Natalie Waite, daughter of a mediocre writer and a neurotic housewife, is increasingly unsure of her place in the world. In the midst of adolescence she senses a creeping darkness in her life, which will spread among nightmarish parties, poisonous college cliques and the manipulations of the intellectual men who surround her, as her identity gradually crumbles. Inspired by the unsolved disappearance of a female college student near Shirley Jackson's home, Hangsaman is a story of lurking disquiet and haunting disorientation. Shirley Jackson was born in an affluent suburb in California in 1916. At university in Syracuse, she met her husband, the future literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, with whom she had four children. In 1948 she published her iconic short story 'The Lottery' in The New Yorker, sparking furious letters from readers to the magazine. Her novels - most of which involve elements of horror and the occult - include The Road through the Wall, Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial, We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep in 1965 at the age of 48. "The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable...It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse".(A. M. Homes). "Shirley Jackson is unparalleled as a leader in the field of beautifully written, quiet, cumulative shudders". (Dorothy Parker). Other books by Shirley Jackson available in Penguin Modern Classics include The Road through the Wall, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Haunting of Hill House and The Lottery and Other Stories.