Dark Tales

For today's countdown to Halloween's reading suggestion, Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson. Because you can't go wrong with Shirley Jackson on Halloween, although you might want to read this book fairly early in the countdown. I say this because not all these tales have supernatural elements (although many do), but they are all very dark indeed. In The Possibility of Evil, a seemingly harmless old lady sends poison pen letters, in Paranoia the commute of an ordinary man turns into a nightmarish pursuit where literally everyone he sees seems to be scheming against him, in What a Thought a wife suddenly harbours murderous thoughts against her husband, in The Summer People a couple is punished in a passive-agressive way by villagers for wanting to stay in their summer cottage after Labor Day, for reasons that remain unknown. And there are more. Shirley Jackson is a master of terror born out of alienation.