Couples …

… Novels About Famous Writers' Wives & Susan Scarf Merrell's Shirley | New Republic.

Though it bears the name of a now-famous literary giant, Susan Scarf Merrell's new novel, Shirley, is part of this spate of novels that examine the constellation surrounding famous men. Based on the life of Shirley Jackson—author of the short story “The Lottery” and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and a number of masterpieces in an eerie, minor key—the novel chronicles Jackson’s life with her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman. Hyman was a famous literary critic in his day—inspiring acolytes among his peers and students at Bennington College, where he taught for much of his adult life. It was Hyman, rather than Jackson, who was considered the intellectual of the couple during their lifetimes. It was Jackson, however, who paid the bills, with her stories and novels, while also taking care of her children. 

When I was in college, which was more than half a century ago, and Shirley Jackson was still alive, it seems to me she was better known, at least to the general public, than her husband.