Description:
Poet, novelist, critic, and one of America's most brilliant and acclaimed authors of short fiction, Joyce Carol Oates writes stories indelibly stamped with her style. This new collection of 25 recent stories is rich and hard-edged with her inimitable touch: tales with violence . . . or uncertainty . . . or the macabre running like life-blood through them. Always innovative, Joyce Carol Oates's writing is never predictable—except in that it is sure to surprise.
In the title story, "Heat," eleven-year-old twin sisters are murdered, and both they and their killer are remembered by a woman who was their contemporary a
Poet, novelist, critic, and one of America's most brilliant and acclaimed authors of short fiction, Joyce Carol Oates writes stories indelibly stamped with her style. This new collection of 25 recent stories is rich and hard-edged with her inimitable touch: tales with violence . . . or uncertainty . . . or the macabre running like life-blood through them. Always innovative, Joyce Carol Oates's writing is never predictable—except in that it is sure to surprise.
In the title story, "Heat," eleven-year-old twin sisters are murdered, and both they and their killer are remembered by a woman who was their contemporary and, in a way, a victim as well . . . . In "Leila Lee," a chilling tale of hate and desire, a young woman marries an older man and tries to develop a relationship with his angry teenage son—even as she quickly realizes "within three weeks of her marriage to Lamar Pike that the marriage was probably a mistake." . . . In "House Hunting," a husband perplexed by a disintegrating relationship with his wife goes house-hunting in suburban Philadelphia without her and embarks on a quest, not only for a house, but for his future.
In these stories and the others collected here, Joyce Carol Oates demonstrates the range of her remarkable imaginative powers, which is both wide and deep. Her stories shock, provoke, and astound us with their events and their commentary on the human condition. Not surprisingly, then, the title story, "Heat" and two others included here have received O. Henry awards. In 1990, Joyce Carol Oates received The Rea Award, which is given annually "to honor a writer who has made a significant contribution to the short story as an art form." This extraordinary new collection, her first since 1986, makes accessible works originally printed in hard-to-find magazines and gives readers a generous collection of Joyce Carol Oates's latest, and very best, writing.
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Manufacturer: E P Dutton
Release date: 31 July 1991
ISBN-10 : 0525933301 |
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