If anyone is looking for this story, I think I found it here:
I noticed a couple differences between this text and the audio version I found at my library.
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Thoughts on this story:
Our unnamed protagonist is 34 and out on her own in NYC in 1948. Seems likely to me that she would have worked during WWII, while a bunch of men were off fighting the war. I think this story is a comment on the reactionary nature of post-war America, when women were pushed out of the workforce to make room for returning GIs and expected to go back to being wives and moms.
Is Jamie Harris even real? Or is he either A) a delusion or B) supernatural?
Arguments for real:
the shoeshine guy, florist, and kid all seem to remember him.
Arguments for not real:
She has a hard time picturing him, which is odd to me. I know exactly what my wife looks like (though I've known her for over 20 years, not a month, like this relationship).
I'm not sure about the Roysters - I mean, he's at their apartment for a month and nothing was changed? That's weird, like he was never there.
I think the newsstand guy is leading the protagonist on - he repeats what she says, never provides new info, and he seems to be trying to trick her as some sort of joke with the man in line behind her.
Finally, she tracks Harris down (with the kid's help) to a room in a partially remodeled building. She knocks at the door and thinks she hears something, but no-one ever comes to the door, even though she knocks at different days and times. If someone had been home, it seems like they would have answered the door to tell her to go away, if nothing else.
I felt like everyone was leading her on with their memories of Jamie, which I thought were all false. But I think you are right that that's only directly indicated at the newsstand and I've read that backwards into the other interactions. If he's real but supernatural or numinous in some way, what do you think he is? And why visit (haunt?) the protagonist?
@G.L. McDorman I'm not sure. Maybe he's a delusion or some sort of fabrication? Maybe she saw some handsome guy in a blue suit going into the Royster's building one time and knitted the rest together in her head. She's obviously very concerned about aging and remaining single.
If supernatural, maybe he needs someone to "host" him, so he moves from woman to woman. Like a vampire that feeds off of hospitality or affection, but for whatever reason decides (or is compelled) to move on after a time. Sounds like a writing prompt.
@ktvician I like the psychic vampire angle!
Also, there was a biography of Shirley Jackson by Ruth Franklin titled Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, published in 2016. I haven't read it yet.
It seems like there's been a lot of interest in Shirley Jackson lately. I'm very glad of it. I want to do "The Summer People" next, which I think is even creepier than "The Lottery."
For me this story actually worked best as a straight piece of feminist literature (not a genre I'm familiar with at all, to my shame) rather than weird fiction as such. Apart from the apartment building at the very end, there wasn't really a 'weird' element, and if it hadn't been for title I wouldn't have even questioned that Jamie was real. There's definitely a theme that some of the people the protagonist talks to are leading her on, but the evidence of the Roysters at least suggests there was a real Jamie (though even that isn't 100% conclusive).
All that said, I think this was an excellent story and I'm glad I read it. Jackson did a great job of capturing the "mundane" horror of the feminine experience, not just in a particular time and place, but still lingering in the twenty-first century. The everyday anxiety over conforming to society's expectations of women, standards of beauty, the need to be eternally young (or at least appear to be), the pressure to marry and settle down and start a family: these are all still things that a lot of women struggle with today, which makes this story - sadly - still very relevant.
Thanks for bringing up the ballad of the same name. I'm not sure I'd ever heard of it, although the plot sounds familiar so maybe I've come across it in some form before. I think Glenn's reading of Jackson's story as forming a sort of prequel seems right. I don't think that makes it optimistic, though. At least not if the protagonist is later going to go with Jamie when he returns. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, the ballad was (and is) very popular in the USA, but largely forgotten in Britain and Ireland.
It definitely works as an internal horror. This woman is beset by a society that expects her to be something she is not: pretty (but not too pretty), married, and content with that. The same society mocks her for not achieving those things. A few people help her (i.e., the shoeshine man), but most either try to sell her something (the florist), treat her as a nuisance (the deli guy), or make fun of her (the newspaper stand guy).
Ha. I think in general Americans are more prone to worry about literal demons in our midst than most people are. I think I'm inclined to agree with you that there isn't really anything supernatural going on here, though this story is much anthologized in supernatural horror collections, and I'm glad of that. This is a brilliant story that should get as much reprinting as possible.
For a nice bit of weird fiction crossover, I found a version of the ballad recorded by the band who did the theme song for True Detective season 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4UJlqCvikg
Oh, I love The Handsome Family! They got their start in Chicago at a time when I was seeing loads of live music there. I have this album but totally forgot about this song. That's awesome.
Nice! I only know the album with the True Detective song on, but I've been meaning to explore more of their back catalogue. (Like with reading, too much music and not enough time to listen to it all!)
I loved this story. There certainly is some eeriness in it, whether in a weird or in a 'psychological horror' fashion or something else.
As I've said a lot of times in respect to the other tales discussed: I like it when the writer leaves room to the nature of strange things happening. My own interpretation changed continually when reading this story, from naturalist to delusional/psychological to weird.
I think Brandon nailed it when he said that Jackson took the weird (well, at least the feel of it) but doesn't make the metaphor literal. Maybe the protagonist idealized an existing (but harming) man and then got delusional, maybe she is all delusional, maybe she isn't delusional at all and Jamie exists in the way she thinks he does. For me it doesn't matter that much which is true, but exactly this vagueness gives more strength to the metaphorical: the laughter behind the closed door, and even the unfriendliness and unaffectedness of the people she meets - even if it is all or partly delusional or even supernatural - can be seen as the feeling of insecurity of women in an female-unfriendly and demanding world.
At the same time Jackson makes a wonderful portrait by using this third person 'personal point of view' (as we call it in Dutch, don't know the English term), the naturalist details (as in 'hyper realistic') and interior monologue.