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These new, recent, and reformulated stories by Joyce Carol Oates showcase a wide range of crime fiction and psychological suspense. A young, insecure woman finds her relationship changing as she grows more and more dependent on a man who likes to take her on long walks beside a dangerously roaring creek. Another woman, nervous around men, not quite knowing how to act when paid a compliment, becomes flustered when a doctor suggests they go out for coffee, or possibly a drink. She finally decides that she will join him when he suggests they meet at his home. A man is so forgetful that his wife panics and yells into his phone, asking where their daughter has gone. A young man is curious to see why sirens have filled the night and the police arrest him, beginning an unimaginable nightmare. A woman resents that a colleague has achieved greater success and thinks she ought to do something about it.
It is impossible to know where a story by the creative genius of Joyce Carol Oates will end and what frightening paths will lead to that end.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
November 7, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781696616782
- File size: 272715 KB
- Duration: 09:28:08
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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September 2, 2024
Average people face the macabre in this grimly satisfying collection of 12 stories from Oates (Butcher). The proximity of love and hate—or at least attraction and violence—animate most of the tales, each a compact gem of unease. In “Weekday,” a frantic mother worries that her forgetful, easily distracted husband has lost their infant daughter. In “The Phlebotomist,” a benign tale of parking lot seduction quickly careens into noir territory. “Bone Marrow Donor” continues the medical fascinations of Oates’s latest novel, packing the nerve-shredding tension of a top-shelf medical thriller into five pages. Other stories draw chills by spinning mundane concerns into houses of horror: “Happy Christmas” follows a young woman who heads home to spend the holidays with her mother and new stepfather, only to discover darkness beneath the pair’s domestic bliss; “Friend of My Heart” is a delicious, near-operatic portrait of professional jealousy that focuses on a rumpled adjunct professor growing mad with envy over a colleague’s success. In each case, Oates’s prose is surgically precise, and her appetite for the grotesque falls on the right side of lurid. This will thrill the author’s fans. Agent: Warren Frazier, John Hawkins & Assoc. -
March 7, 2025
National Book Award winner Oates (Butcher) returns with a disturbing collection of 12 short stories featuring ordinary people whose lives descend into the unsettling and macabre. In "***," a mysterious inscription on a day calendar prompts a man to visit his childhood home, where he discovers a deeply mystifying past. "Flint Kill Creek" follows anxious, insecure Inga, who loses her life on the banks of a roaring stream, perhaps--or perhaps not--at the hands of her lover. In unnamed towns, a distressed bone marrow donor undergoes surgery; a "nice" girl finds her older sister clinging to life after an overdose; and a newly married woman realizes that her husband is not all he seems. Narrator Kelli Tager offers a vivid performance of Oates's stories, expressively bringing forth every emotion, from fear to anger to uncertainty. Tager's attention to pacing is exceptional and will keep listeners on the edge of their seats. VERDICT Oates's many fans will be enthralled by this pitch-perfect collection of that combines psychological thriller, mystery, and suspense. Oates doesn't miss a beat.--Kaitlyn Tanis
Copyright 2025 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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