Sourland: Stories
Starred Review* Oates is a master of the dark tale—stories of the hunted and the hunter, of violence, trauma, and deep psychic wounds. Brilliant in her disclosure of the workings of minds under threat, Oates also possesses a heightened sense of the body's expressiveness, from a man's gait to the smell of his breath to the strength of his grip to the intensity of his stare. Oates grows more insightful, virtuosic, and audacious in her confrontations with fear, pain, and death. Her latest stories of sexual mayhem, family crisis, and shattered identity are barely contained beasts of narration, snorting, pawing, and pulling against the confines of the page. Consider all the adult males preying on innocent girls; or the vicious former model with her “sword-like legs” and poisonous narcissism in “Bonobo Momma”; or the glamorous, young, disabled, and dangerous librarian in “Amputee.” Oates has added a new player to her troupe: the in-shock widow, women who feel exposed and fragile after their male protectors abruptly die, as in “Probate,” a lacerating story of sorrow, absurdity, and breakdown, and “Pumpkin-Head” and “Sourland,” explicit tales of bloodlust and the ecstasy and agony of terror and submission. This is a trenchant book of “cruel fairy tales” in which people are severely tested, profoundly punished, and tragically transformed. --Donna Seaman
-Booklist
Comments
adding this to my to-read list
Me too -this one and The Orange Eats Creeps. Haven't read that but it seems like a big one to read. I have so many in the queue, though -I have to catch up.