Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation
    Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation
    Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation
    Ebook157 pages21 minutes

    Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation

    By Miles Hyman

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Winner of the 2017 Solliès Comics Festival's Best Adult Graphic Novel

    The classic short story--now in full color

    Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” continues to thrill and unsettle readers nearly seven decades after it was first published. By turns puzzling and harrowing, “The Lottery” raises troubling questions about conformity, tradition, and the ritualized violence that may haunt even the most bucolic, peaceful village.

    This graphic adaptation by Jackson’s grandson Miles Hyman allows readers to experience “The Lottery” as never before, or to discover it anew. He has crafted an eerie vision of the hamlet where the tale unfolds and the unforgettable ritual its inhabitants set into motion. Hyman’s full-color, meticulously detailed panels create a noirish atmosphere that adds a new dimension of dread to the original story.

    Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”: The Authorized Graphic Adaptation stands as a tribute to Jackson, and reenvisions her iconic story as a striking visual narrative.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateOct 25, 2016
    ISBN9781466896437
    Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation
    Author

    Miles Hyman

    Miles Hyman is an artist who specializes in graphic novels and adaptations of classic literature. His work has been shown in galleries around the world and has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, and GQ. He is the grandson of Shirley Jackson. He lives in Paris.

    Related to Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"

    Related ebooks

    Comics & Graphic Novels For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Quiet Boy

      Jan 28, 2019

      The Quiet Boy
      29 min read

    • Article

      The Snapshot Theory

      Feb 27, 2021

      The Snapshot Theory
      6 min read

    • Article

      Seven Books I’ll Never Read

      Aug 7, 2018

      Seven Books I’ll Never Read
      6 min read

    • Article

      Storytime

      Mar 23, 2022

      In 1941 newlyweds Elle and Simon, and Elle’s ‘cousin’ (former boyfriend) Gabriel move to Lyra, population 400, off the coast of Georgia. Her Russian mother dead, her bankrupt father struck up a deal with wealthy jewel miner Simon, who was hiding his

      2 min read

    • Article

      Music

      Dec 17, 2021

      60 The number of gold discs Paul McCartney has received for album sales in his career Rememberings Sinead O’Connor The singersongwriter has an incredible story to tell – by the time she found fame, she had already experienced harrowing abuse at the h

      2 min read

    • Article

      Lezley Saar’s ‘Diorama Drama’ and me

      Apr 1, 2023

      SEPTEMBER 2017. I didn’t know where I was going to live. I’d been surviving rent-free as a “granny nanny” in Orange County, California, for three years, living on $600 under-the-table per month. The agreed-upon term was over, and I was beginning to h

      3 min read

    • Article

      Charades Anyone?

      Nov 10, 2022

      Charades Anyone?
      6 min read

    • Article

      Casting The Runes

      Feb 25, 2021

      “I was interested in magic and witchcraft and things like that from an early age,” says Dave Arthur. “Twelve or so. Dennis Wheatley’s novels… I read those. The Devil Rides Out, To the Devil a Daughter, The Ka of Gifford Hillary. Occult novels fascina

      19 min read

    • Article

      From The Foreword To Debths

      Jun 27, 2017

      From The Foreword To Debths
      6 min read

    • Article

      JT in My Mind

      Mar 16, 2020

      JT in My Mind
      7 min read

    • Article

      Letter From Cincinnati

      Sep 19, 2022

      Letter From Cincinnati
      5 min read

    • Article

      Off The Shelf

      May 11, 2022

      London-based historic fiction author Annabel Abbs turns her attention to the pioneering cookery book writer, Eliza Acton and the handful of facts that are known about Miss Acton and her assistant, Ann Kirby. Miss Acton was an aspiring poet, but when

      3 min read

    • Article

      Radio

      Mar 8, 2023

      Radio
      3 min read

    • Article

      Allegiance

      Nov 6, 2023

      Allegiance
      12 min read

    • Article

      The haus On The Hill

      Apr 18, 2024

      The haus On The Hill
      8 min read

    • Article

      Across The Whited Fields

      Oct 13, 2019

      In a twilight streeta small girl laughing. The red and yellow flowersprofuse, inhale the air. We want to hold your name,Polly, dancing in the rain Polly, skipping down the street.Sometimes the world bequeaths then takes away the one to whomou

      14 min read

    • Article

      Artistic Licence

      Jun 21, 2022

      Picture this,” entreats Will Huxley, one half of the contemporary arts coupling known as The Huxleys, who have just wrapped production on a photographic series that frames a pair of intergalactic queer Elvises falling to earth and engaging with the O

      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"

    4/5

    135 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This is an impressive short story. The artist captured the climate in the small town.
    • 4/5
      When I was getting this book ready so many students got excited, "Is that the story we read in class?" I told them it was indeed the same. I don't expect to see it much for the rest of the year.

      The art is very evocative of the setting and time frame. The prose is spare but still tells the story. I was left with as many questions this time as I was when I read it as a teen. Why? How could they? Why?

      For librarians--there is female nudity when a woman takes a bath to prepare for the lottery.
      An interesting note in the book tells a story of the artist's grandmother, who was Shirley Jackson.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      One of the greatest stories ever written, the adaptation looks beautiful and rawboned but drags a bit and the famous ending loses its potency. A fine effort.
    • 4/5
      This was a nice version of the story. It is still crazy how this story ends. It shows how some things have to grow and change. Just a great story. It really makes you think.
    • 4/5
      Hyman introduces two prominent changes with his adaptation of Jackson's iconic short story: ● Scene 1 - Two officials preparing the ballots before dawn ● Scene 2 - Tessie alone in the house before Lottery begins(There is another scene in a diner which also may be new, transposing into dialogue some of Jackson's descriptive prose. I do not examine that scene in detail.) Hyman's adaptation does not include Jackson's complete text, though without tracking word-for-word, my impression is that most if not all included text is verbatim. Most text here is dialogue, with occasional comic-style captions; most excluded text appears to be description, which Hyman replaced with images. The illustrations remind me of William Joyce's affected 1930s graphic design, similarly stylised though in Hyman's case not art deco. (If there's a term for this style of illustration, I don't know it.) The illustrations are I think well suited to the story, a frisson between nostalgic sentiment and the brutality of the crowd which works in tandem with the plot.Arguably one could read Hyman's adaptation without his additions. Indeed, Hyman inserts both scenes before Jackson's opening lines and then proceeds faithfully through the rest of the story. It is a simple matter to skip his additions, commencing instead with the helpful caption containing Jackson's famous first lines ("The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green."). So why add these scenes, then -- what does their inclusion contribute to the story? One possible answer is they assist in the visual telling of the story -- both new sections are practically wordless. This explanation appears especially relevant to the first new scene, with the careful preparation of a ballot box, suggesting an important vote of some kind will occur, and these images replace multiple phrases in Jackson's story which more or less impart the same information. Another possible explanation is Hyman has added new information, as though providing backstory of his own invention or restoring passages Jackson may have excised.Scene 2 is different from Scene 1. Scene 2 depicts Tessie alone in her house and is completely new and not alluded to in Jackson's story. The scene is somewhat in tension with Tessie's later sheepish admission to a neighbour that she forgot the date, not because they contradict this chain of events but because --when viewed after finishing the story-- her actions seem contemplative and even a kind of preparation for leave-taking. Admittedly, at the end of Scene 2, Tessie appears to become aware of her surroundings, as though recalling what day it is, just as she confesses later. The tension may be wholly supplied by the reader, then. As a visual substitute for these lines, however, the scene both fails and is superfluous. Superfluous because Hyman includes the text verbatim later on; and a failure because Tessie's seeming realisation at the end of the Scene is visually subtle, discernible only at the suggestion of her own statement. Without that confession, there is nothing definitive visually except that she finishes bathing. What then, does the Scene do? Effectively it prolongs the text, slowing down the reader and the moment, and postponing the climax. Jackson slows the reader's progress with a languid, almost tranquil description of people gathering, but even when depicted individually (Hyman devotes several pages of multiple panels to these scenes), the eyes still propel the plot along, especially as there is very little text to read. Hyman's additional scenes restore the languid pace, and the resulting delayed gratification not only is congruous with Jackson's original text, it is for me a crucial element of pacing for both the final reveal, and the sense of the story overall.I note here that Hyman's adaptation is authorized by Jackson's estate, and that he is Jackson's grandson, a fact he readily discloses in his preface. My reading already lead me to conclude Hyman does not add new information in the sense of backstory or cutting-room floor edits. Though the Jackson estate imprimatur is of course not the same as Jackson's personal approval, it goes some way in corroborating my own conclusion.
    • 3/5
      Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" has always been one of my favorite short stories. It's very thought-provoking and brings the question to mind: Why do we do this? Why are these traditions important to us when we don't even remember where it originated from?

      I'd hoped the graphic novel would be as visually striking as the story is thought provoking. I was a bit disappointed. While the artwork is great, it didn't really bring anything else to the story. While I am not a fan of gore and violence, the ending could have had more. What these people are doing is a horrible act, and this point wasn't made as well as it could have been.
    • 5/5
      To begin, this is a classic, and five star short story!The graphic novel is cool, and beautifully drawn, but not all that necessary. It is cool that the man who adapted this is Shirley Jackson's grandson though! My one complaint is that from pages 23-26, there is nudity. Now personally, I'm not one to complain. But I do think of "The Lottery" as a story young people read, and I'm not sure those pages are appropriate. And even more to the point, they don't seem necessary for the story at all. Sort of just in there to be in there.But it's one of the best short stories I've ever read, and if this gets more people to read it, woo hoo! Little rocks for little hands... (p. 127)
    • 5/5
      This is a stunning interpretation of the classic short story, drawn by Shirley Jackson's grandson. His drawings, especially of faces, are strong and so very authentically, stoically New England - even those of the children, as they set out to gather their stones to cast. If you've never read the story, please do so first, and then grab this version. Miles Hyman's choices of which of his grandmother's words to include can be debated, but the pictures are worth a thousand. Hits really hard.

    Book preview

    Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" - Miles Hyman

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1