The Shirley Jackson awards are nice and all, but honestly, no one writes horror on her level these days. In a way, it can't be done anymore because we believe too easily in what she convinced us of, the mundane horror of daily, normal life.
The Lottery has been done, now. The Hunger Games doesn't have that effect. What horror story can, aside from real life, which is more horrible. There are a million goth girls playing at being Shirley and Plath now. Sunniness is more shocking.
"The story created outrage on publication in 1948 in The New Yorker, described in letters to the magazine office as “gruesome” and “a new low in human viciousness.” But Jackson preferred to quote the letters she received from readers who “wanted to know where the lotteries were being held, and if they could go watch.”
From Open Letters Monthly
This is less unbelievable in the era of reality TV, cyberbullying, school shootings, and Google Glass.
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