Books by Joyce Carol Oates

Book SynopsisIn this taut and fascinating novel, the bestselling, New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-winning author of The Sacrifice, The Accursed, and Lovely, Dark, Deep examines the mysteries of memory, personality, and identity and pierces the enigmatic force that drives human lives—love.In 1965, neuroscientist Margot Sharpe meets the attractive, charismatic Elihu Hoopes—the “man without a shadow”—whose devastated memory, unable to store new experiences or to retrieve the old, will make him the most famous and most studied amnesiac in history. Over the course of the next thirty years, Margot herself becomes famous for her experiments with E. H.—and inadvertently falls in love with him, despite the ethical ambiguity of their affair, and though he remains forever elusive and mysterious to her, haunted by mysteries of the past.The Man Without a Shadow tracks the intimate, illicit relationship be

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Book SynopsisFrom acclaimed author (and cat lover!) Joyce Carol Oates comes a charming, heartwarming picture book.As the only cat in her house, Cherie is accustomed to being showered with treats and affection.Trade Review“In rich tones, Mottram’s digitally enhanced drawings play up the kitten’s adorable saucer-green eyes.” — Publishers Weekly

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Book Synopsis“Oates’ American saga captivates because it exists within an actual drama playing out across the country...Martyrs is a graceful and excruciating story of two families who do not live very far apart, but exist in different realities. ” --USA Today, 4-star review“Successful because [Oates] refuses to satirize or dehumanize anyone, even murderous foes of abortion...With its wrath and violence, A Book of American Martyrs offers this teaspoon of warmth in these troubled times: that it is possible to be wrong without surrendering your humanity.”  --Los Angeles Times“The most relevant book of Oates’s half-century-long career, a powerful reminder that fiction can be as timely as this morning’s tweets but infinitely more illuminating.” --Washington PostA powerfully resonant and provocative novel from American master and New Yor

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Book Synopsis“Timely, monumental. . . . Yet another piercing examination of American culture by the writer this reviewer considers our country''s greatest living novelist. . . . It is brilliant. How blessed we are to have her as a novelist in our chaotic, confusing times. Night is spot on for these times of racial divide, as well as in portraying the fractious family dynamic that many of us know all too well. . . . Night deserves the top spot on your quarantine nightstand. Here''s a fervent salute to Oates, our finest American novelist, for this one.” -- Star TribuneThe bonds of family are tested in the wake of a profound tragedy, providing a look at the darker side of our society by one of our most enduringly popular and important writersNight Sleep Death The Stars is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: when a powerful parent dies, each of

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Book SynopsisArresting and poignant, My Life as a Rat traces a life of banishment from a family-banishment from parents, siblings, and the Church-that forces Violet to discover her own identity, to break the powerful spell of family, and to emerge from her long exile as a "rat" into a transformed life.

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Book SynopsisA powerful reckoning over the people we might have been if we’d chosen a different path, from a master of the short storyIn 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.Trade Review"Trenchant and moody." — New York Times Book Review "...A series of well-written stories about the what-if wonders of a life that’s been, well, lived...Oates is a master of tension and form, her writing dashing across the page to an often devastating conclusion. Her singular style works well here, fueling the stories even as you oftentimes dread them." — USA Today "Oates delivers a dark, moody collection permeated by themes of obsession, remorse, and violence. . . . Oates's mastery of the form remains fierce and formidable in this unsettling collection of lamentations and missed opportunities." — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Crackling with pent-up emotion and deadly devices, a suite of neatly intertwining stories by a masterful storyteller. . . . Few short story writers do as much in so few words as the economical, enigmatic Oates.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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Book SynopsisA powerful reckoning over the people we might have been if we’d chosen a different path, from a master of the short storyIn 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.Trade Review"Trenchant and moody." — New York Times Book Review "...A series of well-written stories about the what-if wonders of a life that’s been, well, lived...Oates is a master of tension and form, her writing dashing across the page to an often devastating conclusion. Her singular style works well here, fueling the stories even as you oftentimes dread them." — USA Today "Oates delivers a dark, moody collection permeated by themes of obsession, remorse, and violence. . . . Oates's mastery of the form remains fierce and formidable in this unsettling collection of lamentations and missed opportunities." — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Crackling with pent-up emotion and deadly devices, a suite of neatly intertwining stories by a masterful storyteller. . . . Few short story writers do as much in so few words as the economical, enigmatic Oates.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Joyce Carol Oates is a ventriloquist of mind. In these startling new poems, she enters human suffering, her own and that of others, with a disarming imaginative directness. Her empathy for others lights these scary poems from the inside out. The mental and emotional suffering that she uncovers in people’s stories comes to feel like our own, a crucial reminder that we are all here together in what seem like the last days. Frontal in their imagining yet deeply compassionate, these are poems we need right now." — Chase Twichell, author of Things as It Is "Here is Joyce Carol Oates in her immense capacity to see human frailty. In poems that are both tensely concise and loosely expansive, she is an accessible experimenter. Humiliation and failure cannot be escaped. But sweetness and mercy emerge, too. American Melancoly is a fervid, painful, virtuosic book." — Henri Cole "Oates’s high profile as a novelist should not discourage avid poetry readers from seeking out this volume, which aptly demonstrates the writer’s gifts in the genre and includes several poems of the highest quality." — Library Journal (starred review)

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Joyce Carol Oates is a ventriloquist of mind. In these startling new poems, she enters human suffering, her own and that of others, with a disarming imaginative directness. Her empathy for others lights these scary poems from the inside out. The mental and emotional suffering that she uncovers in people’s stories comes to feel like our own, a crucial reminder that we are all here together in what seem like the last days. Frontal in their imagining yet deeply compassionate, these are poems we need right now." — Chase Twichell, author of Things as It Is "Here is Joyce Carol Oates in her immense capacity to see human frailty. In poems that are both tensely concise and loosely expansive, she is an accessible experimenter. Humiliation and failure cannot be escaped. But sweetness and mercy emerge, too. American Melancoly is a fervid, painful, virtuosic book." — Henri Cole "Oates’s high profile as a novelist should not discourage avid poetry readers from seeking out this volume, which aptly demonstrates the writer’s gifts in the genre and includes several poems of the highest quality." — Library Journal (starred review)

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Book SynopsisA NOVEL OF LOVE AND LOSS FROM BESTSELLING AND PRIZEWINNING AUTHOR JOYCE CAROL OATESAmid a starkly beautiful but uncanny landscape in New Mexico, a married couple from Cambridge, MA takes residency at a distinguished academic institute. When the husband is stricken with a mysterious illness, misdiagnosed at first, their lives are uprooted and husband and wife each embarks upon a nightmare journey.  At thirty-seven, Michaela faces the terrifying prospect of widowhood - and the loss of Gerard, whose identity has greatly shaped her own.  In vividly depicted scenes of escalating suspense, Michaela cares desperately for Gerard in his final days as she comes to realize that her love for her husband, however fierce and selfless, is not enough to save him and that his death is beyond her comprehension.  A love that refuses to be surrendered at death—is this the blessing of a unique married love, or a curse that must be exorcized? P

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Book SynopsisA NOVEL OF LOVE AND LOSS FROM BESTSELLING AND PRIZEWINNING AUTHOR JOYCE CAROL OATESAmid a starkly beautiful but uncanny landscape in New Mexico, a married couple from Cambridge, MA takes residency at a distinguished academic institute. When the husband is stricken with a mysterious illness, misdiagnosed at first, their lives are uprooted and husband and wife each embarks upon a nightmare journey.  At thirty-seven, Michaela faces the terrifying prospect of widowhood - and the loss of Gerard, whose identity has greatly shaped her own.  In vividly depicted scenes of escalating suspense, Michaela cares desperately for Gerard in his final days as she comes to realize that her love for her husband, however fierce and selfless, is not enough to save him and that his death is beyond her comprehension.  A love that refuses to be surrendered at death—is this the blessing of a unique married love, or a curse that must be exorcized? P

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Book SynopsisThe Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel from the author of the New York Times bestselling novel We Were the Mulvaneys“Its power of evocation is remarkable.” —The New Yorker  In the midst of a long summer on Grayling Island, Maine, twenty-six-year-old Kelly Kelleher longs for something interesting to happen to her—something that will make her finally feel some of what she imagines other people must feel when they watch the fireworks explode off the beach. So when Kelly meets The Senator at an exclusive party and he asks her to go back to a hotel room on the main island with him, she says yes. Even though the senator is old enough to be her father, even though he has perhaps been drinking too heavily to get behind the wheel, the danger of saying yes is an inevitable and even exciting part of the adventure Kelly is finally going to have. However, as The Senator’s car whips around the island&rsqTrade ReviewPraise for Black Water“A powerfully imagined novel...it continues to haunt us.”—The New York Times Book Review “Intense...signals another frontier opened with the sword of a master storyteller.”—Chicago Tribune “Its power of evocation is remarkable.”—The New Yorker

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Book SynopsisThis remarkable anthology of gothic fiction, spanning two centuries of American writing, gives us an intriguing and entertaining look at how the gothic imagination makes for great literature in the works of forty-six exceptional writers.Joyce Carol Oates has a special perspective on the “gothic” in American short fiction, at least partially because her own horror yarns rank on the spine-tingling chart with the masters. She is able to see the unbroken link of the macabre that ties Edgar Allan Poe to Anne Rice and to recognize the dark psychological bonds between Henry James and Stephen King. In showing us the gothic vision—a world askew where mankind’s forbidden impulses are set free from the repressions of the psyche, and nature turns malevolent and lawless—Joyce Carol Oates includes Henry James’s “The Romance of Certain Old Clothes,” Herman Melville’s horrific tale of factory women, “The Tartarus of MaiTrade Review“In compiling 40 short stories that represent the 200-year history of ‘gothic’ fiction in America, from Washington Irving's classic The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to Stephen King's The Reach, Oates employs an eclectic and elastic definition of the genre… Oates's taste in the quality of stories is always impeccable. The pieces also all share a certain darkness. Entries range from Edgar Allen Poe's sadistic The Black Cat to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's classic psychological horror story The Yellow Wallpaper. Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice and Katherine Dunn are also represented. Among the more idiosyncratic selections are Herman Melville's The Tartarus of Maids; Don DeLillo's beautiful tale of astronauts floating above the earth in Human Moments in World War III; and Paul Bowles's strange and powerful Allal, about a Moroccan orphan boy who so identifies with a snake that they mysteriously change bodies-and meet gory fates.”—Publishers WeeklyTable of ContentsIntroductionCharles Brockden Brown (1771-1810), from Wieland, or the TransformationWashington Irving (1783-1859), The Legend of Sleepy HollowNathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), The Man of Adamant, Young Goodman BrownHerman Melville (1819-1891), The Tartarus of MaidsEdgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), The Black CatCharlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), The Yellow WallpaperHenry James (1843-1916), The Romance of Certain Old ClothesAmbrose Bierce (1842-1914?), The Damned ThingEdith Wharton (1862-1937), AfterwardGertrude Atherton (1857-1948), The Striding PlaceSherwood Anderson (1876-1941), Death in the WoodsH.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), The OutsiderWilliam Faulkner (1893-1962), A Rose for EmilyAugust Derleth (1909-1971), The Lonesome PlaceE.B. White (1899-1985), The DoorShirley Jackson (1919-1965), The Lovely HousePaul Bowles (1910- ), AllalIsaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991), The ReencounterWilliam Goyen (1915-1983), In the Icebound HothouseJohn Cheever (1912-1982), The Enormous RadioRay Bradbury (1920- ), The VeldtW.S. Merwin (1927- ), The Dachau Shoe, the Approved, Spiders I Have Known, Postcards from the Maginot LineSylvia Plath (1932-1963), Johnny Panic and the Bible of DreamsRobert Coover (1932- ), In Bed One NightUrsula K. LeGuin (1929- ), Schrödinger's CatE.L. Doctorow (1931- ), The WaterworksHarlan Ellison (1934- ), Shattered Like a Glass GoblinDon DeLillo (1936- ), Human Moments in World War IIIJohn L'Heureux (1938- ), The Anatomy of DesireRaymond Carver (1938-1988), Little ThingsJoyce Carol Oates (1938- ), The TempleAnne Rice (1941- ), FrenierePeter Straub (1943- ), A Short Guide to the CitySteven Millhauser (1943- ), In the Penny ArcadeStephen King (1947- ), The ReachCharles Johnson (1948- ), Exchange ValueJohn Crowley (1942- ), SnowThomas Ligotti (1947- ), The Last Feast of HarlequinBreece D'J Pancake (1952-1979), Time and AgainLisa Tuttle (1952- ), ReplacementsMelissa Pritchard (1948- ), Spirit SeizuresNancy Etchemendy (1952- ), Cat in GlassBruce McAllister (1946- ), The Girl Who Loved AnimalsKathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg, Ursus Triad, LaterKatherine Dunn, The Nuclear Family: His Talk, Her TeethNicholson Baker (1957- ), Subsoil

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Book SynopsisFrom one of America?s most renowned storytellers?the bestselling author of Blonde?comes a novel about love and deceit, and lust and redemption, against a backdrop of shocking murders in the affluent suburbs of Detroit.Hannah?s unreliable, elliptical narrative is seductive and compelling, like following someone into a fever dream ... [Oates] is in no hurry to trigger the action, dropping tiny morsels of foreshadowing to keep us on our toes. ?The New York Times Book Review?Unsettling, mysterious, deft, sinister, eerily plausible.? ?Margaret Atwood, best-selling author of The Handmaid''s Tale and The Testaments,via TwitterIn the waning days of the turbulent 1970s, in the wake of unsolved child-killings that have shocked Detroit, the lives of several residents are drawn together with tragic consequences.There is Hannah, wife of a prominent local businessman, who has begun an affair with a darkly charismatic stranger whose identity remains elusive; Mikey, a canny street hustler who finds himself on a chilling mission to rectify injustice; and the serial killer known as Babysitter, an enigmatic and terrifying figure at the periphery of elite Detroit. As Babysitter continues his rampage of abductions and killings, these individuals intersect with one another in startling and unexpected ways.Suspenseful, brilliantly orchestrated, and engrossing,Babysitteris a starkly narrated exploration of the riskiness of pursuing alternate lives, calling into question how far we are willing to go to protect those whom we cherish most. In its scathing indictment of corrupt politics, unexamined racism, and the enabling of sexual predation in America,Babysitteris a thrilling work of contemporary fiction.

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Book SynopsisZero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in these arresting stories by one of America’s most acclaimed writers, the award-winning, best-selling author of BlondeA brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered; diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community; a woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover; a young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as “mother.” In the collection’s longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with “drafts” of his own suicide.In these powerfully wrought stories that hold a mirror up to our time, Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism, and ever-shifting identities. Provocative and stunning, Zero-Sum reinforces Oates’s st

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Book SynopsisA masterly work from a writer with “the uncanny ability to give us a cinemascopic vision of her America” (National Review), A Garden of Earthly Delights is the opening stanza in what would become one of the most powerful and engrossing story arcs in literature.Joyce Carol Oates’s Wonderland Quartet comprises four remarkable novels that explore social class in America and the inner lives of young Americans. In A Garden of Earthly Delights, Oates presents one of her most memorable heroines, Clara Walpole, the beautiful daughter of Kentucky-born migrant farmworkers. Desperate to rise above her haphazard existence of violence and poverty, determined not to repeat her mother’s life, Clara struggles for independence by way of her relationships with four very different men: her father, a family man turned itinerant laborer, smoldering with resentment; the mysterious Lowry, who rescues Clara as a teenager and offers h

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Book SynopsisFrom Joyce Carol Oates, one of America''s most feted and critically acclaimed authors, a collection of mysterious, suspenseful and macabre tales.In her inimitable style, Oates takes the reader on unsettling journeys through the modern American psyche. Here you will find tales of loss and grief, confusion and darkness; of violent ends and the cruel march of time; of failed relationships, family deceit, and professional jealousy; of deceitful lovers, distant spouses, and those with murder in mind. Dark secrets or their own consciences impact Oates'' characters as she moves between small American towns and anonymous urban sprawls, between the courtroom, the hospital, the world of academia, and the wilderness of upstate New York with deft skill in this tantalising collection of the macabre and mysterious, the suspenseful and the sublime.''[A] literary goddess.'' Daily Mail

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Book SynopsisFrom Joyce Carol Oates, one of America''s most feted and critically acclaimed authors, a collection of mysterious, suspenseful and macabre tales.In her inimitable style, Oates takes the reader on unsettling journeys through the modern American psyche. Here you will find tales of loss and grief, confusion and darkness; of violent ends and the cruel march of time; of failed relationships, family secrets, and professional jealousy; of deceitful lovers, distant spouses, and those with murder in mind. Dark secrets or their own consciences impact Oates'' characters as she moves between small American towns and anonymous urban sprawls, between the courtroom, the hospital, the world of academia, and the wilderness of upstate New York with deft skill in this tantalising collection of the macabre and mysterious, the suspenseful and the sublime.''[A] literary goddess.'' Daily Mail

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Book SynopsisThe CVC Anthology series features each year's finalists from the annual $15,000 Carter V. Cooper (CVC) Short Fiction competition, held in memory of Carter Cooper ($10,000 for the best story by an emerging writer, and $5,000 for the best story by a writer at any career point). From writer, artist, philanthropist-and mother of Carter-Gloria Vanderbilt, who began one of the largest literary prizes for emerging writers in Canada: "I am proud and thrilled that all these wonderful writers are presented in the CVC Anthology. Carter, my son, Anderson Cooper's brother, was just 23 when he died in 1988. He was a promising editor, writer, and, from the time he was a small child, a voracious reader. Carter came from a family of storytellers, and stories were a guide which helped him discover the world. Though I, and those who loved Carter, still hear his voice in our heads and in our hearts, my son's voice was silenced long ago. I hope this prize helps other writers find their voice, and through inclusion in the annual anthology helps them touch others' lives with the mystery and magic of the written word.

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