A young woman tumbles into a nightmare of decadent desire and corrupted innocence in a superb novella of suspense from National Book Awardwinner Joyce Carol Oates. Art and arson, the poetry of D. H. Lawrence and pulp pornography, hero-worship and sexual debasement, totems and taboos mix and mutate into a startling, suspenseful tale of how a sunny New England college campus descends into a lurid nightmare. "A small gem.... Oates does not disappoint, nor does she waste a word."The Washington Post Book World Oates often takes on sensational subject matter ... yet rarely has she done so with the...