something to happen.