Ruth Franklin and Dorothy Wickenden talk about Franklin’s biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life.  Drawing on previously undiscovered correspondence and dozens of interviews, Franklin explores Jackson’s immense talent in light of her damaged childhood and troubled marriage.  

Ruth Franklin is a book critic and frequent contributor to The New Yorker, The New Republic, and Harper’s, among other publications. Her first book, A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction, was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. Franklin worked on Shirley Jackson while in residence at the Cullman Center in 2012-13.

Dorothy Wickenden has been Executive Editor of The New Yorker since 1996, and is the moderator of the weekly podcast “The Political Scene” on newyorker.com.  She worked as a senior editor at The New Republic for fifteen years, and is the author of Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West.

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