Unexpected

I am reading Ruth Franklin's biography of Shirley Jackson, A Rather Haunted Life, which is good if rather depressing about Jackson's marriage and early death, and I was startled and pleased to have Jay Williams show up, who I know as the author of Time of the Kraken and the Danny Dunn series. I am not entirely sure how I'd pictured him but I was not expecting a charming "actor, musician and Communist" who is fascinated by magic (he worked on a never-published book on myth and ritual with Jackson's husband, Stanley Hyman), who loans Jackson & Hyman money when they're running low, gives a not-yet-married Jackson charms to bring on her period when she has pregnancy scares, and tells Hyman to stop sleeping around, or at least consider the possible effect on Jackson.