From Publishers Weekly:
The seven stories in this stellar collection from the
prolific Oates (Give Me Your Heart) may prompt the reader to turn
on all the lights or jump at imagined noises. In the excruciating
title tale, a novella subtitled "A Love Story," an adolescent girl
leads two of her friends in the kidnapping of 11-year old Marissa
Bantry to enact the ritual sacrifice of the Corn Maiden as
performed by the Onigara Indians. Children or childhood traumas
play significant roles in "Beersheba," in which a man's past
catches up to him, and "Nobody Knows My Name," in which the birth
of a sibling turns nine-year-old Jessica's world upside down. Twins
figure in both the eerie "Fossil-Figures" and the harrowing
"Death-Cup" with its sly allusions to Edgar Allan Poe's "William
Wilson." In "A Hole in the Head," a plastic surgeon succumbs to a
patient's request for an unusual operation with unexpected results.
This volume burnishes Oates's reputation as a master of
psychological dread. From Kirkus Reviews Seven nightmarish
tales written over a 15-year period. The first and longest story is
the title novella, about Jude Trahern, a precocious and evil
eighth-grader who abducts a fellow classmate, Marissa, to enact a
ritual human sacrifice. Brilliant, charismatic and severely
disturbed, Jude chooses Marissa because of the latter's status as
an outsider, both new to the school and set apart by her
intellectual slowness. Jude enlists two of her friends in the
elaborately planned ceremony, but their enthusiasm begins to wane
as things start to get spookier and it becomes clear that Jude is
serious about following through on the ritual. Meanwhile, Marissa's
mother, Leah, becomes frantic about her missing daughter and starts
to believe in the guilt of Mikal Zallman, a part-time employee at
the school whom Jude has cleverly implicated. The story ends on a
jarring and somewhat surreal note as Leah and Mikal develop a
romantic attachment. Throughout this collection Oates is fascinated
by the idea of doubling, for example in "Death-Cup," in which Lyle
King tries to poison his evil twin Alastor with Amanita mushroom
soup. Alastor is the "evil" brother, successful on the outside but
unscrupulous within, and Lyle finds out that ultimately they can
never be separated. (It's no coincidence that Lyle is designing a
new edition, "with hand-sewn pages and letterpress printing," of
Poe's "William Wilson.") Similarly, in "Fossil-Figures," brothers
Edgar and Edward Waldman mirror opposing sides of the self, while
in the masterful "Beersheba" womanizer Brad gets his comeuppance at
the hands of Stacy Lynn, who at first comes on to him seductively
and then exacts a terrible revenge. While the shadows of Poe and
Hitchcock loom over these tales, it's clear that Oates herself is a
master at creeping out her readers. Praise for Joyce Carol
Oates: "Oates is just a fearless writer ... with her brave
heart and her impossibly lush and dead-on imaginative powers."
--Los Angeles Times "If the phrase 'woman of letters'
existed, Joyce Carol Oates would be, foremost in this country,
entitled to it." --John Updike "What keeps us coming back to Oates
country is her uncanny gift of making the page a window, with
something happening on the other side that we'd swear was life
itself." --The New York Times Book Review "Her genius
happens to be giant." --The Washington Post Book World "No
living American writer echoes the chord of dread plucked by Edgar
Allen Poe quite like Joyce Carol Oates." --The Plain Dealer
(Cleveland)
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