Faithless : Tales of Transgression - Softcover

Joyce Carol Oates

3.71

1,540 ratings by Goodreads

9781841156477: Faithless : Tales of Transgression

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841156477 ISBN 13: 9781841156477

Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd, 2003

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An enthralling collection of short stories from the National Book Award shortlisted author of 'Blonde' and 'Middle Age'. In this collection of 21 stories, the mysterious private lives of individuals are explored with vivid, unsparing precision and sympathy. By turn interlocutor and interpreter, magician and realist, Joyce Carol Oates dissects the psyches of ordinary people and their potential for good and evil with chilling understatement and lasting power. In 'Faithless' two adult sisters recall their mother's disappearance when they were children; in 'Ugly Girl' a bitterly angry young woman defines herself as ugly as a way of making herself invulnerable to hurt, and in so doing hurts others; in 'Lover' a beautiful woman locked into an obsessive love affair seeks her revenge in a bizarre, violent manner. Intense and provocative, 'Faithless' is a startling look into the heart of contemporary America from the modern master of the short story.

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Review:

Penzler Pick, March 2001: I guess it's no secret that I regard Joyce Carol Oates as one of the great living American writers, both of mystery-crime-suspense fiction and of virtually every other form invented. I previously reviewed Blonde, which went on to be nominated for a National Book Award, and it's my joy to be able to recommend Faithless: Tales of Transgression, the stories within which are about as good as the short story gets. (Full disclosure here, with the admission that I might be a trifle prejudiced in favor of this volume. It is dedicated to Alice Turner, the former fiction editor of Playboy, and to me--largely, I reckon, because several of these stories were written especially for several anthologies of which I was the editor.)

There are 24 stories in this generous volume and while some inevitably linger longer in the memory than others, there is not a dull spot in its nearly 400 pages. The title story is a haunting tale of the disappearance of a woman as recalled by her two daughters, grown now. The ending is utterly expected but, nevertheless, comes as a shock. "The Vampire" is not at all a horror story, at least not in the sense that it involves in any way elements of the supernatural, but has a growing sense of pure terror as the reader comes to see the way in which one person can absorb all the life out of another.

In "The High School Sweetheart: A Mystery," a famous mystery writer reads a speech as he accepts the presidency of the most prestigious of all mystery organizations. The speech is delivered as a piece of fiction that appears to be a confession of a horrific crime committed during his teen years while besotted with a girl two years older than he. When the speech ends, the audience cannot imagine applauding because the story seems so true. Is it?

Once again, the incomparable Joyce Carol Oates has produced a compelling and important volume for the shelves of anyone who cares about distinguished suspense fiction. --Otto Penzler

About the Author:

Joyce Carol Oates is a novelist, critic, playwright, poet and author of short stories and one of America's most highly respected literary figures. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. Her most recent novel, `The Gravedigger's Daughter', was published in 2007.

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