The Haunting (1963) remains one of my favorite horror movies of all time, and recently I finally read the original novel “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson. I loved it! So I picked up “The Lottery and Other Stories” which is, of course, an anthology of Jackson’s short stories. There are many short stories within, some of them only a few pages long. I think maybe a half dozen of them seem to have anything like a resolution or even anything that might be considered a plot. (I loved The Lottery, in any case, and can see why it caused such a stir when it was first published) Many of the stories seem to be brief vignettes, snapshots of everyday life that seem like excerpts from longer stories. Is that the point of the stories after all, or am I missing something? And what really is the significance of the recurring James Harris?
Most of her stories seem to be about a certain unsettling mood, rather than plot. If that bothers you, read her other long works - We Have Always Lived in the Castle is great, and she has a hilarious autobiography, Life Among the Savages, about her family.