This is one of those oddly disturbing stories that Shirley Jackson does so well. There is a feeling of being lost that builds and builds, although everything around "Clara" seems totally normal. It has that feeling you get when you have made a wrong turn into a deserted part of town and there is nothing frightening going on around you, but you are scared to death of what might be around the next corner and you long for a street or a sign that is familiar.

Jackson at her best. ( )

I only read The Tooth and The Lottery. These are great stories. I don't think they push the bounds of literature or anything; they are simply delightfully macabre.
Sort of like The Twilight Zone stories...
It's hard to describe these stories without ruining them.
I should read more of her work someday...
[edit: just read The Intoxicated. It's super short and you can read it here . Fantastic and resonates strongly with today and our bleak future...] ( )

This version of “The Tooth” by Shirley Jackson is published by Penguin in their Mini Modern Classics series. The book contains five tales, which were originally collected in Jackson’s 1949 anthology “The Lottery and Other Stories”. All the tales in here have an air of creeping unease and underlying insanity. “The Tooth” is the strange story of a woman who travels to New York in order to have her toothache seen to. She keeps meeting a stranger who whispers poetically to her and slowly her reality begins to distort and shatter. The collection also contains “The Lottery”, which is arguable Jackson’s most celebrated tale. It features a small village, where once a year a villager is chosen by lottery to be stoned to death by friends, family and the rest of the village. The matter-of-fact narrative style and the unemotional way that the lottery and subsequent act of murder is handled adds to the horrific and chilling nature of this rightfully celebrated tale. The other stories in the book are “The Witch”, which is a truly dark and startling tale, “Charles” and “The Intoxicated”. These are all incredibly short stories and it says a lot about the power of Shirley Jackson’s prose and imagination that she can unnerve and unsettle so effortlessly with so few words. Highly recommended. ( )

Well-written, but a bit predictable, and just not very appealing. ( )

The Tooth The Witch Charles The Lottery The Intoxicated ( )