The Goddess and Other Women

by Joyce Carol Oates

Twenty-five stories explore women's struggles to achieve personal identity in a male dominated society despite the molds in which they are cast

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

468 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1966

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

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with any collection of stories, whether from a single author or an anthology, there are hits and misses. I think there were more hits with this one than misses. I've gotten to appreciate Oates's stories and novels over the years which surprises me a bit. In my youth I didn't have the patience for her stories. Whenever they showed up in a mystery or crime anthology I nearly always gave up on them. But I've come around. Her output is tremendous. I think she must put out several books a year, easily. She has a number of story collections to go out and look for, going back decades like this one. The stories in this collection were originally published in the late 60s and into the early 70s. As the title suggests "other women" is the theme. The "women" here range from teenage girls to middle-aged women. There is an undercurrent of rebellion and anger and fear in them. Nearly all are victims, in various ways, of a brutal world indifferent to their safety. The men in these stories are predators, cheaters, racists, bullies and abusers. This book is long out of print, but I wouldn't think copies are too hard to find if you looked. Some favorites here are: "The Girl" about an underground film featuring a beach girl and a biker, "The Goddess" about a husband and wife traveling to an un-named city, staying in a hotel that symbolizes the deterioration of their marriage. "The Voyage to Rosewood" is about a teenager and her failed escape to another city, "A Premature Autobiography" about an aging European composer grooming a young American college student. In them all you could feel the 70s, the current of those days pulling the characters through their lives. I would recommend it to anyone who likes short fiction.

[Jaksen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved it.

Okay some of her characters are totally unlikeable. Some say and do terrible things, but I still like reading about them. And some of her stories just end without any sort of expected resolution at all, but so is life often that way. I thoroughly enjoy reading her short stories and intend to read more of the same by JCO.

[Stephen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Man even the short story collections weren’t safe from what I feel was a stagnation in Oates’ career and this one especially is disappointing since she’s tackling subjects she usually passes with flying colours in and for a good majority sucks the life out of them until they are solid lifeless bricks composed of English sentences.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unease permeates these stories.

[Elisabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Sannie Hald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read 'The Girl' -- Going to read the rest another time.

[Benny Beauch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories in here are really amazing. "Concerning the case of Bobby T", "In The Warehouse", "Ruth", "Narcotic", "The Wheel", "Honeybit", and "Psychiatric Services" (told only through dialogue, by the way) are all examples of a top notch story teller doing her thing.
It took me a very long time to finish this collection though, in part because of it's length, but also because the stories themselves are just so damn disturbing that it's hard to read a bunch in a row. I'd usually read one, and then put the book down for quite a while.
She has an incredible style going on throughout the book, where when your reading it you feel like an anxious demon is whispering to you in your head. You feel jittery, and almost like your stuck in a bad dream, but for whatever morbid curiosity I kept on going. One criticism of her style is that it is extremely verbose, she tries to capture really complicated emotions and feelings throughout this book, and she does this by launching sentences at it to capture them. When it works, and sometimes it does really work, it wraps you up completely, and lifts you along for a manic thrill ride; but when it doesn't work it is just a lot of words that don't seem to need to be there at all.
One thing I've seen, especially from reading reviews of this book, is that sometimes a really harsh review can come not because the book itself is bad, but because the person writing the review has radically different taste from what the book actually is. Say your into mostly teen-age fantasy/magic novels, these dense, disturbing psychological-realist stories likely won't suit you.
But if you like really eerie stories full of complicated characters who sometimes say or do stupid/unlikeable things, and you enjoy dense, psychological prose, then this is definitely a collection you should pick up.

[H.A. Fowler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I confess I've never read any of Ms. Oates books before, something I've been meaning to change for years since she is such a lauded author.

I wish I hadn't started with this book of short stories. It makes me wary of reading anything else by this author. It's not that the writing is bad, it's that it is the most dreary, depressing group of stories I have ever read in my life. It's not dark in a fun way -- it's about swirling around the drain. Rape, other violence, drug overdoses, mental illness, bad marriages, you name a way to have a horrible life, the women in these stories fall victim to it. Not one of them has a hopeful note, a happy ending, the possiblity of things getting better. In fact, most of them don't have "endings" at all. They just drudge along morosely, and then suddenly end.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I enjoy more upbeat stories -- or at least stories that have a beginning, middle, and end. This book just didn't do anything for me. I'll try something else by Ms. Oates and hope for better.

[Dana Filipová · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dramata, která se postupně odvíjejí od jedné situace, záblesku, prozření... i když postupně zjišťujeme, že v osudu je měly “bohyně” i ty druhé vepsány už daleko dříve - to jsou pozoruhodné povídky Joyce Carol Oatesové. Syrové, plné menších i větších násilností, proher, bolestí... Ukazují život z té horší stránky, přesto (nebo právě proto) velmi působivé. A taky skvěle napsané! Pár povídek mi teda úplně nesedlo - proto a pro ten děsnej smutek “jen” čtyři hvězdy.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

The greatest short stories...

[Ellen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible. A series of short stories about women who aren't very smart. Each story revolved around men. Didn't finish reading it. Would not recommend.

[Brittany · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is kind of a lie...didn't finish. Not that the stories were bad - in fact, I enjoyed some of them. Just wasn't in the mood?