"Come On, Everyone"

THE LOTTERY (306 pp.)--Shirley Jackson--Farrar, Straus ($2.75).

When the title story in this collection of tales first appeared in The New Yorker, it brought forth a flood of mail. Few readers were sure they knew what the story meant, but it had dug its way into their minds.

On a fine June morning, wrote Shirley Jackson, the whole village began to gather. The children, their pockets stuffed with stones, came first, and three of the boys built a pile of stones in a corner of the square. Then came the men, talking of taxes, crops, the weather. The women, wearing house dresses and sweaters, came last.

Unexpected Slip. The ceremony began. Mr. Summers, the leading businessman, was sworn in; the old black box containing the lottery slips was placed on a stool; the list of heads of families was read out. So familiar was the ritual that folks hardly listened at all. In the old days there had been a recital by the lottery official, but this time each family head just came up to draw his slip.

In the crowd, people chatted quietly. Old Man Warner snorted when he heard that folks in the north village were thinking of giving up the lottery. "Pack of crazy fools . . . nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves . . ."

When Zanini, the last family head, drew his slip, there was a long breathless pause. "Who's got it?" Someone replied, "It's Hutchinson. It's Bill."

Mrs. Hutchinson protested that it was all unfair, but everyone knew that the lottery had been run in perfect order, and the postmaster quietly went about preparing slips for another drawing in the Hutchinson family. The kids drew first, then the parents. Mrs. Hutchinson drew the slip with the black mark on it.

"All right, folks," said Mr. Summers. "Let's finish quickly." By now Tessie Hutchinson was in the middle of a cleared space; she held her hands out desperately, but the villagers moved in. Old Man Warner kept saying, "Come on, come on, everyone." Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, "It isn't fair," but soon the crowd was upon her. A stone hit her on the head. Other stones came hurtling through the air.

Expected Swipe. Exactly what this story means each reader may decide for himself; like much genuinely first-rate fiction, it allows for a variety of interpretations because it reverberates with many possible meanings. But no reader is likely to doubt that it will soon find a place as a minor classic in the American short story, a ruthless fable about the human soul that might have come out of Hawthorne.

Unfortunately, nothing else in The Lottery is as good. The other 24 pieces are brightly lacquered sketches trimmed to New Yorker specifications--deadpan, passionless portraits of cruel children, quietly miserable spinsters, clumsy middle-class drifters, city people lonely in the country. Shirley Jackson accumulates little piles of irrelevant detail, topples them over with the expected sardonic swipe. If she could break out of this mold, she might become one of the U.S.'s best short-story writers.

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