The Bird’s Nest

         It may now be quaint and distinctly dated, but Shirley Jackson’s The Bird’s Nest is still a very interesting, well-written and occasionally eerie novel.  Published in 1954, it is about multiple personality disorder (though the term is never used; nor is dissociative identity disorder or schizophrenia).  Many plot elements in Jackson’s The Bird’s Nest, according to Wikipedia, “later found their way into the films The Three Faces of Eve and Sybill.”  The books these movies were based on came out in 1957 and 1973 respectively, so there is good reason to credit Jackson with originating what may now be considered fictional clichés.  The Three Faces of Eve and Sybill certainly achieved a stronger pop culture resonance than The Bird’s Nest did, at least looking at it from this side of the millennium; the Jackson novel was the basis for the 1957 film Lizzie, but I’ve never even heard of that.

          The book must have been much more exciting, the twists more thrilling, when it came out in 1954.  The more recent repetition of multiple personality riffs in pop culture has subdued much of the shock.  But even with the datedness I was struck by The Bird’s Nest.  Shirley Jackson’s voice and the details she imparts are so original.  I loved the contrasting perspectives she used to tell the story (including the different identities of Elizabeth R).  I adored the fascinating and unexpected character of Aunt Morgen.  And the use of nursery rhymes – some I’d heard, some I hadn’t – in the text provided much of the creepiness.  Especially the verse central to the book’s title and plot: Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy and Bess, they all went together to find a bird’s nest . . .