Read By: Ruth Franklin

<p><em>Ruth Franklin on her selection:</em></p> <p>Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) is deservedly famous for suspenseful fiction like “The Lottery” and <em>The Haunting of Hill House</em>. During her lifetime, though, she was equally well known for the humorous stories she wrote about her absent-minded-professor husband and their four children, published in popular women’s magazines of the era and collected in two best-selling memoirs, <em>Life Among the Savages</em> and <em>Raising Demons</em>. “Charles,” the story I’ve chosen to read, is her first family story and perhaps the funniest, capped by a perfect punchline.</p> <p><a href= "https://bookshop.org/books/life-among-the-savages/9780143128045"><em> Life Among the Savages</em></a>, by Shirley Jackson</p> <p>Music: "Shift of Currents" by Blue Dot Sessions // CC BY-NC 2.0</p>