5 Depressing Pieces of Literature About Dysfunctional Families to Get You Through the Holidays
“The Lottery” Shirley Jackson
Jackson’s dark, Gothic stories are the perfect accompaniment to your holiday festivities, and “The Lottery,” in particular, gets the job done. Perhaps because this story is, at heart, a warning about the perils of the hive-mind mentality, and the danger to the individual that comes with conforming to societal norms that just don’t make sense, but I think it works really well at Christmas-time, when we often wind up participating in activities that every fiber of our being warns us against, things like drinking eggnog. Because, you guys? Eggnog is gross. Just drink straight bourbon. You’ll feel better.