Life Among the Savages is a collection of short stories edited into novel form, written by Shirley Jackson. Originally these stories were published individually in women's magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day, Mademoiselle, and others. Published in 1952, Life Among the Savages is a moderately fictionalised memoir of the author's life with her own four children, an early work in what Laura Shapiro calls "the literature of domestic chaos". Plot summary Jackson—speaking as the nameless mother who serves as narrator—relates a period of roughly six years in the life of her family, focusing particularly on her attempts to keep peace and domestic efficiency despite her increasing number of children. As the book's primary incidents begin, the family has "two children and about five thousand books" when they are abruptly given notice to evict from their city apartment. After a frantic last-minute search, they come upon the perfect home in the country and prepare to adjust to their new quiet-but-quirky life as newcomers to a small, insular New England village. The book relays a series of small comical adventures largely contrasting the children's natural acceptance of the change with their parents' struggles to keep up with them, such as eldest child Laurie's introduction to kindergarten (and his daily reporting of troublemaker classmate Charles' antics); middle child Jannie's insistence that her seven imaginary daughters (who all have the same name) be taken into account on every family outing; the comedy of the family's third child, Sally, whose lengthy delay in being born throws the whole family into chaos; and the night the entire family came down with grippe and the ensuing mix-ups. The book closes with the birth of a fourth and final child, Barry, who is again a fictional stand-in for Jackson's youngest child. The book was followed by a sequel, Raising Demons. Characters The Narrator: A stay-at-home mother who is never identified by name, she maintains the role of detached, amused observer. Despite several attempts to hire domestic help, she is invariably the only force that can make her family's gears mesh smoothly. The narrator is assumed to be Shirley Jackson herself. The Children's Father: Referred to only as "my husband", the children's father is assumed to be a representation of Jackson's own husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman (once his initials are given as S.E.H.). Although the children's father can be motivated to involve himself in such manly pursuits as