Apc Materiality Journal 1

Cleo Aukland
American Print Cultures: the Art of the Book

Kate Marshall
July 11, 2022
Shirley Jackson, Relatable Fickle Shadow
Shirley would not show up. True, she had a smaller o in Jackson because the os had run
out from the Franklin 36 typeset, but t0 had a zero in it, so she shouldn’t have felt too ostracized.
In contrast to katydids she was paled and spotted, the semicolon much prouder than she.
It wasn’t that Shirley would hide and Jackson would print; they stood together, resolute in pale
imitation. This seemed fitting for representation of Jackson herself, who struggled with mental
illness and oscillated between the fame she amassed with the publishing of the short story “The
Lottery” in the New Yorker in 1948 and crippling anxiety and agoraphobia. I tried packing the
letterpress for about thirty minutes, cutting pieces of paper, thick and thin, to slide under a sheaf
of paper upon which my printing paper would lie. Wherever more packing material went, the
navy letters would be clearer. In theory. Paper stacked up, pushing printing paper forth.
“I’m having trouble with Shirley,” I said to the cabin. “She won’t show up.” But
eventually—small padding scrap after padding scrap, she appeared sharp and undeniable.
shirley jackson (font not quite the same—see photos). Other words, then, would fade; sanely,
reality, are, dream. I’d coax them all out, packing after each print, but Shirley refused to appear
simultaneously. Did she resent sharing limelight with sanity and reality?
I’ve had a longstanding love of Jackson’s works, notably The Haunting of Hill House,
from which I selected my letterpress text (the first line of the first paragraph).
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolutely reality;
even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
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It’s chilling and ponderous, practical, beautiful, and light. Without romanticizing her
pain, I find Jackson as a writer to be enduringly witty, anxious, as thrilled by life’s small
surprises and beautiful roadside homes as I am. Her novels are deeply lonely, somber, and
devastating, but gorgeous. An anxious person’s inner monologue, realized, phrased lovely.
Thematically, Jackson writes of women losing their tethers to reality; of unctuous,
patronizing males, of spaces which host comfort and horrors in parallel. She wrote frequently of
her “fears of people” (Heller, “The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson”, the New Yorker),
immortalizing her unfriendly neighbors in North Bennington as antagonists in “The Lottery”. Yet
she, with her oppressive husband, hosted social gatherings with fellow intellectuals, and she
wrote comic articles for magazines on her chaotic and warm home life. “The persona that
Jackson presented to the world was powerful, witty, even imposing” (Heller). She thus haunted
my letterpress prints; emerging, retreating, half-present with little rhyme or reason.
But isn’t this, I thought, prodding cut-up cardstock behind Shirley’s name, the
omnipresent juxtaposition of the anxious, depressed persona? A mercurial shift between joy and
alarm, comfort and despair? I see it in myself. I found communion with my hiding Shirley and
her fickle acquiescent presentation. Perhaps she was uncomfortable appearing in the letterpress
cabin despite its sturdy wood beams and papery smell. I find it enchanted, a structure set into the
grass like a woodcutter’s home in a fairy tale. Rain beats steadily on the roof of the letterpress
cabin, as silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House. But in keeping with her
personality, why should Shirley, in typeset name, be expected to materialize when called upon?
I breathed in sawdust and wind, letters and ink, rainfall. I took scissors, lodged between
log beams, and cut cardstock. If I were in a Shirley Jackson novel, the letterpress cabin might be
a refuge. Or maybe a place of terrors and isolation. I spun the wheel, pulling it towards me as
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though spinning great magical fibers, and pumped the iron pedal once it started. It churned,
letters met paper once, twice, thrice. I pulled the paper out.
Jackson tried writing in a journal she started after publishing We Have Always Lived in
the Castle. She had a nervous breakdown and had agoraphobia for six months, ironically
mimicking her protagonists, penning “I have written myself into the house” (Heller). Perhaps the
reason for her shyness in the letterpress cabin? “To be separate, to be alone, to stand and walk
alone, not to be different and weak and helpless and degraded” (Heller) she wrote also.
I willed her to do so. To stand and walk alone in Franklin 36. Her name, though she
might not have felt so in life, deserves highest accolades and attribution. A final quote: “I am the
captain of my fate” (Heller). Indeed, Shirley, I thought. You are the helm of your voyage.
My letterpress results aren’t perfect. In the print I’m looking at, “are” is a little light, and
so is my t0 with the zero. I typeset “in conditions of absolute reality” instead of “under
conditions” and misquoted my prints, as I realized last night with immense frustration. And
Shirley’s still timid. She’s legible—undeniably there, taking up negative space (I’d write another
page on that phraseology if I could), but she’s not strong. Larks is robust, exist is clear; my
semicolon clearly dents the page in that tangible thrill.
She’d want authorship of her texts, to be sure, the merited designation that her husband
constantly called into question. But the print, much like the woman, takes some time to get to
know. I’ve learned the character of her words, their shape, their order.
The last line of that paragraph is “...and whatever walked there [Hill House], walked
alone.” Fitting for her mindscape; this is Shirley, whether she’s printed boldly or hiding in paper
indentation. She is utterly herself on her own terms. I imagine that’s all she’s wanted.
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Cleo Aukland

American Print Cultures: the Art of the Book

Shirley Jackson, Relatable Fickle Shadow

Thematically, Jackson writes of women losing their tethers to reality; of unctuous,

my letterpress prints; emerging, retreating, half-present with little rhyme or reason.

semicolon clearly dents the page in that tangible thrill.

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