Synopses & Reviews
Joyce Carol Oates is an unparalleled investigator of human personality. In these eight stories, she deftly tests the bonds between damaged individuals—brother and sister, teacher and student, two lonesome strangers on a subway—in the fearless prose for which shes become so celebrated. In the title story, a white, aspiring professor in Detroit tries to shake a black, male shadow during the summer of the citys 1967 race riots. In The Rescuer,” a promising graduate student detours to inner city Trenton, New Jersey, to save her brother from a downward spiral, but finds herself entranced by his dangerous new world. Meanwhile, a young woman of a much different breed prowls the New York City subways in search of her perfect man in Lorelei.” In eight these biting and beautiful pieces, Oates confronts the demons within us. In the end, sometimes its the human who wins, and sometimes its the demon.
Review
These tales of darkness and dread wont put you to sleep, but theyll give you more interesting nightmares. . . . In a way, every story is a character study . . . sure to focus a basilisk eye on the weak spot that reveals our own ugly impulses and make us defenseless against the terrors of the night.”
New York Times Book Review[In High Crime Area], theres little overt violence; its all in the mind, as [Oates] slowly tightens the noose. Drenched in clammy atmosphere, Oates work explores the heads of both ordinary people and those who are at least a little damaged.”Seattle Times
Scary, brooding and entertaining. . . . The despair is palpable and the tension always high in these stories told in a combination of hyper-realism and emotionally charged suspense. Horrific and creepy, High Crime Area still manages to smartly critique American society and its uneasy feelings on race, sexuality, gender, academia and family dynamics.”Bookreporter
Oates carries forward the great American dark-tales tradition with spellbinding craft, a cutting female eye, and a keen sense of how the diabolical infiltrates everyday existence. . . . Powerhouse Oates brings both exterior and interior worlds into excruciatingly sharp focus, evoking dread, grim exaltation, and the paralysis of prey. Oates potent dark tales are addictive.”Booklist
Oates mastery of imagery and of stream of consciousness enhances the gritty settings and the frailties of her grotesque and pitiable subjects."Kirkus Reviews
Exquisitely written . . . there is no better stylist alive than Joyce Carol Oates. . . . Read High Crime Area and prepare yourself for eight surprises, the number of stories in the book.”Huntington News
Oates offers unexpected glimmers of redemption amid the grotesquerie, degradation, and exploitation that fill this collections eight tales. . . . Oates is at her best depicting characters who seem perplexed by their own needs, desires, and obligations.”Publishers Weekly
These stories take the reader to desolate intersections and grimy tenements that mirror the dark reaches of the human soul; the combined elements of literary fiction with genre fiction and true crime offer added audience appeal.”Library Journal
About the Author
Joyce Carol Oates is the author of such national bestsellers as
The Falls, Blonde, and
We Were the Mulvaneys. Her other titles for The Mysterious Press include
High Crime Area and
The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares, which won the 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Short Horror Fiction. She is also the recipient of the National Book Award, for
them, and the 2010 Presidents Medal for the Humanities.