Search results for ""Author Joyce Carol Oates""

"A mesmerizing storyteller who seems almost unnaturally able to enter the tormented inner lives of her characters." -Denver Post Black Dahlia & White Rose is a brilliant collection of short fiction from National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates, one of the most acclaimed writers of our time. These stores, at once lyrical and unsettling, shine with the author's trademark fascination with finding the unpredictable amidst the prosaic-from her imaginative recreation of friendship between two tragically doomed young women (Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Short), to the tale of an infidelity as deeply human as it is otherworldly. Black Dahlia & White Rose is a major offering from one of the most important artists in contemporary American literature; a superb collection that showcases Joyce Carol Oates's ferocious energy and darkly imaginative storytelling power.

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Unavailable for 40 years, this seminal novel of madness and murder is acclaimed author Joyce Carol Oates’ powerful trip into the mind of a maniac. Abandoned as a baby in a bus station locker, shuttled from one abusive foster home and detention center to another, Bobbie Gotteson grew up angry, hurting, damaged. His hunger to succeed as a musician brought him across the country to Hollywood, but along with it came his seething rage, his paranoid delusions, and his capacity for acts of shocking violence. Unavailable for 40 years, The Triumph of the Spider Monkey is an eloquent, terrifying, heartbreaking exploration of madness by one of the most acclaimed authors of the past century. This definitive edition for the first time pairs the original novel with a never-before-collected companion novella by Joyce Carol Oates, unseen since its sole publication in a literary journal nearly half a century ago, which examines the impact of Gotteson’s killing spree on a woman who survived it, as seen through the eyes of the troubled young man hired by a private detective to surveil her…

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From the towering imagination of Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE, now a major motion picture, comes a psychologically complex thriller examining the fine line between genius and madness. Andrew J. Rush is a successful mystery writer with twenty-eight novels to his name. He has a loving wife, three grown children, and is well-known in his small New Jersey town for his charitable work. But Andrew J. Rush is hiding a dark secret. Under the pseudonym Jack of Spades, he has penned another string of novels – dark tales of murder, lust and madness. When a court order arrives accusing him of plagarism, Rush fears his secret may be exposed. And unbidden, in the back of his mind, the Jack of Spades starts plotting his survival. Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times

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From the towering imagination of Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE, now a major motion picture, seven nightmarish and unbearably taut tales. Marissa is an innocent girl, with hair the colour of corn-silk. She does not hold others in strange thrall, as some young women do, she obeys her parents, she does not stay late after school, lingering on her walk through the swaying heads of maize. She is the perfect sacrifice. Twice nominated for the Nobel Prize, Oates presents an unbearably taut and terrifying tale combining the fury of folklore and blood sacrfice with the depths of adolescent insecurity in The Corn Maiden, a novella, followed by six other nightmares. Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

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‘Oates’s imagination is as unique, dystopian and vivid as Lewis Carroll’s’ Rose Tremain Zero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in these arresting stories by one of America’s most acclaimed writers. A 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 standing as a literary treasure and an artist of the mysterious interior life. ‘Feminist horror runs through Joyce Carol Oates’s latest collection … Electric’ New York Times ‘Alluringly dark and spiky’ New Statesman ‘Zero-Sum is brilliant – bloodied, breathless, weird’ A. K. Blakemore, author of The Manningtree Witches ‘Dark, unsettling stories … There’s a disquieting violence simmering … a shrill alarm of disquiet’ Daily Mail ‘Oates is an inspired writer, and a formidable psychologist’ Independent

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‘A page-turner … nothing less than magical’ Observer ‘An extraordinary slice of suburban noir’ Daily Mail From one of America’s most renowned storytellers comes a novel about love and deceit, and lust and redemption, against a background of child abductions in the affluent suburbs of Detroit. In the waning days of the turbulent 1970s, in the wake of unsolved 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 an unexpected 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 killings, these individuals intersect with one another in startling and unexpected ways. Suspenseful, brilliantly orchestrated and engrossing, Babysitter is 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, Babysitter is a thrilling work of contemporary fiction. ‘Simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going, as far as I’m concerned’ Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl ‘Joyce Carol Oates is a writer who always takes your breath away' Mail on Sunday 'A writer of extraordinary strengths' Guardian

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From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of Blonde, now a major motion picture, six feverishly unsettling tales of suspense. A woman sits naked except for her high-heeled shoes, in an apartment she cannot afford, as her married lover rushes, amorously, murderously, to her door. An ageing, jealous wife crafts an unusual game of Russian roulette involving a pair of Wedgwood teacups, a strong Bengal brew, and a lethal concoction. A former Sunday School teacher's corpse turns up and the blighted adolescent she had by turns petted and ridiculed confesses to her murder – but is he really responsible? In a fantastic ode to H.P. Lovecraft, a young outsider is haunted by apparitions at the very edge of the spectrum of visibility after the death of his tortured father. Revelling in the uncanny, this taut collection stands at the crossroads of sex, violence, and longing – challenging us to interrogate the intersection of these impulses within ourselves. Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian ‘Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist 'Few writers better illuminate the mind's most disturbing corners.' Seattle Times

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A 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. An accomplished writer returns to her childhood home of Yewville, but the homecoming stirs troubled thoughts about the person she might have been if she’d never left. A man in prison contemplates the gravity of his irreversible act. A student’s affair with a professor results in a pregnancy that alters the course of her life forever. Even the experience of reading is investigated as one that can create a profound transformation: “You could enter another time, the time of the book.”The (Other) You is an arresting and incisive vision into these alternative realities, a collection that ponders the constraints we all face given the circumstances of our birth and our temperaments, and that examines the competing pressures and expectations on women in particular. Finely attuned to the nuances of our social and psychic selves, Joyce Carol Oates demonstrates here why she remains one of our most celebrated and relevant literary figures.

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Joyce Carol Oates is not only one of our most important novelists and literary critics, she is also an unparalleled master of the short story. In "Sourland" she maps the surprising contours of ordinary life, exploring how the power of violence, loss, and grief shape both the psyche and the soul. From a desperate man who dons a jack-o'-lantern head as a prelude to a most curious sort of courtship, to a story of a stabbing many times recounted in the life of a lonely girl; from a beguiling young woman librarian whose amputee state attracts a married man and father, to a girl hopelessly in love with her renegade, incarcerated cousin; from a professor's wife who finds herself tragically isolated at a party in her own house, to the concluding title story of an unexpectedly redemptive love rooted in radical aloneness and isolation, each story in "Sourland" resonates beautifully with Oates' trademark fascination for the unpredictable amid the prosaic-the commingling of sexual love and violence, the tumult of family life-and shines with her predilection for dark humor and her gift for voice.

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NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX FILM, STARRING ANA DE ARMAS, ADRIEN BRODY, BOBBY CANNAVALE AND JULIANNE NICHOLSON, DIRECTED BY ANDREW DOMINIK ‘A torrentially imaginative, compulsively readable tour de force’ Sunday Telegraph ‘A fabulous reinvention of the life of a fabulous reinvention, and a cracking page-turner to boot’ Evening Standard Blonde is a mesmerising novel about the most enduring and evocative cultural icon of the 20th century: the woman who became Marilyn Monroe. A fragile and gifted young woman, Norma Jeane Baker makes and remakes her identity: she is the orphan whose mother is declared mad; the woman who changes her name to be an actress; the fated celebrity, lover and muse. Told in her voice, Blonde shows a culture hypnotised by its own myths, and the devastating effects it had on Hollywood’s greatest star. ‘This masterpiece about Marilyn Monroe’s life is audacious, gripping and clever’ Rose Tremain ‘If you haven’t read Joyce Carol Oates before, start here, and now’ Independent

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From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE, now a major motion picture, come four psychologically daring and chillingly suspenseful stories where women face threats both past and present. A Pennsylvania academic unearths a terrifying trauma from her past after inheriting a house in Cardiff, Maine from a stranger. A lonely pubescent girl befriends a feral cat that protects her from the increasingly aggressive men that surround her. A brilliant but shy college sophomore realizes she is pregnant and, distraught, allows a distinguished visiting professor to take her under his wing. And a widower remarries, but finds his young bride haunted by his dead wife's voice dancing in the wind. 'A stylish, suspenseful quartet of novellas tinged with the supernatural.' Daily Mail Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

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A collection of twenty-two disturbing tales of crime and suspense from literary icon Joyce Carol Oates, author of Blonde and 'America's preeminent fiction writer' (New Yorker). Two hitmen in a depressed rust belt town struggle with a job gone wrong. A girl witnesses a horrifying accident and carries it with her for the rest of her life. Medical students bring a severed foot to a college party. Five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Joyce Carol Oates has made a career of exploring the forbidden corners of human experience, and the stories collected here, spanning her first three decades as a writer, are among her most unsettling and unforgettable works to date. Originally published in long out-of-print volumes, these tales have not appeared in any form this century – until now. They show a writer boldly engaging with disturbing truths and terrifying possibilities, and deconstructing the tropes and expectations of traditional prose writing as she does so. But beyond their stylistic ingenuity, these are creepy, suspenseful stories that cut straight to the bone; their darkness will linger long after the final page is turned. A must-read for long-time fans of Joyce Carol Oates and an excellent introduction for the uninitiated. Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

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A new collection of haunting and, at times, darkly humorous mystery and suspense stories. These are tales of psyches pushed to their limits by the expectations of everyday life.

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A masterful novel about a violent crime and its reverberations throughout a community – as timely and relevant in 2019 as it was when first published in 2001 ‘We were the Mulvaneys, remember us? For a long time you envied us, then you pitied us. For a long time you admired us, then you thought Good! that’s what they deserve.’ The Mulvaneys of High Point Farm are blessed. But then, on Valentine’s Day 1976, something happens to Marianne, the pretty sixteen-year-old daughter, and nothing will ever be the same again … .

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‘America’s preeminent fiction writer’ New Yorker ‘A raw, propulsive tale of love and grief’ Mail on Sunday A novel of love and loss from the bestselling and prizewinning author of Blonde. Michaela and her husband have moved to the starkly beautiful but uncanny landscape of New Mexico, to take up an academic residency. But when Gerard is struck by a fatal illness, their life begins to resemble a nightmare. At thirty-seven, Michaela must first face the terrifying prospect of widowhood, then the chaos of the days when Gerard is gone. Haunting and utterly heart-wrenching, Breathe explores the intense madness of grief and what happens when a love cannot be surrendered. ‘A fever dream of a novel’ New York Times ‘Simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going, as far as I’m concerned’ Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl

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The bonds of family are tested in the wake of a profound tragedy, providing a look at the darker side of our society The bonds of family are tested in the wake of a profound tragedy, providing a look at the darker side of our society Night 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 his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all. Stark and penetrating, Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel is a vivid exploration of race, psychological trauma, class warfare, grief, and eventual healing, as well as an intimate family novel in the tradition of the author’s bestselling We Were the Mulvaneys.

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A collection of twenty-two disturbing tales of crime and suspense from literary icon Joyce Carol Oates, author of Blonde and 'America's preeminent fiction writer' (New Yorker). Two hitmen in a depressed rust belt town struggle with a job gone wrong. A girl witnesses a horrifying accident and carries it with her for the rest of her life. Medical students bring a severed foot to a college party. Five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Joyce Carol Oates has made a career of exploring the forbidden corners of human experience, and the stories collected here, spanning her first three decades as a writer, are among her most unsettling and unforgettable works to date. Originally published in long out-of-print volumes, these tales have not appeared in any form this century – until now. They show a writer boldly engaging with disturbing truths and terrifying possibilities, and deconstructing the tropes and expectations of traditional prose writing as she does so. But beyond their stylistic ingenuity, these are creepy, suspenseful stories that cut straight to the bone; their darkness will linger long after the final page is turned. A must-read for long-time fans of Joyce Carol Oates and an excellent introduction for the uninitiated. Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

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From the towering imagination of Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE, now a major motion picture, seven feverishly unsettling works of suspense.. A precocious eleven-year-old, in thrall to the mysterious black sheep of the family, climbs into his sky-blue Chevy to be driven to an uncertain, unforgettable, fate. A university student becomes obsessed with the murder of a female classmate as her own sense of self deteriorates. A recent widow grieves inside her lakefront home and fantasizes about transforming into a great flying predator – unerring and pitiless in the hunt. These meticulously crafted, deeply disquieting stories confront the dangers that surround us, and the dangers that lurk within. Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

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From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of Blonde, now a major motion picture, comes a collection of darkly compelling tales. A young professor is convinced she's being followed, but when she confronts her shadow all is not as it seems. A promising student attempts to save her brother from his descent into madness, but finds there may be more to his world than hers. An elderly nun is found dead in her care home, but was it old age or dark secrets that killed her? These biting and beautiful stories force us to confront, one by one, the demons within. Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

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‘America’s preeminent fiction writer’ New Yorker ‘A raw, propulsive tale of love and grief’ Mail on Sunday Michaela and her husband have moved to the starkly beautiful but uncanny landscape of New Mexico, to take residency at a distinguished academic institute. But then Gerard is stricken with a mysterious illness, initially misdiagnosed, and soon their life begins to resemble a nightmare. 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, and then careens through the chaos of the days after he is gone. Her love for her husband, however fierce and selfless, has not been enough to save him and 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? Breathe is an exploration of haunting, a horror story about the raw madness of grief, and an intense, heart-wrenching love story that grapples with the philosophical questions most fundamental to our existence.

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'Will burrow under your skin and live forever in your darkest dreams' BustJoyce Carol Oates assembles a spectacular cast to explore, subvert and reinvent one of horror's most visceral of subgenres. Focusing on distortions of the human body, the fifteen short stories of A Darker Shade will delight, disgust and shock you.From the metaphysical horror of a snail trapped in body of a young office worker, to a women cursed to dance endlessly, her body ravaged and torn, these are stories that confront the inextricable link between physical and mental terror.Featuring brand-new stories by: Margaret Atwood, Raven Leilani, Lisa Tuttle, Tananarive Due, Joyce Carol Oates, Megan Abbott, Aimee Bender, Cassandra Khaw, Lisa Lim, Elizabeth Hand, Valerie Martin, Sheila Kohler, Joanna Margaret and Aimee LaBrie, and Yumi Dineen Shiroma.

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Teena Maguire should not have tried to shortcut her way home that Fourth of July. Not after midnight, not through Rocky Point Park. Not the way she was dressed in a tank top, denim cutoffs, and high-heeled sandals. Not with her twelve-year-old daughter Bethie. Not with packs of local guys running loose on hormones, rage and alcohol. A victim of gang rape, left for dead in the park boathouse, the once vivacious Teena can now only regret that she has survived. At a relentlessly compelling pace punctuated by lonely cries in the night and the whisper of terror in the afternoon, Joyce Carol Oates unfolds the story of Teena and Bethie, their assailants, and their unexpected, silent champion, a man who knows the meaning of justice. And love.

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From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of Blonde, now a major motion picture, an eerie, psychologically complex thriller about a woman haunted by her traumatic past. As a child, Abby had the same nightmare night after night, in which she wandered through a field ridden with human bones. Now an adult, Abby thinks she's outgrown her demons, until, the evening before her wedding, the terrible dream returns and forces her to confront the dark secrets she is keeping from her new husband, Willem. The following day, less than 24 hours after exchanging vows, Abby steps out into traffic. As his wife lies in her hospital bed, Willem tries to determine whether this was an absentminded accident or a premeditated plunge. Slowly, Abby begins to open up to her husband, revealing to him what she has never shared with anyone before: the story of a terrified mother; a jealous, drug addled father; and a daughter's terrifying captivity. With a suspenseful, alternating narrative that travels between the present and Abby's tortured childhood, Pursuit is a meticulously crafted, deeply disquieting tale that showcases Oates's masterful storytelling. Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

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From literary icon Joyce Carol Oates, author of Blonde, now a major motion picture, comes a brand new collection of haunting and, at times, darkly humorous mystery and suspense stories. These are tales of psyches pushed to their limits by the expectations of everyday life – from a woman who gets lost on her drive back to her plush suburban home and ends up breaking into a stranger's house, to a first-person account of a cloned 1940s magazine pinup girl being sold at auction and embodying America's ideals of beauty and womanhood. Taken as a whole, the collection forms a poignant tapestry of regular people searching for their place in a social hierarchy, often with devastating and disastrous results. Rendered with stylish, fresh writing from an author who continues to push the envelope, the stories deftly weave in and out of a stream-of-consciousness to reflect the ways we process traumatic experiences and impart that uncertainty and uneasiness to the reader. The stories comprising Night, Neon showcase Oates' mastery of the suspense story and her relentless use of the form to conduct unapologetically honest explorations of American identity. 'Embracing the twists and turns of everyday American life, the author's latest short story collection is playful, gripping and disturbing.' Guardian Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

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A new collection of thirteen mesmerizing stories by American master Joyce Carol Oates, including the 2017 Pushcart Prize–winning “Undocumented Alien”The diverse stories of Beautiful Days, Joyce Carol Oates explore the most secret, intimate, and unacknowledged interior lives of characters not unlike ourselves, who assert their independence in acts of bold and often irrevocable defiance. “Fleuve Bleu” exemplifies the rich sensuousness of Oates’s prose as lovers married to other persons vow to establish, in their intimacy, a ruthlessly honest, truth-telling authenticity missing elsewhere in their complicated lives, with unexpected results. In “Big Burnt,” set on lushly rendered Lake George, in the Adirondacks, a cunningly manipulative university professor exploits a too-trusting woman in a way she could never have anticipated. In a more experimental but no less intimate mode, “Les beaux jours” examines the ambiguities of an intensely erotic, exploitative relationship between a “master” artist and his adoring young female model. And the tragic “Undocumented Alien” depicts a young African student enrolled in an American university who is suddenly stripped of his student visa and forced to undergo a terrifying test of courage.In these stories, as elsewhere in her fiction, Joyce Carol Oates exhibits her fascination with the social, psychological, and moral boundaries that govern our behavior—until the hour when they do not.

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Oates's imagination is as unique, dystopian and vivid as Lewis Carroll's' ROSE TREMAIN''A master storyteller'' THE TIMES''Electric'' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWZero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in these arresting stories by one of America's most acclaimed writers.A 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 rein

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‘The story of Trump’s America’ Daily Mail Two families. Two faces of America. One violent crime that will bitterly divide them – and yet bind them together forever. ‘A magnificent story of two broken families’ Independent ‘Page-turning, gripping, full of unexpected twists’ Observer ‘From its dramatic opening, with the killing of an abortionist, the book rockets forwards … Ingenious, agile, dazzling’ Literary Review ‘Morally meaty and always readable’ Sunday Times ‘A masterpiece’ Washington Post

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A tale of murder, loss and romance in the mist of Niagara Falls: it is the crowning achievement of Joyce Carol Oates’s career to date. A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. He's a newly-wed, and his bride has been left behind in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. For two weeks, Ariah, the deserted bride, waits by the side of the roaring waterfall for news of her husband's recovered body. During her vigil, an unlikely new love story begins to unfold when she meets a wealthy lawyer who is transfixed by her strange, otherworldly gaze. So it all begins, in the 1950s, with the dark foreboding of the Falls as the sinister background to the tragedy. From this cataclysmic event unfurls a drama of parents and their children; of secrets and sins; of lawsuits, murder and, eventually redemption. As Ariah’s children learn that their past is enmeshed with a hushed-up scandal involving radioactive waste materials, they must confront not only their personal history but America’s murky past: the despoiling of the American landscape and the corruption and greed of the massive industrial expansion of the 1950s and 1960s. This novel of tremendous sweep and pace is about the American family in crisis – but also about America itself in the mid-20th century. This book alone places Joyce Carol Oates definitively in the company of the Great American Novelists.

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An eerie, psychological thriller about a newlywed wife haunted by her secret, traumatic past.

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A new collection of poetry from an American literary legend, her first in twenty-five yearsJoyce Carol Oates is one of our most insightful observers of the human heart and mind, and, with her acute social consciousness, one of the most insistent and inspired witnesses of a shared American history.Oates is perhaps best known for her prodigious output of novels and short stories, many of which have become contemporary classics. However, Oates has also always been a faithful writer of poetry. American Melancholy showcases some of her finest work of the last few decades.Covering subjects big and small, and written in an immediate and engaging style, this collection touches on both the personal and political. Loss, love, and memory are investigated, along with the upheavals of our modern age, the reality of our current predicaments, and the ravages of poverty, racism, and social unrest. Oates skillfully writes characters ranging from a former doctor at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army hospital to Little Albert, a six-month-old infant who took part in a famous study that revealed evidence of classical conditioning in human beings.

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Simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going' GILLIAN FLYNN''Delightfully disturbing'' iNEWS''A blood-soaked, gothic nightmare'' FINANCIAL TIMESFrom one of our most accomplished storytellers, an extraordinary and arresting novel about a women's asylum in the nineteenth century, and a terrifying doctor who wants to change the world.In this harrowing story based on authentic historical documents, we follow the career of Dr. Silas Weir, Father of Gyno-Psychiatry, as he ascends from professional anonymity to national renown. Humiliated by a procedure gone terribly wrong, Weir is forced to take a position at the New Jersey Asylum for Female Lunatics, where he reigns. There, he is allowed to continue his practice, unchecked for decades, making a name for himself by focusing on women who have been neglected by the statewomen he subjects to the most grotesque modes of experimentation. As he begins to establish himself as a pioneer of nineteenth-century s

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An ingenious dystopian novel of one young woman’s resistance against the constraints of an oppressive society When a recklessly idealistic girl in a dystopian future society dares to test the perimeters of her tightly controlled world, she is punished by being sent back in time to a region of North America – ‘Wainscotia, Wisconsin’ – that existed eighty years before. Cast adrift in time in this idyllic Midwestern town, she is set upon a course of ‘rehabilitation’ – but she falls in love with a fellow exile and starts to question the constraints of her new existence, with results that are both devastating and liberating. Arresting and visionary, Hazards of Time Travel is an exquisitely wrought love story, a novel of harrowing discovery – and an oblique but powerful response to our current political climate.

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Fifteen-year-old Katya Spivak is out for a walk on the streets of Bayhead Harbor, New Jersey, when she is approached by silver-haired, elegant Marcus Kidder. At first his interest in her seems harmless. The world he inhabits acts as a tonic to her drab existence. And as a children's book writer, he seems to be a man she can trust. His home is beautiful and he lavishes gifts on her. Everything about him is enticing - perhaps too enticing? Like a moth to the light Katya agrees to pose for a painting. But by degrees something changes. Being Mr Kidder's muse is not the easy endeavour it once was. What does he really want from her? And how far will he go to get it? This spare, chilling novel shows Joyce Carol Oates at the height of her powers as a literary storyteller.

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When a woman mysteriously vanishes from her small town home, her sister must tally up the clues to uncover the truth behind the mystery.Beautiful sculptor Marguerite has disappeared from her small town in upstate New York. But was foul play involved? Did she merely get away for some fun? Or did she finally make the decision to leave behind her claustrophobic life of limited opportunities?Younger sister Gigi wonders if the flimsy silk Dior dress, so casually abandoned on the floor, is a clue to Marguerite''s vanishing. The police puzzle over the footprints made by her Ferragamo boots, which end abruptly close to her home.Bit by bit, revelations about both women are uncovered, as Gigi, not so pretty as her sister, reveals her true feelings about the perfect, much-loved Marguerite. The fate of the missing beauty slowly and subtly comes to light In this suspenseful story about the complex relationship between two sisters.48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister is an

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