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The Story We Used to Tell
A recently widowed woman vanishes overnight.
Content advisory: violence, death
“The Story We Used to Tell” is from DARK TALES by Shirley Jackson, published by Penguin Classics, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
Listening Time: 33 minutes
Content advisory: violence, death
“The Story We Used to Tell” is from DARK TALES by Shirley Jackson, published by Penguin Classics, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
Listening Time: 33 minutes
1 pages, Audiobook
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Shirley Jackson
339 books11.8k followersShirley Jackson was an influential American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years. She has influenced such writers as Stephen King, Nigel Kneale, and Richard Matheson.
She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."
Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb", to mirror humanity's Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned The Lottery', and she felt that they at least understood the story".
In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.
She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."
Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb", to mirror humanity's Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned The Lottery', and she felt that they at least understood the story".
In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
January 25, 2024
In art, one finds the monstrous stroke of a pendulum oscillating feathers & gunk from the brush stroke of the unknown. There is scarcely any logic behind the malevolence of a painting that sucks the soul from voyeuristic patrons; no moral to be gained from the tremendous overhaul that exists in the looping ledgers of old. When readers are met with the gore of a decimated figure, they may be inclined to pour colour into the darkened lines of the shapes that cloud their minds as they seek out a clue to the riddle of a story with no clean end.
Within the old home of a friend, our narrator comes to stay while post-mortem proceedings take place. The house is something out of a dream, more closely resembling the flourishing wealth of extroversion & luxury; meant purely for entertainment & reputation. The main character is a lover of her friend who, herself, has lost someone dear. The two find themselves near the end of a transitional period of mourning that will lead them down a new road. I should not like to say that a pursued life after death, especially in the case of our two heroines, is an adventure. I am more of the belief that the end of the life of a loved one reveals the terrible portrait of the claustrophobic tomb that it is.
To begin at the start, our narrator adopts the reflective tone of someone who has overcome the story at play. Readers soon lose their hold on logic as Jackson’s story delves further into the absurd. One will need to accept that the backward glance of the narrator is not as it seems; one will need to trust that the author has something in mind. Having been a fan of Jackson for many moons, I was pleased to discover that LeVar Burton had brought this story to life with the dull numbing ache of a broken heart & the sullen enthusiasm of a veteran reader.
After her husband’s passing Y—the close friend of our narrator—is set to spend a final night in her marital home before moving forward in her life. She sleeps under a painting that is in disrepair; old & rather flimsy, she fears it will crush her in her sleep. The next morning, she is gone. Her vanishing leads others to the professional opinion that she committed suicide but, our narrator knows better. She waits for her in the room with the painting until she sees Y appear, exasperated & troubled, waving her down from the tiny laneway in the art.
What ensues is a captivating exercise in longing. Both women are in the company of those who appear to be ghosts—Y’s grandfather & an aunt, both long since departed & deeply insane as a consequence of what might appear to be their captivity.
I found the descriptions given to the house inside the painting to be deeply perturbing. It was not so much that the house might be haunted or that the painting is filled with ghosts that troubled me but, rather, the reality of having a consciousness intact while trapped eternally without hope of a saviour.
Though this story has no clear ending, I am not of the belief that the purpose of telling stories is for them to be cleanly ended & ready for the consumption of all. Rather like the characters, many readers may be cloistered in various parts of the story without escape. The death of a loved one or the entrapment in a tomb of living nature; the disappearance of a friend; or the possible suicide of someone who was once cheerful; this story presents the total inability of humanity to be unscathed by its experiences.
There is a key intimacy that is hidden within these passages, one needs only the patience to arrive at the destination meant special for them. I admit that I thought rather tirelessly about the bodies of the ghosts being tied to a tree in the forest of the painting for all eternity. Were these figures evil or were they simply a product of a magical moment that saw them burdened by their victimhood?
Ultimately, the story that we tell ourselves, as the reader, may not align with the actual story we have read. Did the women escape? Did they sacrifice someone else in a bid to regain their freedom? Why was the painting left hanging alone on the wall? What made the painting magic? Just as we become nestled in the familiar spaces of words that speak seemingly, directly to us, so too does the story transform into a whispering tale of gore the likes of which another reader will interpret entirely differently.
Overall, a story might only be as powerful as its reader. Granting words permission to enrapture the distinctive sense of self; making the listener a foolish grotesque whence fear pours out; this is a story about the reader & the women who encouraged trickery with simple letters & godly patience.
If you would like to listen to this story, please visit this •LINK•
Within the old home of a friend, our narrator comes to stay while post-mortem proceedings take place. The house is something out of a dream, more closely resembling the flourishing wealth of extroversion & luxury; meant purely for entertainment & reputation. The main character is a lover of her friend who, herself, has lost someone dear. The two find themselves near the end of a transitional period of mourning that will lead them down a new road. I should not like to say that a pursued life after death, especially in the case of our two heroines, is an adventure. I am more of the belief that the end of the life of a loved one reveals the terrible portrait of the claustrophobic tomb that it is.
To begin at the start, our narrator adopts the reflective tone of someone who has overcome the story at play. Readers soon lose their hold on logic as Jackson’s story delves further into the absurd. One will need to accept that the backward glance of the narrator is not as it seems; one will need to trust that the author has something in mind. Having been a fan of Jackson for many moons, I was pleased to discover that LeVar Burton had brought this story to life with the dull numbing ache of a broken heart & the sullen enthusiasm of a veteran reader.
After her husband’s passing Y—the close friend of our narrator—is set to spend a final night in her marital home before moving forward in her life. She sleeps under a painting that is in disrepair; old & rather flimsy, she fears it will crush her in her sleep. The next morning, she is gone. Her vanishing leads others to the professional opinion that she committed suicide but, our narrator knows better. She waits for her in the room with the painting until she sees Y appear, exasperated & troubled, waving her down from the tiny laneway in the art.
What ensues is a captivating exercise in longing. Both women are in the company of those who appear to be ghosts—Y’s grandfather & an aunt, both long since departed & deeply insane as a consequence of what might appear to be their captivity.
I found the descriptions given to the house inside the painting to be deeply perturbing. It was not so much that the house might be haunted or that the painting is filled with ghosts that troubled me but, rather, the reality of having a consciousness intact while trapped eternally without hope of a saviour.
Though this story has no clear ending, I am not of the belief that the purpose of telling stories is for them to be cleanly ended & ready for the consumption of all. Rather like the characters, many readers may be cloistered in various parts of the story without escape. The death of a loved one or the entrapment in a tomb of living nature; the disappearance of a friend; or the possible suicide of someone who was once cheerful; this story presents the total inability of humanity to be unscathed by its experiences.
There is a key intimacy that is hidden within these passages, one needs only the patience to arrive at the destination meant special for them. I admit that I thought rather tirelessly about the bodies of the ghosts being tied to a tree in the forest of the painting for all eternity. Were these figures evil or were they simply a product of a magical moment that saw them burdened by their victimhood?
Ultimately, the story that we tell ourselves, as the reader, may not align with the actual story we have read. Did the women escape? Did they sacrifice someone else in a bid to regain their freedom? Why was the painting left hanging alone on the wall? What made the painting magic? Just as we become nestled in the familiar spaces of words that speak seemingly, directly to us, so too does the story transform into a whispering tale of gore the likes of which another reader will interpret entirely differently.
Overall, a story might only be as powerful as its reader. Granting words permission to enrapture the distinctive sense of self; making the listener a foolish grotesque whence fear pours out; this is a story about the reader & the women who encouraged trickery with simple letters & godly patience.
If you would like to listen to this story, please visit this •LINK•
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 14, 2022
Listened again and still amazing and insanely creepy.
October 5, 2022
Listened to on LeVar Burton Reads podcast. First listen October 2020 & 2nd listen (immersive remix) October 2022. Twisty and creepy.
April 6, 2024
Like an episode of Twilight Zone, or maybe Outer Limits.
April 5, 2025
When her recently widowed friend mysteriously disappears, the unnamed narrator suspects a haunted painting in her bedroom to be the cause.
The narration begins simply in an almost childish tone with an unnamed narrator describing how she and her close friend Y. used to tell a story to one another. It sounds as if they were children telling a favorite ghost story back and forth night after night, but it is revealed that they are adult women sharing stories at night before bed. The story itself is never fully described.
The narrator has come to live with Y. whose wealthy husband had recently died. After her husband's death, Y. has moved into a bedroom in the old wing of Y.'s husband's old family mansion, and the narrator has taken a room across the hallway. There is a picture of the house painted prior to the renovations made by her grandfather-in-law hanging in Y.'s bedroom. Y. is troubled by the painting, but because this is a horror story, she doesn't choose another bedroom, or ask the servants to move the picture to another part of the house, or take it down and stick it in a closet.
One morning Y. does not come down to breakfast. The narrator and the staff think she is simply sleeping late, but when she does not appear by lunch time, they begin to search for her. Her bed has been slept in, but she is nowhere to be found. At first, foul play is suspected, but after many days the police and the family lawyer John decide she probably died by suicide, and her body has yet to be found.
The narrator does not believe this explanation. She suddenly recalls how eerie the painting of the house looked in the moonlight on the night Y. disappeared and Y.'s apprehensions about it, so she decides to sleep in Y.'s old bedroom that night. When she is awakened in the middle of the night, she sees an elderly woman menacing her from behind the glass of the picture. She also sees Y. running down the path behind the old woman gesturing to her, and she smashes the glass to let Y. out.
Unfortunately, the narrator is pulled into the painting, and the glass restores itself to seal her inside. Both she and Y. are trapped inside the picture along with Y.'s grandfather-in-law and an elderly aunt whom has been driven insane after being lured in the picture decades earlier. Every night Y.'s grandfather-in-law holds a ball and dances with the two women while the elderly woman looks on.
The two women plot their escape. They must elude Y.'s grandfather-in-law and his female accomplice and go to the very edge of the painting where they can see into the bedroom as if through a window. Then they must wait for someone to enter the room, see them by moonlight, break the glass, and set them free. Because the house has been "closed up" and the bedroom stripped, they are afraid that they may be trapped in the painting forever. Times passes.
The ending is ambiguous. Who knows? Not me.
The narration begins simply in an almost childish tone with an unnamed narrator describing how she and her close friend Y. used to tell a story to one another. It sounds as if they were children telling a favorite ghost story back and forth night after night, but it is revealed that they are adult women sharing stories at night before bed. The story itself is never fully described.
The narrator has come to live with Y. whose wealthy husband had recently died. After her husband's death, Y. has moved into a bedroom in the old wing of Y.'s husband's old family mansion, and the narrator has taken a room across the hallway. There is a picture of the house painted prior to the renovations made by her grandfather-in-law hanging in Y.'s bedroom. Y. is troubled by the painting, but because this is a horror story, she doesn't choose another bedroom, or ask the servants to move the picture to another part of the house, or take it down and stick it in a closet.
One morning Y. does not come down to breakfast. The narrator and the staff think she is simply sleeping late, but when she does not appear by lunch time, they begin to search for her. Her bed has been slept in, but she is nowhere to be found. At first, foul play is suspected, but after many days the police and the family lawyer John decide she probably died by suicide, and her body has yet to be found.
The narrator does not believe this explanation. She suddenly recalls how eerie the painting of the house looked in the moonlight on the night Y. disappeared and Y.'s apprehensions about it, so she decides to sleep in Y.'s old bedroom that night. When she is awakened in the middle of the night, she sees an elderly woman menacing her from behind the glass of the picture. She also sees Y. running down the path behind the old woman gesturing to her, and she smashes the glass to let Y. out.
Unfortunately, the narrator is pulled into the painting, and the glass restores itself to seal her inside. Both she and Y. are trapped inside the picture along with Y.'s grandfather-in-law and an elderly aunt whom has been driven insane after being lured in the picture decades earlier. Every night Y.'s grandfather-in-law holds a ball and dances with the two women while the elderly woman looks on.
The two women plot their escape. They must elude Y.'s grandfather-in-law and his female accomplice and go to the very edge of the painting where they can see into the bedroom as if through a window. Then they must wait for someone to enter the room, see them by moonlight, break the glass, and set them free. Because the house has been "closed up" and the bedroom stripped, they are afraid that they may be trapped in the painting forever. Times passes.
The ending is ambiguous. Who knows? Not me.
October 20, 2022
Listened to this on LeVar Burton reads. The background music and effects really complimented the story. This short story is about a picture of an old house that captivates its viewers. Creepy ending!
October 4, 2022
Read to me by Levar Burton.
July 26, 2023
I think I missed something?
November 26, 2023
.........Creepy and a little disturbing.......
...so, this ladies friend goes missing. She cannot be found anywhere and is presumed dead....
Her friend stays the night in the missing ladies big old house. She notices a picture on the wall of the house itself - and in there is her friend... Running about trying to escape the picture - messed up I know..... Trying to free her friend, she smashes the glass of the frame only for something quite unexpected to happen....
Kind of creepy, kind of fun
...so, this ladies friend goes missing. She cannot be found anywhere and is presumed dead....
Her friend stays the night in the missing ladies big old house. She notices a picture on the wall of the house itself - and in there is her friend... Running about trying to escape the picture - messed up I know..... Trying to free her friend, she smashes the glass of the frame only for something quite unexpected to happen....
Kind of creepy, kind of fun
January 10, 2024
Listened to this story on LeVar Burton's "LeVar Burton Reads" podcast, 10/04/2022 episode "Immersive Remix: 'The Story We Used to Tell' by Shirley Jackson".
I love Shirley Jackson and listening to Burton narrate this was so eerie and chilling. I don't usually do so well with audio reading but I could not lose focus on this story even if I wanted to. Jackson's way of creating narrative and building tension and tone is masterful. The ending made my stomach drop in horror in a way that only Jackson's writing can.
I love Shirley Jackson and listening to Burton narrate this was so eerie and chilling. I don't usually do so well with audio reading but I could not lose focus on this story even if I wanted to. Jackson's way of creating narrative and building tension and tone is masterful. The ending made my stomach drop in horror in a way that only Jackson's writing can.
November 18, 2023
There is something so nostalgic about Shirley Jackson. Add LeVar Burton narrating it and it's the perfect cozy read. Jackson is an icon herself and her work always amazes. I find her so inspiring. This story is so far a head of it's time. It's amazing that her work still leaves a chill down your spine.
May 2, 2026
A woman goes to stay with her friend after the death of her friend's husband. Her friend disappears from the old estate, with the police suspecting that she went off and took her life. The protagonist doesn't believe it, though. Her insistence turns out to be the truth, but that doesn't mean there's a happy ending.
September 25, 2022
I agree the author is a master at building suspense, as the story kept building and building. But I don’t know if I spaced out while listening to this book or what, but the ending went right over my head as far as the point of the story went. Meh…
February 10, 2022
The premise is simple but like LeVar said, she has a knack for building a feeling of dread in the mundane.
The title and loss of time speaks to gradual mental decay.
The title and loss of time speaks to gradual mental decay.
October 4, 2022
Spooky stories just do it for me.
February 10, 2023
10/10 smash i zita je bila very comfy pillow
June 14, 2023
Creepy 😱
July 25, 2023
Unsure of the ending but it’s creepy.
October 15, 2023
I read the story, not the audio book, but this was my only option provided.
December 24, 2023
Stunning read - and LeVar Burton reads exquisitely!
February 1, 2024
This short story was unsettling but I wouldn’t say it was creepy or horrifying.
The narration was great as always.
The narration was great as always.
May 22, 2024
This would make an excellent movie 🍿
June 19, 2024
Didn’t really understand the end but the plot was very well-thought out and creepy
July 29, 2025
This is a spooky one. I love how it plays with time, so you're not sure exactly where it began and ended.
January 28, 2026
Okay I got a chill from this one. I also hated the old man,. Damn.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 4, 2024
A slightly spooky horror story about getting stuck in a parallel universe. Horror isn’t usually my go to genre but I enjoyed this atmospheric horror story. I read this via the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. LeVars narration of this story was excellent as always. I might have to listen to this story again when it gets closer to Halloween.
December 17, 2023
A typical Shirley Jackson story in how well the uneasiness builds, but odd in how the supernatural element actually happens and isn't hinted at or far in the background.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews