"I don't know how anyone approved of that story"

“I don’t know how anyone approved of that story”

“Description of a village lottery. The entire town of about 300 people assembles in the village square where the time-honored ritual is observed. First all the heads of families draw slips of paper out of a box. Bill Hutchinson gets a certain slip after which his entire family draws slips. His wife, Tessie gets one with a black mark on it. The villagers surround her and start throwing stones at her, while she screams, ‘It isn’t fair.’”
 — Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” was published in the New Yorker on this day in 1948. Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin goes over some of the responses.