Les mystères de Winterthurn

The Gothic Saga #3

by Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Rabinovitch (Translator)

À la fin du XIXe siècle, au manoir de Glen Mawr situé dans la ville de Winterthurn à l’est des États-Unis, vit l’étrange famille Kilgarvan, composée de trois filles : Georgina, l’aînée, appelée la « nonne bleue », et ses deux demi-sœurs qu’elle élève seule, la sage et studieuse Thérèse et la jolie et fantasque Perdita. À l’aube d’une journée de mai, Georgina s’en va en ville acheter cinquante livres de chaux vive. Peu après, on retrouvera le bébé de sa cousine Abigaïl, venue quelques jours en visite, égorgé près du lit de la mère.
Douze ans plus tard, cinq jeunes filles sont retrouvées mortes, atrocement mutilées, près de Winterthurn. Et, douze ans plus tard encore, c’est le pasteur, sa mère et une de ses paroissiennes qui sont sauvagement assassinés à coups de hache. Chaque fois, la clé de ces mystères épouvantables va être la même : jusqu’où ose aller une femme amoureuse ?

Xavier Kilgarvan mène les trois enquêtes avec verve et passion et met toute sa vie dans la résolution de ces crimes. Et l’on suit avec délice les façons de la société du tournant du siècle avec tout ce qu’elle a de suranné et d’hypocrite à force de bienséance.

Genres: Gothic, Mystery, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Horror, Historical, Crime

435 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.

Reviews

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

As part of my recent thought-experiment on Oates’s “Americanness,” I’ve decided to read the several unread JCO books I already own. I read the first two novels in the so-called Gothic Saga too many years ago to remember and I eventually bought its last two books, so I’d remember to read them. Because I have no Goodreads reviews to remind me, I’ve forgotten too much about the first two, though an atmosphere lingers.

Mysteries of Winterthurn takes place in the late-nineteenth into the early-twentieth century. By writing of the (violent, even gory) horror under the surface of a New York village, of what’s exploited and hidden by prominent families, of the community’s rush to judgment and the willingness of the authorities to put the blame on “others,” Oates is commenting on more recent times as well.

Detective Xavier Kilgarvan, a Sherlock Holmes without a Watson, has an existential, philosophical bent. His obsessive love interest, Perdita, being a younger (half-) cousin reminds me of Edgar Allan Poe, whose fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin is also being invoked. I particularly enjoyed a conversation between the cousins when they are in their mid-to-late twenties, her “feminist” chastising of him and his bewildered, clueless responses. By the end of the book, I too was obsessed with Perdita.

In keeping with the Gothic/sensation genre, the writing style is ornate and breathless, though a bit less so when the sometimes-clueless, sometimes-repetitive narrator (a dabbler in unsolved true-crime) adds his prefaces and epilogues. I’m left wondering why I don’t mind JCO’s penchant for exclamation marks, though I’m on record for disliking such a surfeit with other writers.

I was proud of myself for remembering an odd detail from the beginning (it’s a long book!) that might be a clue to the last “mystery.” Oates is always thought-provoking—and I had a lot of thoughts with this one.

[Sarah Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

For, in her writhing distress, in her seemingly excruciating terror, was Perdita not a most wondrous creature, withal?—possessed, like Lilith, of a beauty both unearthly and greedy; blessed with a luxuriant head of hair, and great stark staring eyes, and a mouth that boasted both voluptuousness and icy chastity; her comely female form, squirming eel-like before their gaping eyes, given the greater power of enchantment, as it were, by the brutal contrast it afforded with the chopped and yet-bleeding bodies of the victims, but a floor away—?


This was good, but extremely dense & very slow—even moreso than my previous JCO gothics, The Accursed & Bloodsmoor Romance (both of which were easily rated as 5-stars). Did I enjoy it? YES, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered exerting so much brain power to finish. But do I recommend it? ….*taps fingers*…. That’s a trickier question. It’s ultimately worth the effort due to JCO’s masterful satire & imagery, but there’s very little linear plot or comfortable resolution to the mystery trio—thus, little sense of finality or warming to the characters. As I read this I had two minds: one that greatly appreciated JCO’s skill as an author, but another that wanted to grab the book by its shoulders & shake something loose. Certainly there were slower sections in Accursed & Bloodsmoor, but there was also a security that the dull sections would finish & interest would resume accordingly. This one lacks that sense of assurance, & I can’t put my finger on why. But it does force me to label Winterthurn as Challenging PostModern Pastiche Slog(tm), & I feel like that’s a disservice to the better parts.

…Apologies for that vague & meandering paragraph, but it’s the best I can do. 😶 This book defies reviewing as much as it defies linear plot or solid resolution—everything about it is slippery, from the mysteries themselves to the bizarre maybe-otherworldly happenings to the psychological motivations of the cast. Nothing feels grounded, everything feels elusive;** there are so many layers & subtexts & subtleties & switchback hairpin turns that it’s impossible to be comfortable in these pages. But I really loved the Virgin in the Rose-Bower case, & also the way imagery/suggestion from that section carries over into the others—the duality & symmetry in this novel are exquisite, & I’ve no doubt there are details which demand rereading to fully appreciate.


**The exception being Thérèse, who’s labeled the most “spiritual” or ethereal of the central trio, but in fact is the most sensible & reliable lens for everything that goes on around her.

PS. I love the reissued cover art—so harmless, yet so grotesque.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, it was a wild read...very intense at times, I could not put it down, I stayed up way too many nights late reading it! It was over the top creepy and beautifully written too...if you can imagine, an odd combo, beauty and creepy, not quite a 'you got chocolate in my peanut butter'...it's one of those combined flavors you've never had before and not sure if you're gonna like...which is a typical JCO novel. There are books that are an acquired taste and some books require a reader to have the flexibility to read them with an open mind and welcome the writing as it is and not go into it with preconceived notions set in concrete...and take an unexpected journey into a story unlike anything you've read before...that is the beauty of books.

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had initially thought I would enjoy this book which is a trilogy of shorter tales rather than a novel, although there are connecting characters and an underlying theme. The hero, only 16 at the start, is an engaging young would-be detective Xavier Kilgarvan, whose heroes include Sherlock Holmes. A horrifying case occurs at a mansion belonging to another branch of his family - where two uncles live and the three daughters of the eldest, both being brothers of his father. Xavier's father has been disinherited and ostracised by the rest of the family, and as the stories progress the general consensus is that this was unjust.

Xavier falls for his young cousin Perdita, one of the three daughters in question, and his life is governed by his unceasing passion for her despite her faithless and generally sociopathic behaviour. Meanwhile he remains oblivious to the unrequited love of her sister Therese, who is good-natured, intelligent and self-sacrificing.

The first story is a tragedy, where Xavier keeps secret the solution given the scandal it would cause the other branch of the family. Although it is effectively spooky in places, it is rather a cheat in that the detective genre which this supposedly fits into (the author's afterword makes it clear that in her five gothic novels she tackled particular genres, and the detective-mystery genre was the target here), it has a solution which would never be contemplated in any genuine story of the genre since it is entirely supernatural.

In the second story, echoes of Jack the Ripper and similar serial murders are evoked. Xavier is now twenty-eight, and lives in New York where he makes a successful living as a detective, but he returns to Winterthurn to try to track down the killer. He soon knows who it is, but his difficulty is in proving it. The reader also knows early on if they picked up on the MO used to kill a certain character's sister in the first story. The case ends ignominiously for Xavier when the killer presents a supernatural excuse for his crimes in court, and it is Xavier's own family who end up suffering, with him being cut off by his own parents as a result. He now seems permanently estranged from Perdita also, and she informs him of her decision to marry a good Christian man who will counteract her perceived inner evil.

In the final story, Xavier is having a midlife crisis as his fortieth birthday approaches. He responds to an anonymous summons back to Winterthurn and arrives shortly after a gruesome triple murder at the vicarage which, over time, leads directly to the rekindling of his relationship with the now widowed Perdita. Xavier is convinced of the killer's identity, pursues him, and eventually the community is also convinced he is right - yet he suffers an existential crisis and lives at a friend's for months, sunk in depression. There is a supposed happy ending for Perdita and he, and yet I couldn't help thinking that the real killer was much closer to home given certain clues dropped into the story. I found myself growing increasingly impatient with Xavier, especially in the final story. I also felt sorry for the ever faithful Therese, although her eventual 'settling' for a good man was probably the best thing she could have done.

The stories are held together by the interjections of an editor who in some places has omniscient insight into the thoughts of the characters - even those who die immediately afterwards without passing on those thoughts to anyone - and yet at other times is totally ignorant of what happened (a case in point being the 'quicksand' episode in the second story). The style is also a very laboured pastiche of 19th century style, not seen in actual classic novels, and in any case inappropriate - the editor makes it clear that he or she is writing some time after the last case which occurred shortly before WWI. So a more appropriate style would be something along the lines of Erskine Childers' "Riddles in the Sand" or even Agatha Christie whose first novel was published in 1920, not this laboured cod-Victoriana. All in all, I found this book rather a disappointment and am therefore rating it at an OK 2 stars.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the 1980s, Joyce Carol Oates set out to write what she called her Gothic series. Only three of the five were published in that decade: Bellefleur, A Bloodsmoor Romance, and this one: Mysteries of Winterthurn. I have now read all three.

[The remaining two were revised and published later: My Heart Laid Bare in 1998, which I have not read yet, and The Accursed in 2013, which I have read though when I did I had no idea it was originally written in 1981-1982 under the title The Crosswicks Horror.]

So, Mysteries of Winterthurn, which JCO says has always been her favorite of the five, is a Gothic mystery/detective novel. It covers three cases solved by her detective hero, Xavier Kilgaran.

I suppose one could say that any novel by Joyce Carol Oates is a challenging read, but I found this one to be particularly so. Under the guise of an "Editor" who introduces each section and purports to tell all, she does not really do so. One is required to read between the lines, as though the reader is herself a detective solving these crimes along with Xavier.

The writing style is, as in all these Gothic novels, an almost parody of the late 19th century prose found in novels and diaries of that time. The upper classes, steeped in Christian concepts, raised under immutable manners, rarely say what they mean. Too many things are "unmentionable," especially when it comes to women, sex, childbearing and the "unspeakable" ways women were treated.

Once I cracked the code, as it were, I learned to read between the lines and made my fascinated way through a story that is also a reflection of 20th, even 21st century American life. The power of money, the rule of men, the prejudices held hard in peoples' hearts, the incompetence of police and lawyers and courts, the politics and capitalism that underlies all. Xavier is constantly at odds with these factors.

I have been aware all along while reading JCO, that this is her territory but I really see that clearly now. While she has her very own particular take on these things, it is nevertheless a mirror she holds up to the reader; an almost magical mirror that takes us through the looking-glass of modern life.

[The Wee Hen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read this book back when I was a spring chicken and I was confused, entranced and mystified by it. Many years later I found it a bit less thrilling, but probably because I have been rather maxed out by the genre and what I once took to heart I now saw as satire so overwrought I wanted to fling it across the room.
Oates' prolific, formidable, intimidating and brilliant catalogue is unassailable and I'm not interested in assailing her. Who am I to tilt at that career? But this book feels like one is being played with, winked at and denied satisfaction just because the author felt entitled to do it. In the end, the one character who clings throughout the book to Truth, Right, and Fairness accepts a compromise so soul-damaging that I no longer believed in any of it at all.
She presents us with three mysteries and a detective so committed to solving them and so strong in the face of frustration you can't help but fall in love with Xavier Kilgarven. And the mysteries are fascinating. But they feel like exercises in a writing challenge more than they feel like mysteries that are a pleasure to read. Oates denies the reader any justice at all, indeed, in one case, any answers at all. Which feels like manipulation, especially considering we are pulled through such tortured, overwritten 19th century sentence structure that one feels one deserves at least some explanation for all one's work. If you are a fan of page-long sentences that expound upon one thought for the trouble, then you will love this book!
It's a magnificent piece of work, but sometimes you just want the magnificence to back off and a little clarity might satisfy.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took me an inordinate amount of time to read, for various reasons. A dense and frantic prose (Oates' frenetic and florid style is slathered on every page like a thick rich literary spread).

Contains three murder 'mysteries' solved by the persistent and disturbed Xavier Kilgarvan.

Not an easy read, but a rewarding one.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't like most Gothic novels and I don't really like the supernatural in novels, so I'm not sure why I originally purchased this, but it was next to be read on my physical TBR shelf, and a rule is a rule, so I read it.

The Mysteries of Winterthurn is basically three Victorian crime novellas all featuring the same detective, Xavier Kilgarvan, at different points in his life. The first takes place when he is 16, and somewhat creepily, falls in love with his 12 year old half-cousin. The last takes place when he is 40 and he finally gets to marry his cousin (her name is Perdita and according to Google translate this means lost in Italian).

The mysteries are not just about murders, but about the dark underbelly of late 19th, early 20th century American society. Oates has used these novels to comment on any number of issues of this era, that still exist in the dark underbelly of early 21st century American society. Nothing much has changed.

Oates has totally immersed herself in this genre and style of writing. The writing is in the style of Victorian era writing (I think) and it is very ornate. Unfortunately, I don't much like this style of writing, and a little bit goes a long way (and this novel is over 600 pages long). However, the long sentences, long tangents, and long parenthetical expressions, worked perfectly for a long plane ride and sitting on the balcony overlooking the city of San Jose, CR.

So I enjoyed this, but I won't look for the others in her Gothic series. The style just doesn't suit me.

3.5

[DeAnna Knippling · Rating 5 out of 5]

A young detective investigates three mysteries whose solutions are dark and unwelcome, and which risk destroying his soul!

This has been my favorite of the author's gothics so far (gothic satires?). The structure is halfway between a family saga and three lurid mystery cases. In each, the solution seems to mock both mystery and gothic conventions, and to mock them so well that they outdo the usual run of both mysteries and gothics.

Okay, this book is a bit clever; the author was definitely showing off. I still found it an enjoyable read.

Recommended for fans of mysteries and gothics; you probably won't catch the satire unless you're well-versed in both, but I think it'll still be a fun read.

[Anne Hawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read the first two books in this combined novel. I have to say I have been disappointed. There are so many loose ends in the books and so much is left to the reader to explain. I understand that the author started from the idea that crimes do not all have tidy endings, but some major plot elements, even ones that lead to the conclusion are just left dangling. I could write a "locked-room" mystery if I didn't have to explain how the murder was committed or who did it, and I am not a writer. I expected more from this author and I think if this were her first novel, it would never have been published.

There are vivid characters and plot elements that are developed and concluded, so the books are not a total waste, it is just better to go into them prepared that to keep expecting that everything will be revealed.

I have finished the third book in the series and I can't say that I am much more enlightened. I understand the third book and perhaps the ending, but a part of me wants to say, "What was the point?" There may be some who like mysteries written like this, but I am not one of them. This was pretty much a waste of time...and the waste of a good story. By that, I mean that there was a good plot going if it had just come to a better conclusion. I felt like I should give this 3 stars because Oates is such a good writer, but I just can't...so, alas, it's two.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The third in JCO's gothic saga, this novel follows Xavier Kilgarvan, the detective-hero, through three baffling cases, all in Winterthurn, the place he was born. Xavier's first case, "The Virgin in the Rose-Bower", coincides with his awakening adolescent passion for his distant cousin, Perdita. His investigation takes him to Glen Mawr Manor, home of the "rich" Kilgarvans. A series of gruesome murders have occurred by night in the locked Honeymoon Room. Along with solving the case, Xavier uncovers a scandalous family secret. In "The Devil's Half-Acre" case, Xavier is now 28, and a detective of professional status. He is confronted with solving a series of brutal murders of local factory girls. Xavier's efforts to have the true murderer convicted have disquieting consequences. The results of his courtship of Perdita are disquieting, too. Then, at the age of 40, and at the very height of his fame, Xavier withdraws from the profession of crime detection after his obsessive struggle to solve the mystery of "The Bloodstained Bridal Gown". Xavier is tested to his very limit, but manages to unravel the grisly triple murder and to resolve his passion for the enigmatic Perdita.

This novel dragged a bit in the middle for me, but Xavier's first and last cases I found fascinating. Took a long time to finish this, which is unusual for me, but I'm glad I didn't give up.

[Gary Siebert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't decide whether or not I liked the main character, Xavier Kilgarvan, which probably means he carries all the imperfections of being human. Set as three stories from his childhood, young adulthood, and middle-age, Kilgarvan is an American Sherlock Holmes (with more than a few sly swipes at Sir A.C. Doyle by the author). The mysteries each have a whiff of the supernatural, but are really tales of natural passions gone awry. The book is written in a gothic style that is sometimes too tedious. There are satisfying moments of wit and wisdom about life and mortality that were worth underlining. Not the best of Oates' work, but a good read.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even if you are not a JCO fan, I recommend her Gothic series which as the author describes it are a sequence of “genre” novels linked by political, cultural, moral (especially “feminist”) themes. Mysteries of Winterthurn consists of three cases taken on by our protagonist Xavier Kilgarvan in varying stages of his detective career, as he pines after his half-cousin Perdita. “The Virgin in the Rose-Bower” is a 5-star Gothic masterpiece that sets an incredibly eerie mood. The second case, “Devil’s Half Acre,” is the longest and is more of a procedural - by far the least compelling. This ends with “The Blood-Stained Gown” which is subtle but rewarding in what it reveals about Perdita. Like the previous work A Bloosmoor Romance, this is a little too long and meanders too much, but a satisfying read.

[Okenwillow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joyce Carol Oates nous propose avec Les mystères de Winterthurn un roman aux accents gothiques délicieusement prononcés, mais nous surprend par sa forme inattendue et tout à fait originale. L’action se déroule à la fin du XIXe siècle, dans l’est des États-Unis, et nous plonge dans l’intimité d’une famille déchirée donc les trois héritières auront un bien étrange et tragique destin.
Xavier, jeune rejeton de la branche « coupée » des Kilgarvan, démarre précocement une carrière de détective en enquêtant secrètement sur les mystères de sa propre famille, dont ses trois cousines sont les principales protagonistes. La mort frappe plusieurs fois chez les Kilgarvan et au fil des ans, une aura de mystères et de superstition plane sur Winterthurn et intrigue le jeune Xavier, qui reviendra des années plus tard sur les lieux dans le cadre d’une autre affaire de meurtres violents. Devenu détective, Xavier mènera l’enquête jusqu’au bout, avec plus ou moins de succès et de clairvoyance. La dernière partie du roman met à nouveau en scène les cousines de Xavier, qui revient cette fois avec une réputation et une expérience de détective confirmé, pour enquêter sur des meurtres particulièrement sanglants, et dans laquelle sa cousine secrètement aimée sera impliquée.
Trois affaires sordides, une ambiance fortement teintée de fantastique mais pas trop, une famille qui cache bien des choses, et des personnages nimbés de mystère, tout les ingrédients sont rassemblés pour une triple intrigue qui garde le lecteur en alerte jusqu’à la fin. Les mystères de Winterthurn est un roman gothico-fantastico-noir, dans lequel bon nombre de questions reste dans réponses, où l’imaginaire du lecteur est sollicité d’un bout à l’autre. Les mystères de Winterthurn restent entiers.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

J.C. in her mid-1980s experiment in Gothic Romance. Here she tries her hand at murder mysteries, three, scattered over 20 years, in a small upstate New York city, full of self-satisfied Episcopalians who, of course, hide all sorts of demented, psychotic tendencies. The prose is over-ripe, lush, occasionally ludicrous, but generally self-aware that it is ludicrous, and done for the Gothic effect. The focus is on hometown boy Xavier Kilgarvan, unhealthily fixated on his emotionally distant cousin Perdita (she who is lost). Xavier becomes a noted private investigator, though his investigatory efforts in Winterthurn end up either foiled or so self-involving that Xavier has a breakdown.
I sort of liked the second and third stories, though I have no idea what the hell the first one was about. Picked up the book at a yard sale, decided to try it, remembering that I liked a previous Gothic experiment, Bloodsmoor Romance, I think. This one was more laborious, and the whole narrative conceit I found offputting and really not that successful (some unidentified authorial voice chooses to tell Xavier's story, though he seems to be omniscient, revealing conversations, etc. that he had to fabricate. the other strange conceit is that Xavier almost immediately intuits the real culprit, and then has to play cat-and-mouse as he tries to conjure up the evidence to prove his a priori assumptions.
I will remember the nutty rich guy who goes slumming in South Winterthurn and murders poor working girls for fun. I will remember Xavier's father, the maker of exotic toys, and his uncle, the philosopher who writes turgid, unreadable metaphysics. I will remember the preposterous axe murders on the third tale.

[Bal · Rating 1 out of 5]

Numbingly boring
First portion, first mystery was somewhat engaging, but the second was simply unreadable... Predictable, too, And not mysterious. Is there anyone who didn't suspect the culprit(s)? Skim read enough to confirm my suspicions. Did not go on to third mystery in the book.

Was interested in Oates' Gothic series. Struggled through The Accursed... Crashed and burned with Winterthurn.

Continuing to delve into Gothic fiction, but won't be returning to Oates.

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

For readers who like them gory and garish.
A thriller complete with a hellish, romantic hero. The secrets of Winterthurn are dark and violent. Evil grips the town smothering its first families in a demonic spell. Lurid, bloody, shocking.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oates takes the conventions of mystery writing and mystery reading and gives them a good solid shaking. A fascinating read, never going where you expect it to. Solutions are for suckers.

[Steve Shilstone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gothic murders creep about upstate New York three times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Presented in somewhat self-defeating pseudo-Victorian prose.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oates at her finest: witty, droll, excessively romantic, hilariously bleak, exuberant. You can practically hear her chuckling at the keyboard. I adore her highly-stylized, em-dash & italics-laden Victorian posturing; one gets the idea that JCO actually loves the 19th century, that she is, at heart, a gothic heroine.

A big recommend for anyone turned on by Hysteria, ampersands, & overwrought prose.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both a wholly sincere Gothic novel and a satire of 19th-century American culture

[Michael Ritchie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three post-modernist Gothic (Oates' own words) detective stories featuring Xavier Kilgarvan trying to solve three murder cases, or, more to the point, find justice. They are set in the past and Oates writes in a highly exaggerated old-fashioned style, with italics and long sidebar paragraphs and purple prose, and for a while, her style alone makes this delightful. But midway through the second story, I began to tire of the language, and I almost put the book down. However, I was in the middle of a 6-week period of recovery from a hip replacement so I kept picking it up. I am glad I finished it, even if it's not a totally satisfactory read. The narrator leaves scenes unfinished, and bops back and forth between seeming to know all the details of the cases while at other times claiming ignorance. As you might expect from a postmodern detective work, not all the cases are explained away fully, though in each case, the reader can identify the murderer--I think. This makes me want to revisit Bellefleur, an earlier Oates Gothic which I loved when I read it way back in 1980.

[Dianne Laheurte · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, I've finished reading Joyce Carol Oates' Mysteries of Winterthurn! Wow! It was like I was reading a book which was truly written in the 1880's, not the 1980's, so that was pretty cool how JCO pulled that off. The narrator bounced all over, from past to present and future, but that is part of the charm and mystery... Reality vs supernatural, love and loss, and everything in between. It's not what I would normally read, but as I really enjoyed JCO's more modern Freaky Green Eyes, I was very happy to be challenged by Lonesome Reader aka Eric Karl Anderson to read this! I felt like I was there like a fly on the wall. Now, I must read more JCO!!!!

[Lila · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Oates' explorations of genre fiction; this one focuses on the detective mystery. There are three novellas in this book that address the themes of the repression of women and justice inequalities. The first "The Virgin in the Rose-Bower," plays with elements of the Southern Gothic with echoes of William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" and the topic of incest. The "Devil's Half Acre" addresses antisemitism. "The Blood-Stained Gown" plays with doppelgänger elements and miscegenation. This is an interesting exercise, but one that can be engrossing in some parts, but a slog in others.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Without a doubt Oates is a great writer, but this collection of stories left me dissatisfied. I almost quit reading it on several occasions, but I persevered because I expected something great to happen. Sadly, it never did. About half way through I began to think it was a satire, but if it was I missed the meaning.

[Judith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a trilogy. I found her writing in this book to be difficult to keep up with and it took me just too long to finish this book. The second two stories were better than the first; however, she just uses too many words to say nothing.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

At first I enjoyed Oates' attempt at writing in 19th century English, but the plot wore thin, and at the end of the first part of the trilogy, I stopped.

[Brenda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written of course but a bit of a slog

[Rgrice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and ambiguous Gothic tale. Atmospherically on target!

[Susan Gabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but a little bit of a slog.