If you’re visited the Shirley Jackson page, you might have seen me saying something along the lines of “if you’ve only read Shirley Jackson’s horror, you’re not getting the full Shirley Jackson experience”. Now I’ve read lots of Shirley Jackson but it wasn’t until I was poking around on the Central Connecticut library system’s online catalog I found a Shirley Jackson book I’ve never encountered called Special Delivery: A Useful Book for Brand-New Mothers. I did a double take right down to removing and cleaning my glasses, sticking them back on and staring at my computer monitor in slack jawed wonder. Now since I was on my lunch break, at my desk in a high traffic area of my building, imagine the lovely picture I made. But no, my brain and eyes did not fool me and inter-library loan request Special Delivery: A Useful Book for Brand-New Mothers  I did.

Along with being a master of the horror genre, Shirley Jackson was a loving mother and could craft little plays of perfect (and imperfect) motherhood. Special Delivery: A Useful Book for Brand-New Mothers is one of those hidden treasures. Even looking at Special Delivery: A Useful Book for Brand-New Mothers with 2013 (childless yes, but I have encountered people in all states of motherhood) eyes, it holds up and is a must read. Shirley Jackson provides the bulk of the essays, everything from people visiting Baby, her experiences the four times she had her children, things to bring the nurses, and the like. There are also contributions from now classic and sometimes sadly forgotten comic writers such as Mark Twain, Cornelia Otis Skinner (does anyone but me know who she is?), Robert Benchley (yes THAT Robert Benchley from the infamous Round Table and grandfather of Peter (Jaws) Benchley) and Ogden Nash. It’s also a time capsule on days when long hospital stays and baby nurses and diaper service were the norm vs our kick you out 24 hours post spawn popping, 6 weeks of paid maternity leave (if you’re lucky) and spend your entire paycheck on daycare.

And the truly amazing thing? Around the time Special Delivery: A Useful Book for Brand-New Mothers was published (1960), Shirley Jackson was ending her days of  semi charmed motherhood, her children were no longer the cute kiddies from Life Among the Savages, she was a pariah in town over defending her youngest daughter from an abusive teacher and a few years her first grandchild would be born. Yet her pieces make you (okay…me) almost want a little pink, sleeping bundle of baby wrapped in a soft blanket and smelling of soap and baby powder of your very own to coo over. (Blacklight: “NO! Besides aren’t you too old for babies? Me: “I’m 40!” Blacklight: “But you just said you were old enough to be grandmother last night!”)

With publishers discovering just how popular the retro market is, wouldn’t it be awesome if Little, Brown and Company (and their parent group Hachette Book Group USA) reprinted Special Delivery: A Useful Book for Brand-New Mothers? I would so buy a copy and the only thing I’m a mother to is a betta fish and stuffed dragons. <waves to Little, Brown and Company and Hachette Book Group USA> Maybe there’s still time for a Mothers Day 2014 re-release?