I’ve become rather fascinated with Shirley Jackson in recent years – a writer whose work taps into the dark side of American suburban life. The Road Through the Wall was Jackson’s debut novel, a slim yet effective story focusing on the inhabitants of a seemingly ordinary street, the sort of setting that seems fairly innocuous on the surface despite the elements of cruelty lurking beneath. While it’s not my favourite of Jackson’s works, The Road is still very much worth reading, especially as a precursor to the masterpieces that followed – an interesting debut that feels very much of a piece with this author’s subsequent work.
First published in 1948 (shortly before the appearance of The Lottery), the novel is set in Pepper Street, a suburban avenue in the fictional town of Cabrillo, some thirty miles from San Francisco. It’s the sort of place where everyone knows everyone else’s business, especially the women in the neighbourhood.
The Desmonds are Pepper Street ‘aristocracy’, a respectable, upwardly mobile family who seem destined to move a more desirable area in the future.
Beyond the hedge the Desmonds lived in a rambling modern-style house, richly jeweled with glass brick. They were the aristocracy of the neighbourhood, and their house was the largest; their adopted son Johnny, who was fifteen years old, associated with boys whose families did not live on Pepper Street, but in neighborhoods where the Desmonds expected to live someday. (p. 2)
Various other families are introduced in the novel’s prologue – some on their way up in life, others on their way down.
The year is 1936, and it’s the start of the summer holidays, a time when the children can roam the streets – playing games and forming cliques as youngsters are apt to do. What Jackson does so well in this novel is to show how the prejudices and petty jealousies of the adults filter down to the mindsets and behaviours of their children, ultimately creating friction between the various families in the street. In short, the children’s actions are shaped almost entirely by their parents’ snobberies and preconceptions.
The Perlmans are shunned by the other residents of Pepper Street, largely because of their Jewish heritage which marks them out as being ‘different’ from the norm. When Harriet Merriam’s mother realises that her daughter is friendly with Marilyn Perlman, she forces young Harriet to stop seeing the girl. Clearly, there are ‘standards’ to be maintained, however interesting our new friends may seem to be…
“We must expect to set a standard. Actually, however much we may want to find new friends whom we may value, people who are exciting to us because of new ideas, or because they are different, we have to do what is expected of us.”
“What is expected of me?” Harriet said suddenly, without intention.
“To do what you’re told,” her mother said sharply.
“But what am I supposed to do?”
“You may,” her mother said, “in fact I insist,” she added with relish, “that you see her once more, in order to tell her exactly why you are not to be friends any longer. After all,” Mrs Merriam went on dreamily, “she ought to know why she can’t hope to be your friend any longer.” (pp. 148–149)
Mrs Merriam also punishes her daughter for writing harmless love letters and keeping secret journals, things than many children do as natural ways of expressing themselves, especially during adolescence. Mrs Merriam, however, is disgusted by her daughter’s behaviour, viewing her writing as shameful and repugnant. (There is a sense that Jackson may be drawing on some of her own childhood experiences here, particularly as Geraldine Jackson – Shirley’s mother – was driven by a strong desire for conformity.)
Also excluded from various social gathering are the Martins, a simpleminded family who remain rather passive in relation to their neighbours. Mrs Merriam would prefer it if fourteen-year-old Harriet could distance herself from the two Martin children, George (also 14) and Hallie (9). However, the fact that the two families live next door to one another makes any segregation virtually impossible, especially as the children tend to play communally.
In this novel, Jackson shows herself to be adept at exposing the flaws in the veneer of normality. Behind the seemingly respectable facades, there are instances of emotional bullying, longstanding resentments and thinly-veiled prejudices. Snobbishness and casual racism are widespread, particularly amongst the women. Those who consider themselves above the fray are especially guilty of hypocrisy – seizing the moral high ground with one breath while sneering and spreading malicious gossip with the next.
As the novel draws to its dramatic conclusion, Jackson takes it up a notch, accentuating the sense of foreboding that runs through the whole narrative. When a mysterious disappearance occurs during a garden party, the finger of suspicion falls on Tod Donald, rather odd, awkward boy who is considered to be something of a misfit. The fact that he has already crept into the Desmonds’ house and rummaged through Mrs D’s dress closet only adds to reader’s suspicions.
Jackson is careful to leave a degree of ambiguity in the novel’s ending, raising questions about the exact nature of the incidents towards the end. What is clear though is her understanding of humanity, the capacity for cruelty and violence that can lie therein. A taut, unsettling novel from this uncompromising writer – well worth seeking out, especially for Jackson devotees.
The Road Through the Wall is published by Penguin Books; personal copy.