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Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Selected Early Stories
Joyce Carol Oates's selected early stories. Oates has chosen twenty-seven of her early stories, many of them O. Henry Award and/or Best American Short Story selections, for this volume, the only collection of her early stories available.
Hardcover
First published October 1, 1966
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About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
853 books9,603 followersJoyce 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 447 reviews
June 12, 2023
Read with The Short Story Club
Creepy, Creepy, wow. Really good short story about a young girl and a predator. Their conversation gave me chills on my spine.
Creepy, Creepy, wow. Really good short story about a young girl and a predator. Their conversation gave me chills on my spine.
June 7, 2023
This is a subtly horrible story - which is a tribute to Oates’ writing.
“She knew she was pretty and that was everything.”
It’s 1966 and 15-year old Connie likes hanging out with friends at the mall parking lot to meet boys. When not there, she mooches around, dreaming of boys she’s met.
“All the boys fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent pounding of the music and the humid night air of July.”
Her father is away at work most of the time. Her older sister is dull but with a steady job their mother praises. Sometimes Connie wishes her nagging mother dead, although she happily takes advantage of her gullibility and lack of curiosity. Typical teen stuff.
“Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearing music in her head.”
Music is important to Connie and is always in the background of the story itself, which is dedicated to Bob Dylan.
Teens in car parks can go either way. It was fairly innocent fun in Grease, for example, but from early on, there’s a sinister undercurrent here. Ultimately, it was painfully, pleasingly, hauntingly ambiguous.
Having discussed it in the group (see below) and read around the story, Oates probably expected readers to infer one specific ending. I prefer “my” version.
Image: Scene from “Grease”, in a parking lot (Source)
Major
Short story club
I reread this as one of the stories in The Art of the Short Story, by Dana Gioia, from which I'm aiming to read one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 2 May 2022.
You can read this story here.
You can join the group here.
“She knew she was pretty and that was everything.”
It’s 1966 and 15-year old Connie likes hanging out with friends at the mall parking lot to meet boys. When not there, she mooches around, dreaming of boys she’s met.
“All the boys fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent pounding of the music and the humid night air of July.”
Her father is away at work most of the time. Her older sister is dull but with a steady job their mother praises. Sometimes Connie wishes her nagging mother dead, although she happily takes advantage of her gullibility and lack of curiosity. Typical teen stuff.
“Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearing music in her head.”
Music is important to Connie and is always in the background of the story itself, which is dedicated to Bob Dylan.
Teens in car parks can go either way. It was fairly innocent fun in Grease, for example, but from early on, there’s a sinister undercurrent here. Ultimately, it was painfully, pleasingly, hauntingly ambiguous.
Having discussed it in the group (see below) and read around the story, Oates probably expected readers to infer one specific ending. I prefer “my” version.
Image: Scene from “Grease”, in a parking lot (Source)
Major
Short story club
I reread this as one of the stories in The Art of the Short Story, by Dana Gioia, from which I'm aiming to read one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 2 May 2022.
You can read this story here.
You can join the group here.
June 2, 2023
This short story is only the second piece of writing I have read by this author. Some years ago I read We Were the Mulvaneys which unfortunately I did not review, but I remember not liking much. I felt like trying something else by her.
I found Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? to be gripping, scary and totally ambiguous. At the same time it was beautifully written as the suspense rose and continued to rise during the confrontation between fifteen year old Connie and the suspiciously named Arnold Friend. Apparently Friend was based on a real criminal but the way the author writes this character makes him sound like someone who would be very much at home in a Stephen King novel. Hence the gripping and scary!
The story leaves the reader to decide what happened next. I feared the worst.
I found Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? to be gripping, scary and totally ambiguous. At the same time it was beautifully written as the suspense rose and continued to rise during the confrontation between fifteen year old Connie and the suspiciously named Arnold Friend. Apparently Friend was based on a real criminal but the way the author writes this character makes him sound like someone who would be very much at home in a Stephen King novel. Hence the gripping and scary!
The story leaves the reader to decide what happened next. I feared the worst.
December 29, 2023
A chilling short story of Joyce Carol Oates from her short story collection ‘Where are you going, Where have you been?’ It is a sort of story which invoked in me long forgotten fears. Thank you, Cecily, for posting the story at your review to copy for those who are interested to read it.
June 2, 2020
I’ve owned this book for a long time, but for the longest time had only (re)read the title story. Recently, someone had mentioned a specific passage from the story, so I went to this volume to look for it and ended up rereading the whole story. At the same time, I’d also heard of a couple of Oates’ retellings, a Chekhov and a James Joyce, that happen to be included here as well; I read those. Looking at the table-of-contents, I figured her “The Turn of the Screw” would be a retelling of the Henry James, but it’s actually an envisioning of James’s possible inspiration for his novella of the same name. I enjoyed these; also fascinating is a story called “Daisy,” an imagining of the relationship between Joyce and his daughter (using different names). Shortly after that, I turned to the beginning of the book and read the rest chronologically, one per night.
Hopping around like that is not usually how I read a collection, but it worked for me this time. I think I’d been daunted by the size of the volume and awhile back I’d grown tired of Oates, which is wont to happen with writers I’ve read so much of and who are so prolific. Yet each story satisfied my short-story reading-soul, despite a bit of impatience at a bit of repetition and verbosity in a few, and also excepting one story I wasn’t impressed with and no longer remember. A couple of the other stories seemed vaguely familiar, as if I’ve read them before and maybe I have.
Hopping around like that is not usually how I read a collection, but it worked for me this time. I think I’d been daunted by the size of the volume and awhile back I’d grown tired of Oates, which is wont to happen with writers I’ve read so much of and who are so prolific. Yet each story satisfied my short-story reading-soul, despite a bit of impatience at a bit of repetition and verbosity in a few, and also excepting one story I wasn’t impressed with and no longer remember. A couple of the other stories seemed vaguely familiar, as if I’ve read them before and maybe I have.
June 12, 2016
Shades of Flannery O'Connor with this white knuckle title story that will have you squirming. Not recommended for young ladies who are home alone.
July 2, 2023
The title is a question for the reader. Where are you going, Where have you been, and Why did you bring this sadistic child murderer home with you?
The story begins with threats and manipulation “Gonna get you, baby” which never escalates to the physical level. It centers around a stranger who knows the kind of intimate details that couldn’t even be found on the internet about his victim’s life.
Then it all turns out to be the daydream of a girl who feels powerless about her destiny, which appears to me as a glimpse into the mind of a victim. “Your daddy’s house is nothing but a cardboard box that I can knock down anytime”
The story begins with threats and manipulation “Gonna get you, baby” which never escalates to the physical level. It centers around a stranger who knows the kind of intimate details that couldn’t even be found on the internet about his victim’s life.
Then it all turns out to be the daydream of a girl who feels powerless about her destiny, which appears to me as a glimpse into the mind of a victim. “Your daddy’s house is nothing but a cardboard box that I can knock down anytime”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 30, 2023
Connie is a typical fifteen-year-old girl of the 1960s who enjoys meeting boys, and gets her values from the popular music on her favorite radio station. She stays home alone on a Sunday afternoon while her family goes to a barbecue. A man that she has seen at a fast food joint drives up her long driveway. The story gets more and more suspenseful as this pervert talks to her through the kitchen screen door. We can only imagine what this creepy, evil man is planning. Author Joyce Carol Oates does a superb job of slowly ramping up the tension in this tale about the loss of innocence. This story freaked me out because it was written so well. (These are my thoughts about the title story only.)
October 17, 2022
I came across this book yesterday in my library and read the title story.
In 1985 or 86 I saw this movie called “Smooth Talk” on PBS, if I remember it correctly. I had recorded it. Laura Dern was a new actress and played a 15 year old girl. I was 15 at the time.
It was a time where I wanted to be grown up but couldn’t possibly comprehend what that really meant. At the time time I never wanted to abandon the safety of my family & my home.
I watched this movie countless times & it opening my eyes to how quickly innocence & safety could be lost. It wasn’t the coming of age film I’d come to expect. It tread the line of horror and how all could go wrong instead.
What I didn’t know then is that the movie has a different ending. This Oates short story, written in 1966, is based on/inspired by the Tucson Murders by Charles Schmid. The movie had a profound impact on me then & I had never forgotten it.
Since learning the real story ended differently I’ve been chilled to the bone. I can’t stop thinking about it all: the story, the movie, who I was then, who I am now, what I’ve learned since and my 16 year old daughter.
This story is chilling, relatable & timeless.
I’ll rewatch the movie again this week. If you get a chance check it out.
In 1985 or 86 I saw this movie called “Smooth Talk” on PBS, if I remember it correctly. I had recorded it. Laura Dern was a new actress and played a 15 year old girl. I was 15 at the time.
It was a time where I wanted to be grown up but couldn’t possibly comprehend what that really meant. At the time time I never wanted to abandon the safety of my family & my home.
I watched this movie countless times & it opening my eyes to how quickly innocence & safety could be lost. It wasn’t the coming of age film I’d come to expect. It tread the line of horror and how all could go wrong instead.
What I didn’t know then is that the movie has a different ending. This Oates short story, written in 1966, is based on/inspired by the Tucson Murders by Charles Schmid. The movie had a profound impact on me then & I had never forgotten it.
Since learning the real story ended differently I’ve been chilled to the bone. I can’t stop thinking about it all: the story, the movie, who I was then, who I am now, what I’ve learned since and my 16 year old daughter.
This story is chilling, relatable & timeless.
I’ll rewatch the movie again this week. If you get a chance check it out.
August 25, 2023
I have read many reviews about this short story that provided so much valuable context with songs, biblical insights, etc.
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I have no background knowledge of this short story per se, but what I can tell you is that reading this story has been a horrifying experience, whilst I was trembling for this inexperienced, 15-years-old girl, Connie, and I was wishing for an unexpected rescue of her abysmal situation.
Superb writing that sucks you right into the 60’s. It’ll have you hang out with Connie in front of the mall, whilst you tread through her teenage thoughts, leading onto the porch of her family‘s house, where she is trying to get her way out of a monster’s focus.
The cause for this horrific situation that Connie faces can be rooted back to her broken mother-daughter-relationship. The latter is an omnipresent topic over decades and centuries that hasn’t been sufficiently explored in novels and stories in my opinion. Allegedly, the strongest love relationship that shapes minds and futures could well be our misery or our chance in life.
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I have no background knowledge of this short story per se, but what I can tell you is that reading this story has been a horrifying experience, whilst I was trembling for this inexperienced, 15-years-old girl, Connie, and I was wishing for an unexpected rescue of her abysmal situation.
Superb writing that sucks you right into the 60’s. It’ll have you hang out with Connie in front of the mall, whilst you tread through her teenage thoughts, leading onto the porch of her family‘s house, where she is trying to get her way out of a monster’s focus.
The cause for this horrific situation that Connie faces can be rooted back to her broken mother-daughter-relationship. The latter is an omnipresent topic over decades and centuries that hasn’t been sufficiently explored in novels and stories in my opinion. Allegedly, the strongest love relationship that shapes minds and futures could well be our misery or our chance in life.
February 9, 2017
"'The place where you came from ain't there any more, and where you had in mind to go is cancelled out. This place you are now- inside your daddy's house- is nothing but a cardboard box I can knock down any time. You know that and always did know it. You hear me?'"
This is a really creepy little story about the duality of the teenaged mind and the vulnerability that comes along with that. So much tension is excellently built up over the course of the plot, and so much is told about in Connie that her seemingly illogical actions make sense. Because of her yearning for freedom, she makes a pivotal decision that we never find out the outcome for, but one can only assume she's just put herself into a really bad situation.
Again, this is a great story about the teenaged mind and how easily it can be taken advantage of.
This is a really creepy little story about the duality of the teenaged mind and the vulnerability that comes along with that. So much tension is excellently built up over the course of the plot, and so much is told about in Connie that her seemingly illogical actions make sense. Because of her yearning for freedom, she makes a pivotal decision that we never find out the outcome for, but one can only assume she's just put herself into a really bad situation.
Again, this is a great story about the teenaged mind and how easily it can be taken advantage of.
Want to read
August 3, 2013I've read the title story but I'm not sure what other (early) stories of hers I've read. Liked that story, though Joyce Carol Oates' stuff is sometimes so edgy and raw it's like trying to swallow razor blades.
March 19, 2017
No stars. This is literally my least favorite thing I've read in my entire life. It gave me 300000 nightmares.
I might consider that a good thing, except the story is just an allegory about virginal purity. The brilliant symbolism here? Her house is a vagina. Her house. Is a vagina. HE is a metaphor for a dick. Do you know how fucked up this story is?
Also, terrifying me about the possibility of rape? Not something that deserves any stars whatsoever.
God, I feel gross even talking about this. Never ever recommended.
I might consider that a good thing, except the story is just an allegory about virginal purity. The brilliant symbolism here? Her house is a vagina. Her house. Is a vagina. HE is a metaphor for a dick. Do you know how fucked up this story is?
Also, terrifying me about the possibility of rape? Not something that deserves any stars whatsoever.
God, I feel gross even talking about this. Never ever recommended.
April 22, 2021
Una maravilla de cuento. Quién lo quiera leer, os lo paso. Ultimamente se ha puesto de actualidad porque se ha reeditado la adaptación cinematográfica que se hizo en 1985, una adaptación muy fiel y casi perfecta, que os recomiendo. Pero primero el cuento:
https://www.literatura.us/idiomas/jco...
https://www.literatura.us/idiomas/jco...
March 14, 2022
5 stars
This review is just for the short story of the same title. It left such a mark on me back when I first read it in high school. I randomly think about this on multiple occasions as well as sometimes having to indulge in watching the film adaptation "Smooth Talk".
This is entirely some of my worst fears, and in a way as such as listening to true crime podcasts and documentaries—this short story has a calming effect to my nerves on the grounds of being able to assess odd behaviors and mannerisms to keep me out of danger.
Arnold Friend is FRIGHTENING, and Connie really didn't stand any chance against him. The short story ends leaving the mind of the reader to wander and decide what happens to Connie. Insinuation points to nothing good.
This review is just for the short story of the same title. It left such a mark on me back when I first read it in high school. I randomly think about this on multiple occasions as well as sometimes having to indulge in watching the film adaptation "Smooth Talk".
This is entirely some of my worst fears, and in a way as such as listening to true crime podcasts and documentaries—this short story has a calming effect to my nerves on the grounds of being able to assess odd behaviors and mannerisms to keep me out of danger.
Arnold Friend is FRIGHTENING, and Connie really didn't stand any chance against him. The short story ends leaving the mind of the reader to wander and decide what happens to Connie. Insinuation points to nothing good.
November 14, 2011
Oates has me convinced that I’m in the story with her characters, they are standing next to me and I can feel their fear, their irritation and even their sadness. In WAYG we get to go inside the head of Connie, a young impressionable teenager who is more concerned about her looks than her own safety, when Arnold Friend shows up at her house her first instinct is to look at herself in the mirror even though she has no idea who this strange boy is. Through Connie’s description of him, we know something isn’t right and through the flow of dialog we begin to feel scared for Connie who is helpless and vulnerable against this strange man.
“Now, what you’re going to do is this: you’re going to come out that door You‘re going to sit up front with mean Ellie’s going to sit in the back, the hell with Ellie, right? This isn’t Ellie’s date. You’re my date. I’m your lover, honey.”
“What? You’re crazy-“
“Yes, I’m your lover. You don’t know what that is but you will,” he said.
Oates creates the perfect villain in this story because he is handsome and charming, yet we are caught in his twisted lies and feel weak against him. This story literally had me scared not just for Connie but my own life. It is my goal to accomplish this skill in my own writing; I want people to feel like they are somehow involved in the story.
“Now, what you’re going to do is this: you’re going to come out that door You‘re going to sit up front with mean Ellie’s going to sit in the back, the hell with Ellie, right? This isn’t Ellie’s date. You’re my date. I’m your lover, honey.”
“What? You’re crazy-“
“Yes, I’m your lover. You don’t know what that is but you will,” he said.
Oates creates the perfect villain in this story because he is handsome and charming, yet we are caught in his twisted lies and feel weak against him. This story literally had me scared not just for Connie but my own life. It is my goal to accomplish this skill in my own writing; I want people to feel like they are somehow involved in the story.
May 27, 2021
If I had adolescent teenage daughters; or, if my own adolescents had been anything like this, I believe the book would have resonated more. Maybe I'm too old to remember feeling the things that Connie did, but I don't remember anything like that going on in my head. My mother would have snatched me up by the arm and given me a good shaking if I had treated her as Connie treated her mother. Because I can not relate I'm left with a "judge-ee" mind and just kept shaking my head at Connie's choices. When Arnold Friend drove up and his persuasive skills were turned on I wasn't sympathetic with Connie's fear at all--Sow to the wind and reap a whirlwind--as the Biblical saying goes.
The reason I picked this book up was that the story is supposed to be based on serial killer Charles Schmid "The Pied Piper of Tucson". Out of all I have read about this killer, not one thing matched this story.
The reason I picked this book up was that the story is supposed to be based on serial killer Charles Schmid "The Pied Piper of Tucson". Out of all I have read about this killer, not one thing matched this story.
July 29, 2023
With a visceral feeling of dread, this powerful short story grips the reader with an inevitable loss of innocence.
A coming of age story, where the descent from blissful ignorance is rapid and brutal.
(Note: Review of title story only)
A coming of age story, where the descent from blissful ignorance is rapid and brutal.
(Note: Review of title story only)
May 16, 2013
I saw "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" on a list of best short stories and sought it out. It is a creepy, tense story about a teenage girl who skips a family outing to stay home alone, but she gets an unexpected visitor. The story gave me chills.
December 15, 2009
Oh boy this was creepy. I love this woman, but don't read her if you're struggling with any emotions unless you want them to get deeper and blacker. Her prose will consume you.
January 20, 2019
ส่วนตัวชอบเรื่องที่เป็นปลายเปิดเเบบนี้ การตีความความหมายหรือตัวตนของตัวละครในเรื่อง เพราะเราสามารถตีความไปในทางไหนก็ได้ นามธรรม รูปธรรม ทำให้ 10 คนอ่านก็เป็นไปได้ถึง 10 เนื้อเรื่อง ดีจริงๆครับ
January 6, 2009
I picked this up at the library, totally forgetting that I had read it years ago 'til I started to read. I didn't much like this book, I just don't care for her stories & I can't tell you why. They are well written but after reading anything from this author I feel depressed & like my soul is grubby. Bleh says I.
July 11, 2022
this short story genuinely haunts me. i read it for my first day of literary heritage class... and wow. Joyce Carol Oates creates the atmosphere well... nostalgia, late nights and loneliness. vanity, self indulgence, and the delusions kids have about themselves: a girl pretending to be a woman (due to psychological impediment and lack of attention from her parents of course). yeah. that's high school. and that's tragedy. and let me tell you it turns horrific fast. it's about a girl named connie and her self image one moment, and then bam
the short story was published in 1966, during the civil rights movement and during a time when women were starting to rebel and fight for their own rights. this could explain some of the hard feelings between connie and her mother. her mother is jealous- of connie's independence and the fact that she represents a whole future that her mother doesn't have anymore (a very dark foreshadow).
connie gets very wrapped up with her vanity and these small independences, though. in A. R. Coulthard's essay about this short story, he says "Connie exists in a dream-like state but never in a dream. Her mother is right when she says that Connie's "mind was all filled with trashy daydreams" (821). Connie is never more than half awake to reality, but this is her natural mental state and not a temporary psychic phenomenon that conjures up Arnold Friend. Connie rides home from the mall "sleepy and pleased" (823) because she has sated her appetite for cheap diversion for another night. Her "dreams" are mundane teenage boy-girl reveries, enhanced by the hypnotic music she listens to constantly. She spends most of her waking hours dreaming about the boys she met. But all the boys fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face, but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent pounding of the music" (823)—which is merely to say that Connie, like many teenagers, is in love with love. Or maybe just sex."
now, Coulthard's essay can be viewed as quite harsh on connie, and to be honest, (and i'm not saying it is, but...) it's ALMOST as if Coulthard is blaming her for drawing Arnold's attention. i do agree that connie was a very deluded girl. but is that all her fault? connie was fifteen and she was acting out, going out, trying to feel something, and if that was an obsession with love, well she certainly wasn't getting any of that at home. so she looked elsewhere. she still had lessons to learn; they were supposed to be ahead of her.
anyways, the writing is incredibly realistic, and at the end, Oates conveyed connie's psychological horror brilliantly. i was terrified, and thinking to myself... 'what would i do' and could come up with nothing. some people even think Arnold is symbolizes the devil or death, or something mythological and terrible, but "To reduce "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" to a teenage dream and to raise Arnold Friend to a superhuman Symbol is to rob the story of its elemental power. Arnold Friends do exist (Charles Schmid is proof of that), and the evil they do is not safely confined to the literary dreamworld" (Coulthard)
some of Joyce Carol Oates' beautiful prose
"One night in midsummer they ran across, breathless with daring..."
"Connie sat with her eyes closed in the sun, dreaming and dazed with the warmth about her as if this were a kind of love, the caresses of love, and her mind slipped over onto thoughts of the boy she had been with the night before and how nice he had been, how sweet it always was, not the way someone like June would suppose but sweet, gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs; and when she opened her eyes she hardly knew where she was, the backyard ran off into weeds and a fencelike line of trees and behind it the sky was perfectly blue and still."
"And Connie paid close attention herself, bathed in a glow of slow-pulsed joy that seemed to rise mysteriously out of the music itself and lay languidly about the airless little room..."
"she had the idea that he had driven up the driveway all right but had come from nowhere before that and belonged nowhere and that everything about him and even about the music that was so familiar to her was only half real."
“Now, put your hand on your heart, honey. Feel that? That feels solid too but we know better."
-Arnold Friend
the short story was published in 1966, during the civil rights movement and during a time when women were starting to rebel and fight for their own rights. this could explain some of the hard feelings between connie and her mother. her mother is jealous- of connie's independence and the fact that she represents a whole future that her mother doesn't have anymore (a very dark foreshadow).
connie gets very wrapped up with her vanity and these small independences, though. in A. R. Coulthard's essay about this short story, he says "Connie exists in a dream-like state but never in a dream. Her mother is right when she says that Connie's "mind was all filled with trashy daydreams" (821). Connie is never more than half awake to reality, but this is her natural mental state and not a temporary psychic phenomenon that conjures up Arnold Friend. Connie rides home from the mall "sleepy and pleased" (823) because she has sated her appetite for cheap diversion for another night. Her "dreams" are mundane teenage boy-girl reveries, enhanced by the hypnotic music she listens to constantly. She spends most of her waking hours dreaming about the boys she met. But all the boys fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face, but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent pounding of the music" (823)—which is merely to say that Connie, like many teenagers, is in love with love. Or maybe just sex."
now, Coulthard's essay can be viewed as quite harsh on connie, and to be honest, (and i'm not saying it is, but...) it's ALMOST as if Coulthard is blaming her for drawing Arnold's attention. i do agree that connie was a very deluded girl. but is that all her fault? connie was fifteen and she was acting out, going out, trying to feel something, and if that was an obsession with love, well she certainly wasn't getting any of that at home. so she looked elsewhere. she still had lessons to learn; they were supposed to be ahead of her.
anyways, the writing is incredibly realistic, and at the end, Oates conveyed connie's psychological horror brilliantly. i was terrified, and thinking to myself... 'what would i do' and could come up with nothing. some people even think Arnold is symbolizes the devil or death, or something mythological and terrible, but "To reduce "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" to a teenage dream and to raise Arnold Friend to a superhuman Symbol is to rob the story of its elemental power. Arnold Friends do exist (Charles Schmid is proof of that), and the evil they do is not safely confined to the literary dreamworld" (Coulthard)
some of Joyce Carol Oates' beautiful prose
"One night in midsummer they ran across, breathless with daring..."
"Connie sat with her eyes closed in the sun, dreaming and dazed with the warmth about her as if this were a kind of love, the caresses of love, and her mind slipped over onto thoughts of the boy she had been with the night before and how nice he had been, how sweet it always was, not the way someone like June would suppose but sweet, gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs; and when she opened her eyes she hardly knew where she was, the backyard ran off into weeds and a fencelike line of trees and behind it the sky was perfectly blue and still."
"And Connie paid close attention herself, bathed in a glow of slow-pulsed joy that seemed to rise mysteriously out of the music itself and lay languidly about the airless little room..."
"she had the idea that he had driven up the driveway all right but had come from nowhere before that and belonged nowhere and that everything about him and even about the music that was so familiar to her was only half real."
“Now, put your hand on your heart, honey. Feel that? That feels solid too but we know better."
-Arnold Friend
i-get-the-picture
October 28, 20253 recent stories:
Joyce Carol Oates, “The Frenzy”. The New Yorker (2025) [4+]
[https://archive.ph/P3qt3]
Joyce Carol Oates, “Late Love”. The New Yorker (2024) [4+]
[https://archive.ph/RAu38; in Flint Kill Creek]
I’ve yet to read: Joyce Carol Oates, The Bicycle Accident. NewYorker (2023)
[novella: https://archive.ph/6DLuO]
Joyce Carol Oates, “The Frenzy”. The New Yorker (2025) [4+]
[https://archive.ph/P3qt3]
Joyce Carol Oates, “Late Love”. The New Yorker (2024) [4+]
[https://archive.ph/RAu38; in Flint Kill Creek]
I’ve yet to read: Joyce Carol Oates, The Bicycle Accident. NewYorker (2023)
[novella: https://archive.ph/6DLuO]
November 1, 2023
This early JCO story showed up on an internet list of The Best Scary Short Stories, which helpfully provided a link to a free e-version. It was interesting and unnerving and kinda confusing and I get the feeling that I’m missing something here.
October 14, 2024
4.75 ⭐️
May 18, 2010
This review is dedicated entirely to the title story. I've read a few of Oates' stories, however, this story is one of my favorite short stories ever. It combines two elements that truly serve (in my opinion) to engross the reader: the unspoken and timelessness. The story is grotesque and captivating in that so much of what happens or how it happens is never actually mentioned, which is definitely engaging. The reader is therefore pushed into making their own judgments, allowing only their imagination to limit final assessments regarding the events in the story. Though which century this story takes place in is quite clear, the generalities utilized forbid the reader from narrowing in on anything too specific for a setting; this undeniably contributes to the overall aura of vulnerability to danger, like the situation the girl was in.
April 12, 2025
Short story that sets up a teenage girl to be taken right through her very own door while her parents are gone. The dialogue is just so real that I’m not sure I took a breath. I read this because of the similarities someone saw in Quarry Girls!
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February 1, 2023i made the mistake to read this while i was home alone and at night.
— 𝟒 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬!
— 𝟒 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬!
January 17, 2013
Masterful writing. She subtly builds the tension in the story in such a way that you don't realize your nerves are on edge until the end of the story. Fantastic story telling. That the story is based on real events adds a extra dimension of creepiness.
Connie could be anyone's 15 year old daughter. This story is a really poignant social commentary about the impact of hyper-sexualized popular film and music on on adolescent children's perceptions about sex and love.
Connie could be anyone's 15 year old daughter. This story is a really poignant social commentary about the impact of hyper-sexualized popular film and music on on adolescent children's perceptions about sex and love.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 447 reviews