In 1975 Genna Hewett-Meade's college roommate died a mysterious, violent death partway through their freshman year. Minette Swift had been assertive, fiercely individualistic, and one of the few black girls at their exclusive, "enlightened" college--and Genna, daughter of a prominent civil defense lawyer, felt duty-bound to protect her at all costs. But fifteen years later, while reconstructing Minette's tragic death, Genna is forced to painfully confront her own past life and identity...and her deepest beliefs about social obligation in a morally gray world.
Black Girl / White...
In 1975 Genna Hewett-Meade's college roommate died a mysterious, violent death partway through their freshman year. Minette Swift had been assertiv...
Celebrated author Joshua Seigl, an idiosyncratic bachelor and confirmed recluse--young but in failing health--reluctantly admits to himself that he must hire a live-in assistant to help him with his increasingly complicated professional and personal affairs. Then one day at the bookstore he encounters Alma, a young woman covered with bizarre tattoos, who stirs something inside him. Unaware of her torturous past--the abuses she's suffered, the wrongs she's committed, the virulent hatred that seethes within her--Seigl decides that she is the one, and he has no idea that he is bringing an...
Celebrated author Joshua Seigl, an idiosyncratic bachelor and confirmed recluse--young but in failing health--reluctantly admits to himself that he...
Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1936, the Schwarts immigrate to a small town in upstate New York. Here the father--a former high school teacher--is demeaned by the only job he can get: gravedigger and cemetery caretaker. When local prejudice and the family's own emotional frailty give rise to an unthinkable tragedy, the gravedigger's daughter, Rebecca heads out into America. Embarking upon an extraordinary odyssey of erotic risk and ingenious self-invention, she seeks renewal, redemption, and peace--on the road to a bittersweet and distinctly "American" triumph.
Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1936, the Schwarts immigrate to a small town in upstate New York. Here the father--a former high school teacher--is demeane...
When he died in 1937, destitute and emotionally as well as physically ruined, H. P. Lovecraft had no idea that he would one day be celebrated as the godfather of modern horror. A dark visionary, his work would influence an entire generation of writers, including Stephen King, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, and Anne Rice. Now, the most important tales of this distinctive American storyteller have been collected in a single volume by National Book Award-winning author Joyce Carol Oates.
In tales that combine the nineteenth-century gothic sensibility of Edgar Allan Poe with a uniquely...
When he died in 1937, destitute and emotionally as well as physically ruined, H. P. Lovecraft had no idea that he would one day be celebrated as th...
"Later, I would think of it as crossing over. From a known territory into an unknown. From a place where people know you to a place where people only think they know you."
Sometimes Franky Pierson has a hard time dealing with life. Like when her parents separate and her mother vanishes, Franky wants to believe that her mom has simply pulled a disappearing act. Yet deep within herself, a secret part of her she calls Freaky Green Eyes knows that something is terribly wrong. And only Freaky can open Franky's eyes to the truth.
"Later, I would think of it as crossing over. From a known territory into an unknown. From a place where people know you to a place where people on...
A young wife is home alone when the phone rings in So Help Me God. Is the strange voice flirting with her from the other end of the line her jealous husband laying a trap, or a stranger who knows entirely too much about her? In Madison at Guignol an unhappy fashionista discovers a secret door inside her favorite clothing store and insists the staff let her enter. But even her fevered imagination cannot anticipate the horror they have been hiding from her. In these and other gripping and disturbing tales, women are confronted by the evil around them and surprised by the evil they find within...
A young wife is home alone when the phone rings in So Help Me God. Is the strange voice flirting with her from the other end of the line her jealous h...
In "Hi Howya Doin " an intrusive jogger meets with an abrupt fate; in "The Man Who Fought Roland LaStarza" a young woman s romantic view of her girlhood is devastated by her father s confessions; and in "Valentine, July Heat Wave" a man prepares a gruesome surprise for the wife who has betrayed him. In the title story, a young woman tries to rescue her mother from the museum of Dr. Moses with unexpected results. And the children of a notorious serial killer struggle to "decode" the patterns behind their father s seemingly random acts in "Bad Habits." In these and other suspenseful...
In "Hi Howya Doin " an intrusive jogger meets with an abrupt fate; in "The Man Who Fought Roland LaStarza" a young woman s romantic view of her girlh...
Joyce Carol Oates s Wonderland Quartet comprises four remarkable novels that explore social class in America and the inner lives of young Americans. As powerful and relevant today as it on its initial publication, them chronicles the tumultuous lives of a family living on the edge of ruin in the Detroit slums, from the 1930s to the 1967 race riots. Praised by The Nation for her potent, life-gripping imagination, Oates traces the aspirations and struggles of Loretta Wendall, a dreamy young mother who is filled with regret by the age of sixteen, and the subsequent destinies of her...
Joyce Carol Oates s Wonderland Quartet comprises four remarkable novels that explore social class in America and the inner lives of young Americans. A...
Established early in the last century as a memorial to the great American short story master O. Henry, throughout its history this annual collection has consistently offered a remarkable sampling of contemporary short stories. Each year, stories are chosen from large and small literary magazines, and a panel of distinguished writers is enlisted to make the final selection. The result is a superb collection of inventive, full-bodied stories representing the very best in American and Canadian fiction.
Established early in the last century as a memorial to the great American short story master O. Henry, throughout its history this annual collection h...
The time is the 1950s. The place is a blue-collar town in upstate New York, where five high school girls are joined in a gang dedicated to pride, power, and vengeance on a world that seems made to denigrate and destroy them. Foxfire is Joyce Carol Oates s strongest and most unsparing novel yet an always engrossing, often shocking evocation of female rage, gallantry, and grit. Here is the secret history of a sisterhood of blood, a haven from a world of male oppressors, marked by a liberating fury that burns too hot to last. Above all, it is the story of Legs Sadovsky, with her lean,...
The time is the 1950s. The place is a blue-collar town in upstate New York, where five high school girls are joined in a gang dedicated to pride, powe...