The Bird's Nest Author:Shirley Jackson THE BIRD'S NEST is a novel based on an actual and famous case of multipler personalities. But what Shirley Jackson makes of it is far from a case history. This fascinating experiment in brilliant fiction skillfully traces the tortuous convolutions of a beautiful young woman who has four distinctly separate personalities -- Elizabeth, a plain, mo... more »usy, vacuous girl; Beth, sweet and charming but weak; Bess, cheap arrogant and avaricious; and Besty, a grinning, malicious and callous hellcat. From this intriguing plot, Jackson has woven one of the finest psychiatric novels ever written. Her great gift is not to create a world of fantasy or terror but rather to discover the existence of the grotesque in the ordinary world.« less