Lovely, dark, deep : stories /
Joyce Carol Oates.
- New York : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2015.
- 420 p. ; 20 cm.
Sex with camel -- Mastiff -- Distance -- A book of martyrs -- "Stephanos is dead" -- The hunter -- The disappearing -- Things passed on the way to oblivion -- Forked river roadside shrine, South Jersey -- The jesters -- Betrayal -- Lovely, dark, deep -- Patricide.
Insightful, disturbing, imaginative, and breathtaking in their lyrical precision, the stories in Lovely, Dark, Deep display Joyce Carol Oatess magnificent ability to make visceral the terror, hurt, and uncertainty that lurks at the edges of ordinary lives. In “Mastiff,” a woman and a man are joined in an erotic bond forged out of terror and gratitude. “Sex with Camel” explores how a sixteen-year-old boy realizes the depth of his love for his grandmotherand how vulnerable those feelings make him. Fearful that that her husband is “disappearing” from their life, a woman becomes obsessed with keeping him in her sight in “The Disappearing.” “A Book of Martyrs” reveals how the end of a pregnancy brings with it the end of a relationship. And in the title story, the elderly Robert Frost is visited by an interviewer, an unsettling young woman, who seems to know a good deal more about his life than she should. A piercing and evocative collection, Lovely, Dark, Deep reveals an artist at the height of her creative power.
9780062356956 : (pbk.)
Authors, American--Collections. Short stories, American. Mystery fiction.