Shirley Jackson is famous for Haunting of Hill House, "The Lottery" and We Have Always Lived in the Castle though she wrote a good many creepy short stories. She wrote two funny day-in-the-life novels that remind me of Cheaper By the Dozen. We see a humorous side to Jackson as she struggles to find time to write while raising her children. She's not June Cleever. Not even close. More like Lucy. ( )

This pair of books, Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons, are essentially a series of stories first published in magazines such as Woman's Day, Collier's, Good Housekeeping, Harper's, and The New Yorker - woven into a narrative of life in a small Vermont town. Jackson's family consists of a professor husband, 4 children (two boys, two girls), a large dog and numerous cats - and her colorful Vermont neighbors - who do live up to pretty much every New Englander stereotype you've heard. My personal favorite passages cover the single night in which all family members are suffering from colds, and play musical beds; and the description of the 4 children's rooms - or should we say, disaster areas - on bed-making day, which happens to coincide with the day Jackson's husband's old flame is due to drop by.
I first read these books as a teenager, and still find the humor warm, witty, and all too familiar. ( )

Interesting look into the life of an unconventional, large family. ( )