Joyce Carol Oates
42) A fair maiden
"Later, I would think of it as crossing over. From a known territory into an unknown. From a place where people know you to a place where people only think they know you."
Sometimes Franky Pierson has a hard time dealing with life. Like when her parents separate and her mother vanishes, Franky wants to believe that her mom has simply pulled a disappearing act. Yet deep within herself, a secret part of her she calls Freaky Green Eyes knows
...A powerful reckoning over the people we might have been if we'd chosen a different path, from a master of the short story
In this stirring, reflective collection of short stories, Joyce Carol Oates ponders alternate destinies: the other lives we might have led if we'd made different choices. An accomplished writer returns to her childhood home of Yewville, but the homecoming stirs troubled thoughts about the person she might
...45) Prison Noir
This anthology, with stories set in different prisons across the US, presents an absolutely new perspective on prison literature. From a killer’s confession to a desire for redemption, from stories of...
With the novella and six stories collected here, Joyce Carol Oates reaffirms her singular reputation for portraying the dark complexities of the human psyche. The title novella tells the story of Marissa, an eleven-year-old girl with hair the color of corn silk....
47) Nemesis
Shy piano teacher Maggie Blackburn has selflessly devoted her life and career to her students at the Forest Park Conservatory of Music in an affluent Connecticut suburb. Then a rape shakes the school’s refined grounds. The violated young student,...
48) Missing Mom
Nikki Eaton, single, thirty-one, sexually liberated, and economically self-supporting, has never particularly thought of herself as a daughter. Yet, following the unexpected loss of her mother, she undergoes a remarkable transformation during a tumultuous year that brings stunning horror, sorrow, illumination, wisdom, and even—from an unexpected source—a nurturing love.
New York Times bestselling author of The Falls, Blonde, and We Were the Mulvaneys, Joyce Carol Oates returns with a dark, wry, satirical tale—inspired by an unsolved American true-crime mystery.
"Dysfunctional families are all alike. Ditto 'survivors.'"
So begins the unexpurgated first-person narrative of nineteen-year-old Skyler Rampike, the only surviving child of an "infamous" American family. A decade ago the Rampikes were
...50) Mystery, Inc
Identified only by the hastily—and clumsily—chosen alias Charles Brockden, the narrator of this story finds a bookstore that instantly piques his desire. He must call it his own; he must add it to his already-extensive collection of bookstores. But surely the owner...
51) The Rescuer
Lydia is a graduate student in cultural anthropology—a fellow at a prestigious university, with a bright future ahead of her. Harvey, her brother, is a seminary student driven by his god-besotted studies. The two have never shared much of anything except a mutual desire to escape the stifling confines of the home they grew up in and the parents they left behind. But when Lydia's estranged parents call her to say Harvey has mysteriously dropped
...Joyce Carol Oates assembles an outstanding cast of authors—including Margaret Atwood, Tananarive Due, and Megan Abbott—to explore, subvert, and reinvent one of the most vital subgenres of horror
"In this haunting new collection, edited by Oates, fifteen women writers explore the manifold horrors of living (and dying) in a patriarchal society . . . this collection may initially appeal to readers
...The first novel from New York Times-bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates, a thrilling, dark tale of family, revenge, and two souls intertwined by love and violence—now back in print for fans of America's most prolific storyteller.
Written when Joyce Carol Oates was in her early twenties, and first published in 1964, With Shuddering Fall is her powerful debut novel, the first of five new Oates reprints from Ecco.
Following
...Joyce Carol Oates, a queen-pin of the noir genre, has brought her keen and discerning eye to the curation of an outstanding anthology of brand-new top-shelf short stories (and poems by Margaret Atwood!). While bad men are not always the victims in these tales, they get their due often enough to satisfy readers who are sick and...
56) Mudwoman
In Salthill-on-Hudson, a half-hour train ride from Manhattan, everyone is rich, beautiful, and — though they look much younger — middle-aged. But when Adam Berendt, a charismatic, mysterious sculptor, dies suddenly in a brash act of heroism, shock waves rock the town. But who was Adam Berendt? Was he in fact a hero, or someone more flawed and human?
A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. A newlywed, he has left behind his wife, Ariah Erskine, in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. "The Widow Bride of The Falls", as Ariah comes to be known, begins a relentless, seven day vigil in the mist, waiting for his body to be found. At her side throughout, confirmed bachelor and pillar of the community Dirk Burnaby is unexpectedly transfixed by the otherworldly
...Joyce Carol Oates explores with bloodcurdling insight the ties that bind—or worse.
In "The Man Who Fought Roland LaStarza" a woman's world is upended when she learns the brutal truth about a family friend's death—and what her father is capable of. Meanwhile, a businessman desperate to find his missing two-year-old grandson in "Suicide Watch" must determine whether the horrifying tale his junkie son tells him about the boy's whereabouts
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