High crime area : tales of darkness and dread /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Joyce Carol Oates is an unparalleled investigator of human flaws. In these eight stories, she deftly tests the bonds between damaged individuals--a brother and sister, a teacher and student, two strangers on a subway--in the fearless prose for which she's become so celebrated.

In the title story "High Crime Area," a white, aspiring professor is convinced she is being followed. No need to panic, she has a handgun stowed away in her purse--just in case. But when she turns to confront her black, male shadow, the situation isn't what she expects. In "The Rescuer," a promising graduate student detours to inner city Trenton, New Jersey to save her brother from a downward spiral. But she soon finds out there may be more to his world than to hers. And in "The Last Man of Letters," the world-renowned author X embarks on a final grand tour of Europe. He has money, fame, but not a whole lot of manners. A little thing like etiquette couldn't bring a man like X down, could it?

In these biting and beautiful stories, Oates confronts, one by one, the demons within us. Sometimes it's the human who wins, and sometimes it's the demon.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Among the most compelling of Oates's many literary personae is the one with a deep-rooted interest in the pathology of criminals and their crimes. Her latest story collection opens with a Roger Ackroyd-like confession that elicits the reader's sympathy before the crime itself is described ("The Home at Craigmillnar"). The other stories range from horror to dark comedy, including a revenge fantasy perpetrated on a misogynistic world-renowned writer ("The Last Man of Letters"). Oates is particularly adept at revealing the lure of the criminal element among failed or failing academics who drift well beyond the statute of limitations of their doctoral degrees. VERDICT 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. [See Prepub Alert, 10/20/13.]-Sue Russell, Bryn Mawr, PA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Each of the six performers chosen to narrate Oates's collection of dark character studies suits the atmosphere of malaise and despair that emerges from the author's odd, elegant prose. Ray Chase starts the collection by portraying an orderly at a facility for the elderly in "The Home at Craigmillnar," with a dispassionate voice as the character describes the discovery of the body of an aged, unloved nun. Chris Patton provides a tense, anxious history of the child in "Demon," who has suffered most of his young life, while Tamara Marston employs a plaintive yearning in "Lorelei," in which the title character searches for a touch of humanity in the subways of New York. Donna Pastel uses a dry and mildly distracted approach for "High," in which a middle-aged widow tries to cope with the loss of her husband, first with marijuana, then by courting danger. Whelan shifts from determined to dreamy in "The Rescuer," as the promising grad student who travels to Trenton, N.J., to save her brother from a druggy vortex, only to find herself slipping in. Finally, reader Luci Christian finds the perfect hardboiled teenager voice for the 13-year-old narrator of "Toad-Baby," a grim, not-quite-nuclear family tale that, surprisingly for Oates, ends with more than a hint of hope. A Mysterious hardcover. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Oates (Evil Eye, 2013) 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, masterfully conjuring realms grotesque, erotic, and ironic. She begins with a neatly feinting revenge story about a conscientious orderly and a nun who once ran a notorious orphanage. We meet an ethereal, wealthy widow who naively decides that marijuana will ease her pain, a prescription for mayhem. Oates portrays with forensic exactitude misshapen and abused children and a sexist celebrity writer who gets his comeuppance. The Rescuer is a complex and haunting tale about family and race centered on a dutiful young woman trying to help her brother in the drug-poisoned heart of Trenton, New Jersey. Oates extends her inquiry into the racial divide and returns to another of her signature settings, Detroit circa 1967, in the exquisitely frank and distressing title story about the fears of a young, white English teacher. Powerhouse Oates brings both exterior and interior worlds into excruciatingly sharp focus, evoking dread, grim exaltation, and the paralysis of prey. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Oates' potent dark tales are addictive, and her readers' habit must be fed.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2014 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

From Oates (Carthage, 2014, etc.) comes this collection of eight stories, seven previously published, that explore the depths of human despair and cruelty. A retired nun is found dead with a muslin veil over her face in "The Home at Craigmillnar." Although the nun was a cardiac patient, the orderly who reports her death knows enough about her dark past to suggest that she might have died from something other than natural causes. In "High," a lonely widow seeks escape from her grief even as she opens herself up to exploitation by those she once tried to help. A 13-year-old girl has to protect her half brother from an indifferent world and their alcoholic mother in "Toad-Baby." "Lorelei" is a needy woman who searches the subways for love and hopes that people will notice her. In "Demon," a mentally challenged youth goes to extremes to eliminate the sign of the devil in his own body. The would-be heroine of "The Rescuer" is a cultural anthropologist who leaves her ivory tower to save her brother from a terrifying local culture and is slowly pulled into it. "The Last Man of Letters" is an arrogant author who thinks he's receiving the adulation he deserves until he realizes how much he's hated. Finally, an idealistic young teacher in 1967 Detroit has to face the fears that are personified by the man following her in "High Crime Area." Oates is at her best here when she's writing about floundering academics thrust into situations for which they're hopelessly ill-prepared. Oates' mastery of imagery and stream of consciousness enhances the gritty settings and the frailties of her grotesque and pitiable subjects.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Joyce Carol Oates was born on June 16, 1938 in Lockport, New York. She received a bachelor's degree in English from Syracuse University and a master's degree in English from the University of Wisconsin.

She is the author of numerous novels and collections of short stories. Her works include We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, Bellefleur, You Must Remember This, Because It Is Bitter, Because It Is My Heart, Solstice, Marya : A Life, and Give Me Your Heart. She has received numerous awards including the National Book Award for Them, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Lifetime Achievement in American Literature. She was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her title Lovely, Dark, Deep. She also wrote a series of suspense novels under the pseudonym Rosamond Smith. In 2015, her novel The Accursed became listed as a bestseller on the iBooks chart.

She worked as a professor of English at the University of Windsor, before becoming the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. She and her late husband Raymond J. Smith operated a small press and published a literary magazine, The Ontario Review.

(Bowker Author Biography)