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High Crime Area: Tales of Darkness and Dread
Joyce Carol Oates is an unparalleled investigator of human flaws. In these eight stories, she deftly tests the bonds between damaged individuals—a brother and sister, a teacher and student, two strangers on a subway—in the fearless prose for which she’s become so celebrated.
In the title story “High Crime Area,” a white, aspiring professor is convinced she is being followed. No need to panic, she has a handgun stowed away in her purse—just in case. But when she turns to confront her black, male shadow, the situation isn’t what she expects. In “The Rescuer,” a promising graduate student detours to inner city Trenton, New Jersey to save her brother from a downward spiral. But she soon finds out there may be more to his world than to hers. And in “The Last Man of Letters,” the world-renowned author X embarks on a final grand tour of Europe. He has money, fame, but not a whole lot of manners. A little thing like etiquette couldn’t bring a man like X down, could it?
In these biting and beautiful stories, Oates confronts, one by one, the demons within us. Sometimes it’s the human who wins, and sometimes it’s the demon.
In the title story “High Crime Area,” a white, aspiring professor is convinced she is being followed. No need to panic, she has a handgun stowed away in her purse—just in case. But when she turns to confront her black, male shadow, the situation isn’t what she expects. In “The Rescuer,” a promising graduate student detours to inner city Trenton, New Jersey to save her brother from a downward spiral. But she soon finds out there may be more to his world than to hers. And in “The Last Man of Letters,” the world-renowned author X embarks on a final grand tour of Europe. He has money, fame, but not a whole lot of manners. A little thing like etiquette couldn’t bring a man like X down, could it?
In these biting and beautiful stories, Oates confronts, one by one, the demons within us. Sometimes it’s the human who wins, and sometimes it’s the demon.
247 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2014
92 people are currently reading
975 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
857 books9,680 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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November 22, 2018When I read Howards end is on the Landing I noticed Susan Hill breezily dismiss all Canadian authors as being the same, so I thought to myself that this sounded so extraordinary that I had best read some more just to see if this was true so I grabbed this at the library, only on closer inspection to realise that the author was from that other country, the USA, well, right continent anyway.
My sense of these stories was that they were strongly average, an author who had these off cuts and polished them up a bit, smoothed off the edges and had them in to short stories - most of them are short, one makes up about half the total length of the set.
Race and skin colour is something the narrator is explicitly aware of in all but two of the stories and one of those is set in Europe, the rest play out in the USA. Naturally this feeds in to my European biases about what the USA is like, and in the title story that may be the point - in that my lasting impression was that it was the white woman's fear of crime which was going to lead to the criminal act. The narrator's unease was quite nicely built up, so when I examine my feeling of averageness I can't point to any weakness, the point of several stories is that the author leads us up the hill and then back down again and maybe that slight deflation and descent gives rise to my feeling of 'meh' rather than an 'ah-ha!' or 'ha-ha!' moment, but even with the first story which does have , not exactly a twist but a turn in the narrative in which the author delivered on the build-up left me feeling underwhelmed. The ending was less interesting than the anticipation, and the anticipation wasn't that exciting but the theme was resonant due to stories in the news.
So maybe it's not Oates, maybe it's me. The longest story the Rescuer did have something more to it, an allusive mythic dimension with it's bird images and this bonded pair both trapped inside a labyrinthine situation, but it requires a belief in a peculiar naivety or degree of damage to the narrator which for me undercut the tale, but it might just work as a film so long as you concentrated on the atmosphere.
Perhaps the story The Last man of Letters most perfectly developed my feelings of indifference towards this collection. An American male author on a tour of Europe publicly humiliates three women, his translator, a publicist and his publisher ,and they all collaborate to revenge themselves upon him. But Oates denies us the pleasures of seeing a completely unpleasant character getting a well-deserved comeuppance by undercutting it, the story is told from the author's point of view so we see his vanity and fear of ageing, also his asthma, but this isn't developed enough that we get a sense of the narrator shaping himself into a nasty piece of work in reaction to his vulnerabilities. So there is neither the satisfaction of a revenge story nor of a character study, it feels as though Oates wrote the revenge tale and persons unknown then persuaded her that she couldn't publish that as some people would accuse her of hating men so she added the vulnerabilities, but the final result is just flat, at least for me.
Easy to pick up, not too hard to set down.
My sense of these stories was that they were strongly average, an author who had these off cuts and polished them up a bit, smoothed off the edges and had them in to short stories - most of them are short, one makes up about half the total length of the set.
Race and skin colour is something the narrator is explicitly aware of in all but two of the stories and one of those is set in Europe, the rest play out in the USA. Naturally this feeds in to my European biases about what the USA is like, and in the title story that may be the point - in that my lasting impression was that it was the white woman's fear of crime which was going to lead to the criminal act. The narrator's unease was quite nicely built up, so when I examine my feeling of averageness I can't point to any weakness, the point of several stories is that the author leads us up the hill and then back down again and maybe that slight deflation and descent gives rise to my feeling of 'meh' rather than an 'ah-ha!' or 'ha-ha!' moment, but even with the first story which does have , not exactly a twist but a turn in the narrative in which the author delivered on the build-up left me feeling underwhelmed. The ending was less interesting than the anticipation, and the anticipation wasn't that exciting but the theme was resonant due to stories in the news.
So maybe it's not Oates, maybe it's me. The longest story the Rescuer did have something more to it, an allusive mythic dimension with it's bird images and this bonded pair both trapped inside a labyrinthine situation, but it requires a belief in a peculiar naivety or degree of damage to the narrator which for me undercut the tale, but it might just work as a film so long as you concentrated on the atmosphere.
Perhaps the story The Last man of Letters most perfectly developed my feelings of indifference towards this collection. An American male author on a tour of Europe publicly humiliates three women, his translator, a publicist and his publisher ,and they all collaborate to revenge themselves upon him. But Oates denies us the pleasures of seeing a completely unpleasant character getting a well-deserved comeuppance by undercutting it, the story is told from the author's point of view so we see his vanity and fear of ageing, also his asthma, but this isn't developed enough that we get a sense of the narrator shaping himself into a nasty piece of work in reaction to his vulnerabilities. So there is neither the satisfaction of a revenge story nor of a character study, it feels as though Oates wrote the revenge tale and persons unknown then persuaded her that she couldn't publish that as some people would accuse her of hating men so she added the vulnerabilities, but the final result is just flat, at least for me.
Easy to pick up, not too hard to set down.
August 5, 2016
A book of short stories is very much like a box of assorted chocolates: you approach with a singular expectation that is inherently impossible to satisfy. You won't be satisifed by every single piece of chocolate, and not every individual story will capture your interest or attention. Quite often, the box is populated by strange off-flavors, just as the pages are clouded by the shadows of what could have been: stories that are too experimental, too short, too "tell," stories that are what other authors would consider throwaway pieces, not good enough, not fit for publication. There is no avoiding these two inevitabilities, and should the overall composition of each lean towards the unpalatable, even slightly, it ruins the entire experience. In fact, in the last 25 years, there have been a half-dozen writers at most who could sustain an entire collection--William Gay, Jhumpa Lahiri, Sherman Alexie, Alice Munro, George Saunders, and Judy Budnitz being a few. Each put forward collections that were thorough, consistent, entertaining, engaging, and worthy of the hours--even days--that they required, that they insisted. At the end, our time had not been wasted, and even the most frivolous of literary apples--for there are always stunted saplings among the trees--hadn't managed to spoil the batch.
Over the last quarter-century alone, Joyce Carol Oates has published almost 20 collections of short fiction. The very definition of prolific--she also writes novels, nonfiction, criticism, poetry, drama, children's and young adult literature, and erotica at an exhausting pace--Oates is also one of the most anthologized writers working today, and for good reason: she is as much a writer as she is an anthropologist of a romanticized and fictional America, and her forte--the prize of her studies, as it were--is the effect of chaos when introduced into an otherwise untroubled world. Take a contented suburban family, slide something unexpected beneath their door--or over their phone, or inside a darkened bedroom--and watch as they struggle to control what is uncontrollable, all the while revealing every slick insecurity and prejudice they may been keeping subdued for years. Her stories are studies in patience, each page a speck of dirt being wiped away from the windows, until at last we're an audience on the front lawn, assembled for the final, climactic act...and all of it illuminated by 32-watt footlights and choreographed along fresh vacuum-lines in the carpeting.
The problem is that, as with most writers, her best work was published earlier in her career--in this case, more than forty years ago: "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" from 1966, "How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again" from 1969, and "The Lady With the Pet Dog" from 1972. Each of these is frequently reprinted and, in their day, were momentous works; today, featured alongside works by her well-inspired successors, Oates' fiction seems somewhat dated, though her skill at understanding the psyche of her characters remains unsurpassed. But that leaves us with hundreds of other stories that have been printed in the years since--a wide-ranging assortment that is destined to be forgotten ten years after Oates has passed away, rendering 99% of her literary legacy all but irrelevant. Even when compared to the surviving, in-print works of the other writers of her generation--Raymond Carver, Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, Don DeLillo--the ratio seems completely lopsided. This might seem unavoidable given her output, but that is less of a reason and more of an excuse. In truth, Oates lackluster writing is the result of a writer who seems to have spent the last three decades refusing to compromise on any aspect of her craft, even after the world around her has moved on.
High Crime Area, her most recent collection, is a prime example of this problem. Comprised of eight separate works, each based around the theme of "darkness and dread," the heart of the book is "The Rescuer," a 100-page novella about a graduate student who is emotionally blackmailed by her distant parents into caring for a drug-abusing, HIV-infected brother living an hour away. Both siblings are academically-minded, their interests lying in ancient and indecipherable texts--a metaphor for their shared inability to translate and understand any aspect of their own lives, much less the old papers in front of them--but they are both weak and thoughtless, and in very little time the narrator has begun to compromise her ethics and common sense. By the end of the story she is no better than her brother, a internal devolution personified by the dragging of a dead body across town. The suggestion is clear: they are both sick, they are both polluted, and now they are trapped in the ghettoized city in which they share "our apartment."
There are qualities to "The Rescuer" that should make it better than what it is. When Oates writes of the protagonist's studies, her relationship with her professor, even the books she reads, she does so with an assuredness that leaks into the vocabulary and renders each passage thick and unreadable. Similarly, when she introduces the men and women with whom her brother is entangled, their dialogue is annotated with apostrophes and heavy with slang, also to the point of unreadability--an indication of their lack of education and refinement, even morals. (The professor, revealed only in flashbacks, speaks in clear, succinct sentences--the language of an educated man, it is suggested.) And yet these two dichotomous parts of the narrator's life are one in the same: the professor's role is that of a predator, and he looks to the narrator for validation and control, using his influence over her to get his way; just as the character of Leander, a pitbull-wielding drug-dealer, is a predator, lusting openly after her--even raping her--and inviting in other women to steal her money under the guise of friendship. The differences here are ones of color--the professor is white, Leander is not--and of perception, with the narrator believing herself safe in a world where others look and act just like her, despite the fact that predatorial relationships do not care about race, language, or location. This unrealized fact renders her a fool and dooms her to life beside her brother--a sinner who cannot escape the Inferno.
Had "The Rescuer" been written by the Oates of the 1960s and 70s, it would be an admirable, even groundbreaking look at how fear and prejudice affect the way we perceive others and plot our lives, and written in an era of civil unrest on top of that. Now, with its characters drawn from some otherworldly source and Oates half-committed to the whole idea, her company of men and women come off as stereotypes. The same happens in many of the other stories contained herein--in "Lorelei," about a prostitute who seems to believe in destiny, in "The Home at Craigmillnar," about an orderly who seeks vengeance for his family, in "High," about an old widow who uses drugs to dull the shame and irrelevance of old age--and by the time we finish the final story, we've seen Oates trudge out one tired literary trope after another, introducing nothing new. And it's that final story, the titular story, that her self-condemnation is fulfilled. Told from the point of view of a college professor--like Oates--whose heavy criticism has offended almost every one of her adult-education students, the story follows her on a particular night, when she is followed by a young black man while walking to her car. She fears for her safety and, at the same time, worries that this fear brands her as a racist. Eventually, the tension is relieved when she discovers he's an old student, though the closing lines leave his intentions unclear; instead, we see the story for what it is--the paranoia and fear of a white woman when encountering an unknown and refusing to change, even if it means living a life that is less.
Instead of engaging in controversial ideas with a modern attitude and abandoning these old cliches, Oates is happy to drive the same tired highways over and over again, unwilling to seek out an exit to carry her far away from a place no longer able to support her. She has compromised her own skills, holding steadfast to what is comfortable and familiar--and safe--while ignoring the wilderness in the distance, someplace far from the false promises of academia and the false hopes of rundown neighborhoods. In this way she becomes just like her characters: an intelligent, kind figure in need of being rescued.
This review was originally published at There Will Be Books Galore.
Over the last quarter-century alone, Joyce Carol Oates has published almost 20 collections of short fiction. The very definition of prolific--she also writes novels, nonfiction, criticism, poetry, drama, children's and young adult literature, and erotica at an exhausting pace--Oates is also one of the most anthologized writers working today, and for good reason: she is as much a writer as she is an anthropologist of a romanticized and fictional America, and her forte--the prize of her studies, as it were--is the effect of chaos when introduced into an otherwise untroubled world. Take a contented suburban family, slide something unexpected beneath their door--or over their phone, or inside a darkened bedroom--and watch as they struggle to control what is uncontrollable, all the while revealing every slick insecurity and prejudice they may been keeping subdued for years. Her stories are studies in patience, each page a speck of dirt being wiped away from the windows, until at last we're an audience on the front lawn, assembled for the final, climactic act...and all of it illuminated by 32-watt footlights and choreographed along fresh vacuum-lines in the carpeting.
The problem is that, as with most writers, her best work was published earlier in her career--in this case, more than forty years ago: "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" from 1966, "How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again" from 1969, and "The Lady With the Pet Dog" from 1972. Each of these is frequently reprinted and, in their day, were momentous works; today, featured alongside works by her well-inspired successors, Oates' fiction seems somewhat dated, though her skill at understanding the psyche of her characters remains unsurpassed. But that leaves us with hundreds of other stories that have been printed in the years since--a wide-ranging assortment that is destined to be forgotten ten years after Oates has passed away, rendering 99% of her literary legacy all but irrelevant. Even when compared to the surviving, in-print works of the other writers of her generation--Raymond Carver, Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, Don DeLillo--the ratio seems completely lopsided. This might seem unavoidable given her output, but that is less of a reason and more of an excuse. In truth, Oates lackluster writing is the result of a writer who seems to have spent the last three decades refusing to compromise on any aspect of her craft, even after the world around her has moved on.
High Crime Area, her most recent collection, is a prime example of this problem. Comprised of eight separate works, each based around the theme of "darkness and dread," the heart of the book is "The Rescuer," a 100-page novella about a graduate student who is emotionally blackmailed by her distant parents into caring for a drug-abusing, HIV-infected brother living an hour away. Both siblings are academically-minded, their interests lying in ancient and indecipherable texts--a metaphor for their shared inability to translate and understand any aspect of their own lives, much less the old papers in front of them--but they are both weak and thoughtless, and in very little time the narrator has begun to compromise her ethics and common sense. By the end of the story she is no better than her brother, a internal devolution personified by the dragging of a dead body across town. The suggestion is clear: they are both sick, they are both polluted, and now they are trapped in the ghettoized city in which they share "our apartment."
There are qualities to "The Rescuer" that should make it better than what it is. When Oates writes of the protagonist's studies, her relationship with her professor, even the books she reads, she does so with an assuredness that leaks into the vocabulary and renders each passage thick and unreadable. Similarly, when she introduces the men and women with whom her brother is entangled, their dialogue is annotated with apostrophes and heavy with slang, also to the point of unreadability--an indication of their lack of education and refinement, even morals. (The professor, revealed only in flashbacks, speaks in clear, succinct sentences--the language of an educated man, it is suggested.) And yet these two dichotomous parts of the narrator's life are one in the same: the professor's role is that of a predator, and he looks to the narrator for validation and control, using his influence over her to get his way; just as the character of Leander, a pitbull-wielding drug-dealer, is a predator, lusting openly after her--even raping her--and inviting in other women to steal her money under the guise of friendship. The differences here are ones of color--the professor is white, Leander is not--and of perception, with the narrator believing herself safe in a world where others look and act just like her, despite the fact that predatorial relationships do not care about race, language, or location. This unrealized fact renders her a fool and dooms her to life beside her brother--a sinner who cannot escape the Inferno.
Had "The Rescuer" been written by the Oates of the 1960s and 70s, it would be an admirable, even groundbreaking look at how fear and prejudice affect the way we perceive others and plot our lives, and written in an era of civil unrest on top of that. Now, with its characters drawn from some otherworldly source and Oates half-committed to the whole idea, her company of men and women come off as stereotypes. The same happens in many of the other stories contained herein--in "Lorelei," about a prostitute who seems to believe in destiny, in "The Home at Craigmillnar," about an orderly who seeks vengeance for his family, in "High," about an old widow who uses drugs to dull the shame and irrelevance of old age--and by the time we finish the final story, we've seen Oates trudge out one tired literary trope after another, introducing nothing new. And it's that final story, the titular story, that her self-condemnation is fulfilled. Told from the point of view of a college professor--like Oates--whose heavy criticism has offended almost every one of her adult-education students, the story follows her on a particular night, when she is followed by a young black man while walking to her car. She fears for her safety and, at the same time, worries that this fear brands her as a racist. Eventually, the tension is relieved when she discovers he's an old student, though the closing lines leave his intentions unclear; instead, we see the story for what it is--the paranoia and fear of a white woman when encountering an unknown and refusing to change, even if it means living a life that is less.
Instead of engaging in controversial ideas with a modern attitude and abandoning these old cliches, Oates is happy to drive the same tired highways over and over again, unwilling to seek out an exit to carry her far away from a place no longer able to support her. She has compromised her own skills, holding steadfast to what is comfortable and familiar--and safe--while ignoring the wilderness in the distance, someplace far from the false promises of academia and the false hopes of rundown neighborhoods. In this way she becomes just like her characters: an intelligent, kind figure in need of being rescued.
This review was originally published at There Will Be Books Galore.
March 12, 2018
Such strange stories, I can't get them out of my head. I think this might be what JCO is known for. Her stories read like snapshots, often without a beginning or an end, they are instead a fragment of a memory, and usually unnerving and unsettling to top it off!
I have 3 more JCO books to read and will be interested to see if her writing style continues throughout!
I have 3 more JCO books to read and will be interested to see if her writing style continues throughout!
March 20, 2015
This is a good book about sad, sad people in sad, sad stories.
Don't read if you're depressed, you may become suicidal.
Don't read if you're not depressed, you may become depressed.
It's not that is poorly written - it isn't: I wish I could write like this.
It's not that voice i.e. voices are crap: the characters are real and unique.
And that is the problem for me: this is too real of fiction to interest me, the reality is too real (is there such a thing) and too harsh.
At least it is for me. At least, right now
Don't read if you're depressed, you may become suicidal.
Don't read if you're not depressed, you may become depressed.
It's not that is poorly written - it isn't: I wish I could write like this.
It's not that voice i.e. voices are crap: the characters are real and unique.
And that is the problem for me: this is too real of fiction to interest me, the reality is too real (is there such a thing) and too harsh.
At least it is for me. At least, right now
September 7, 2014
Oates is always good at what she does and these stories are pretty dark. When reading Oates, I feel like I'm reading under a magnifying glass into the characters because she really gets into the underbelly of a person. I especially liked The Home at Craigmillnar. The book is worth it just for that story alone—I couldn't stop reading it.
October 12, 2014
"High Crime Area" is the title of one of the eight short stories included in this book, each of which play upon the dark side of humanity, and the harm caused by fears and prejudices, insecurities and resulting weaknesses & frailties. I found these to be true "horror" stories, given the truth of how often and easily the characters mistreat and abuse others, even friends and family, in an effort to promote their own interests. These failings are, of course, exaggerated in their presentation, making them all the more horrific. The book is a quick read, but a difficult read, given the graphic examples of this dark side of humanity. I would certainly recommend this book to everyone, except those who may find this type of story truly offensive to their sensibilities. I would have given this a five star rating, except I found several of the eight stories to be open-ended. I do appreciate the effect of leaving the outcome open to the reader's imagination, however, there were a couple of the stories for which I would have liked to have read a more concrete, definitive, final end (just my preference and certainly not meant as a criticism of the writing/stories.)
May 27, 2014
Joyce Carol Oates "High Crime Area Tales Of Darkness And Dread" is a profound and disturbing book that caused me to ponder whether or not the unseen, negative aspect of life we sometimes encounter are a result of circumstances or bad luck. At times I wasn't sure if her characters were truly as pathetic as they seemed, or simply clueless, until I got to the end of the stories then I was surprised by the outcomes.
Despite the high quality of the writing and literary standards, in all of the stories, I liked "The Home at Craigmillnar," "High," "Lorelei," "The Rescuer" and "High Crime Area" better than "Toad-Baby," "Demon," and "The Last Man of Letters," because they were strong enough to be developed into full-length novels. I was disappointed when they ended and thought about them long after I finished reading them.
Previously my most recent experience with a Joyce Carol Oates book was her 2010 novel, "A Fair Maiden," which I count as one of my favorites. After reading "High Crime Area" I can add another of her books to my list.
Despite the high quality of the writing and literary standards, in all of the stories, I liked "The Home at Craigmillnar," "High," "Lorelei," "The Rescuer" and "High Crime Area" better than "Toad-Baby," "Demon," and "The Last Man of Letters," because they were strong enough to be developed into full-length novels. I was disappointed when they ended and thought about them long after I finished reading them.
Previously my most recent experience with a Joyce Carol Oates book was her 2010 novel, "A Fair Maiden," which I count as one of my favorites. After reading "High Crime Area" I can add another of her books to my list.
May 25, 2023
New to me author. Though short stories aren’t my favourite, I am starting to come around to them thanks to reading some interesting ones lately. Definitely interested in reading more by this author. Very dark though, and a lot of themes including rape and child abuse, so this definitely won’t be for everyone.
My thoughts as I read this :
The home at Craigmillnar 5/5
Good start to this collection. An elderly nun is found dead at 84 in her nursing home. I enjoyed the look into her past wrongdoings and discovering the turn of events.
High 3/5
I didn’t love this. Elderly woman copes with the death of her husband by getting high and being reckless. I kind of get where it was going, but it missed the mark for me.
Toad Baby 4/5
Sad and short story. A teenage girl protects her baby half brother from their alcoholic mother’s abuse. Sobering.
Demon 4/5
Seems to be almost, but not quite, a continuation of the previous story. Jethro also has an abusive mother and there is something wrong with him, but it’s not really spelled out what, aside from vague references to drinking and worse while pregnant. Jethro wants to be good, but his tragic upbringing has made it impossible and then something really traumatic happens to him that leads him to do something drastic and sickening. Hard reading.
Loralei 4/5
Lonely Loralei rides the trains looking for “the one”. The ending on this one is pitch black and unexpected.
The Rescuer 3.5/5
This was long compared to the others. It wore out its welcome with me a little, to be honest. The parents of a dropped out religious man who has dabbled in drugs have tired of caring for him and enlisted his single sister in her 30’s to take over care of him. Honestly it didn’t quite ring true. She had not been close to her brother and his behavior combined with yet another traumatic experience which would send any sane person running does not seem to phase her and she stays. There’s a few bits that seem surplus and make this a bit draggy, but I appreciate the theme which runs with the others in this collection and the reveal of the brothers true condition also.
The last man of letter 3/5
Narcissistic and misogynistic elderly writer goes on his final book promotion. I liked this a lot better when I thought he was actually going to get his. Hated this character and his attitude. I guess there was a payback of sorts where he acknowledged how he really looked and I guess that finished him off, but I feel like that little dream sequence was a more enjoyable experience than he deserved.
High Crime area 3/5
Woman imagines she’s been followed while out at night. This was okay. Probably one of the weakest in the collection even though it’s the title story!
My thoughts as I read this :
The home at Craigmillnar 5/5
Good start to this collection. An elderly nun is found dead at 84 in her nursing home. I enjoyed the look into her past wrongdoings and discovering the turn of events.
High 3/5
I didn’t love this. Elderly woman copes with the death of her husband by getting high and being reckless. I kind of get where it was going, but it missed the mark for me.
Toad Baby 4/5
Sad and short story. A teenage girl protects her baby half brother from their alcoholic mother’s abuse. Sobering.
Demon 4/5
Seems to be almost, but not quite, a continuation of the previous story. Jethro also has an abusive mother and there is something wrong with him, but it’s not really spelled out what, aside from vague references to drinking and worse while pregnant. Jethro wants to be good, but his tragic upbringing has made it impossible and then something really traumatic happens to him that leads him to do something drastic and sickening. Hard reading.
Loralei 4/5
Lonely Loralei rides the trains looking for “the one”. The ending on this one is pitch black and unexpected.
The Rescuer 3.5/5
This was long compared to the others. It wore out its welcome with me a little, to be honest. The parents of a dropped out religious man who has dabbled in drugs have tired of caring for him and enlisted his single sister in her 30’s to take over care of him. Honestly it didn’t quite ring true. She had not been close to her brother and his behavior combined with yet another traumatic experience which would send any sane person running does not seem to phase her and she stays. There’s a few bits that seem surplus and make this a bit draggy, but I appreciate the theme which runs with the others in this collection and the reveal of the brothers true condition also.
The last man of letter 3/5
Narcissistic and misogynistic elderly writer goes on his final book promotion. I liked this a lot better when I thought he was actually going to get his. Hated this character and his attitude. I guess there was a payback of sorts where he acknowledged how he really looked and I guess that finished him off, but I feel like that little dream sequence was a more enjoyable experience than he deserved.
High Crime area 3/5
Woman imagines she’s been followed while out at night. This was okay. Probably one of the weakest in the collection even though it’s the title story!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 15, 2016
Not my favorite collection of stories by JCO but, as always, each story makes a point and it is one that lingers.
High Crime Area is one of the 8 stories in this anthology and illustrates the terrible problem in Detroit with stereotypes and fear (while at the same time illustrating the horrible problem with poverty and education in the inner city). We also see the typical "Oates-ian" flawed female protagonist show up along with the often-seen setting of the world of Academia in this and other stories in the collection.
"The Home at Craigmillnar" was my favorite story and seemed a bit different from what I have come to expect from JCO. This story deals with an elderly nun who is found dead in a nursing home; we learn that she was one of several nuns who were responsible for abuse of children in a Catholic orphanage. The story touches on the many abuse scandals of the church and also raises a point that I have often considered myself about nuns and their vocations. Oates questions whether the nurse administrator (talking about the orphanage of the 1950s) was qualified to be an administrator, whether the "nurse nuns" were trained nurses and whether the "teacher nuns" were trained teachers. In fact, she wonders if any of the nuns were trained beyond high school. One of her characters feels that it was the convent that made nuns "like beasts" who then spent their days looking for disobedience to punish. He expresses irritation at the public depiction of nuns: "God damn these jokes about nuns, stupid TV shows about nuns, on TV a nun is meant to be a comic figure but in life there was nothing funny about these women. They were like Nazis - they followed orders. What the Mother Superior instructed them, they fulfilled. Some of them were like beasts..."
High Crime Area is one of the 8 stories in this anthology and illustrates the terrible problem in Detroit with stereotypes and fear (while at the same time illustrating the horrible problem with poverty and education in the inner city). We also see the typical "Oates-ian" flawed female protagonist show up along with the often-seen setting of the world of Academia in this and other stories in the collection.
"The Home at Craigmillnar" was my favorite story and seemed a bit different from what I have come to expect from JCO. This story deals with an elderly nun who is found dead in a nursing home; we learn that she was one of several nuns who were responsible for abuse of children in a Catholic orphanage. The story touches on the many abuse scandals of the church and also raises a point that I have often considered myself about nuns and their vocations. Oates questions whether the nurse administrator (talking about the orphanage of the 1950s) was qualified to be an administrator, whether the "nurse nuns" were trained nurses and whether the "teacher nuns" were trained teachers. In fact, she wonders if any of the nuns were trained beyond high school. One of her characters feels that it was the convent that made nuns "like beasts" who then spent their days looking for disobedience to punish. He expresses irritation at the public depiction of nuns: "God damn these jokes about nuns, stupid TV shows about nuns, on TV a nun is meant to be a comic figure but in life there was nothing funny about these women. They were like Nazis - they followed orders. What the Mother Superior instructed them, they fulfilled. Some of them were like beasts..."
November 27, 2014
I always look forward to reading stories by Joyce Carol Oates. My only complaint with this book was that it was too short; I wanted more stories, more words.
High Crime Area contains eight stories, all of which feature the author's ability to fully adapt her writing style to make it unique for each story. I have never read any other author who can make such transitions in their writing voice so that it flawless and changing from story to story. The style, the vocabulary, the grammar structure and the tone changes from story to story which puts you fully inside the characters mind. This is why her stories, while dark and often disturbing, as so effective. You don't jut read about a character, you are seeing what they see and you are looking through their eyes. You get lost in each story and the eight stories in this book are no exception.
Stand out stories for me were the following:
The Home at Craigmillnar - A story centered around the death of a nun who used to run a children's home where abuse and despair were the norm for the children stuck there. It's a hard look at something that continues to happen to this day and the writing is tight and concise.
Lorelei - With a looser style, this story is one of the shorter ones but perhaps stuck with me the most. I don't want to give anything away, so won't say anything more.
Toad-Baby - Another look into a dark situation that many struggle with, a story hard to read yet fully pulls you in with the building feeling of dread for the young child telling the tale.
The Last Man of Letters - This might just be my favorite story. A very unlikable man is the focus on this story.
High Crime Area contains eight stories, all of which feature the author's ability to fully adapt her writing style to make it unique for each story. I have never read any other author who can make such transitions in their writing voice so that it flawless and changing from story to story. The style, the vocabulary, the grammar structure and the tone changes from story to story which puts you fully inside the characters mind. This is why her stories, while dark and often disturbing, as so effective. You don't jut read about a character, you are seeing what they see and you are looking through their eyes. You get lost in each story and the eight stories in this book are no exception.
Stand out stories for me were the following:
The Home at Craigmillnar - A story centered around the death of a nun who used to run a children's home where abuse and despair were the norm for the children stuck there. It's a hard look at something that continues to happen to this day and the writing is tight and concise.
Lorelei - With a looser style, this story is one of the shorter ones but perhaps stuck with me the most. I don't want to give anything away, so won't say anything more.
Toad-Baby - Another look into a dark situation that many struggle with, a story hard to read yet fully pulls you in with the building feeling of dread for the young child telling the tale.
The Last Man of Letters - This might just be my favorite story. A very unlikable man is the focus on this story.
November 14, 2014
A mixed bag of stories on the themes of darkness and dread. Unfortunately the longest story 'The Rescuer', which made up almost a third of the book, I found most unsatisfactory as it just 'finished' - there was no conclusion or indication of what happened to the characters - indeed, I turned the page expecting the story to carry on but there was only the next story. Disappointing as I generally think far more of this author's writing, be it novels or short stories. Only 6/10 for this one for me I'm afraid.
June 30, 2018
Surprisingly, the Queen of the Short Story fell short with this collection. I've read everything this genius has written, and far better collections of her stories are still in print. Try "Faithless: Tales of Transgression."
December 29, 2018
A pretty good collection of short stories. I would personally call them all "mysteries." Oates' writing reminds me a little bit of Shirley Jackson, with that jarring stop at the end of the story where you find yourself going, "Where is the ending?" before realizing it was never about that.
The Home at Craigmillnar - A guy works as an orderly at a nursing home. His dad tells him one of the ladies at the home was abusive to him as a child in the orphanage, so the guy murders her. I didn't care for this one.
High - An older woman weathers the grieving process after her husband dies. She smokes pot with her young relatives and they steal from her, which is pretty dang sad. And her pot dealer overcharges her. Poor lady. Anyway she ponders her experience teaching at a correctional facility, a specific student particularly.
Toad-Baby - Girl protects baby brother from her abusive alcoholic mother. Some postpartum shit right here.
Demon - Child is kicked in the womb, comes out different, gets treated like crap for it until he goes crazy and rips out his eye. I think. I cannot access this one in my memory for some reason. I guess it didn't make much of an impression on me.
Lorelai - Woman wanders the subways trying to pick people up? She kept referring to "the one" but something gave me the feeling she wasn't talking about that in the traditional way. Someone shoves her off the subway platform into the tracks and she dies. As I wrote that, I figured it out. Her destiny, ha! She was looking for the one who would kill her.
The Rescuer - Graduate student sister gets guilted into checking up on her older brother, who's suddenly dropped out of religious school and off the face of the earth. He's HIV positive but she finds out from a nurse not him. He's also a drug addict and hangs out with drug dealers who take advantage of him and force him into situations where he inevitably owes them money. Sister decides to basically throw all her money away (some to her brother and it's never stated what he actually does with it and the rest to a group of girls that are very clearly taking advantage of her) drop out of college and live with her brother and the drug dealers forever. HUGE bummer. This one stayed with me awhile after I finished. To me, it was about societal expectations and experiences. The siblings both came to the realization that what they were working on didn't really impact the world around them, and the big drug of this story is experiencing social life (as opposed to studying it). Still a big fat bummer though.
The Last Man of Letters - Didn't like this one either. Old white bitch author guy is rude to a bunch of women as he tours Europe, and for some reason that is never addressed all the women show up at his hotel and basically sex him to death. It didn't seem reasonable to me at all that these random women from all over different countries miraculously all knew each other. My best guess is it was all a hallucination, one final time jerking off his ego before he finally dies.
High Crime Area - Young white female college English teacher walks to parking garage from work, realizes a black guy is following her, confronts him, recognizes him as a former student, is SUPER awkward and rude to him, the end. I don't know if he was going to steal from/kill her or why he was following her but I don't think that's the point. To me this was about fear driving our actions, affecting the way we treat people, and how certain things are so ingrained as societal rules and truths. I feel like the teacher had a huge opportunity to reach out to this guy. Like, maybe he's following her because part of him wants to try, but he's seeking that encouragement. And she totally bombs it, man. I could be totally wrong but I was disappointed in the way the situation unfolded (though in a good way, I think that's a point too).
The Home at Craigmillnar - A guy works as an orderly at a nursing home. His dad tells him one of the ladies at the home was abusive to him as a child in the orphanage, so the guy murders her. I didn't care for this one.
High - An older woman weathers the grieving process after her husband dies. She smokes pot with her young relatives and they steal from her, which is pretty dang sad. And her pot dealer overcharges her. Poor lady. Anyway she ponders her experience teaching at a correctional facility, a specific student particularly.
Toad-Baby - Girl protects baby brother from her abusive alcoholic mother. Some postpartum shit right here.
Demon - Child is kicked in the womb, comes out different, gets treated like crap for it until he goes crazy and rips out his eye. I think. I cannot access this one in my memory for some reason. I guess it didn't make much of an impression on me.
Lorelai - Woman wanders the subways trying to pick people up? She kept referring to "the one" but something gave me the feeling she wasn't talking about that in the traditional way. Someone shoves her off the subway platform into the tracks and she dies. As I wrote that, I figured it out. Her destiny, ha! She was looking for the one who would kill her.
The Rescuer - Graduate student sister gets guilted into checking up on her older brother, who's suddenly dropped out of religious school and off the face of the earth. He's HIV positive but she finds out from a nurse not him. He's also a drug addict and hangs out with drug dealers who take advantage of him and force him into situations where he inevitably owes them money. Sister decides to basically throw all her money away (some to her brother and it's never stated what he actually does with it and the rest to a group of girls that are very clearly taking advantage of her) drop out of college and live with her brother and the drug dealers forever. HUGE bummer. This one stayed with me awhile after I finished. To me, it was about societal expectations and experiences. The siblings both came to the realization that what they were working on didn't really impact the world around them, and the big drug of this story is experiencing social life (as opposed to studying it). Still a big fat bummer though.
The Last Man of Letters - Didn't like this one either. Old white bitch author guy is rude to a bunch of women as he tours Europe, and for some reason that is never addressed all the women show up at his hotel and basically sex him to death. It didn't seem reasonable to me at all that these random women from all over different countries miraculously all knew each other. My best guess is it was all a hallucination, one final time jerking off his ego before he finally dies.
High Crime Area - Young white female college English teacher walks to parking garage from work, realizes a black guy is following her, confronts him, recognizes him as a former student, is SUPER awkward and rude to him, the end. I don't know if he was going to steal from/kill her or why he was following her but I don't think that's the point. To me this was about fear driving our actions, affecting the way we treat people, and how certain things are so ingrained as societal rules and truths. I feel like the teacher had a huge opportunity to reach out to this guy. Like, maybe he's following her because part of him wants to try, but he's seeking that encouragement. And she totally bombs it, man. I could be totally wrong but I was disappointed in the way the situation unfolded (though in a good way, I think that's a point too).
October 19, 2020
OK but uneven typical dark Joyce Carol Oates collection. Less "tales of darkness and dread" and more people doing bad things for a variety of good and bad reasons. Not a bad collection, but not Oates' best.
June 10, 2014
Writing
As prolific a writer as Joyce Carol Oates is, I don't think it will come as a surprise that this collection has some definite hits as well as some definite misses. What I was hoping to find in these stories is exactly what the subtitle promises: tales of darkness and dread. I particularly like Oates' brand of dark because she sticks to the realistic, for the most part. Her tales aren't fantastical, they're examinations of the depths of the human heart as we see it in real life, particularly it's darker moments. For the most part, in terms of writing quality, these stories lived up to my expectations. They're just the right length and don't spell out all of the answers, leaving it up to the reader to ponder the outcomes. I like an open-ended short story that leaves me thinking, and these fit that description for the most part.
Entertainment Value
While I appreciated and enjoyed several stories ("High Crime Area" and "The Rescuer" were my favorites), there were others that I found completely unmemorable. I'd rather read a bad short story than one I immediately forget. Unfortunately, I'd say about half the stories in this selection are rather forgettable. Some fit the dark specification ("Demon" and "Toad Baby") but were just to bizarre for me to really enjoy. As I mentioned above, I really enjoy her most when she sticks in the realm of the mostly-believable and doesn't try to get too experimental or fantastical.
Overall
There were some selections I loved and some that were only ok. I definitely recommend giving Oates a try, especially if you're a fan of short stories, but I'm not sure that this collection is the one I'd start with. If you're a fan of hers, however, I think there are enough good stories in here to merit reading it.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a copy to review.
As prolific a writer as Joyce Carol Oates is, I don't think it will come as a surprise that this collection has some definite hits as well as some definite misses. What I was hoping to find in these stories is exactly what the subtitle promises: tales of darkness and dread. I particularly like Oates' brand of dark because she sticks to the realistic, for the most part. Her tales aren't fantastical, they're examinations of the depths of the human heart as we see it in real life, particularly it's darker moments. For the most part, in terms of writing quality, these stories lived up to my expectations. They're just the right length and don't spell out all of the answers, leaving it up to the reader to ponder the outcomes. I like an open-ended short story that leaves me thinking, and these fit that description for the most part.
Entertainment Value
While I appreciated and enjoyed several stories ("High Crime Area" and "The Rescuer" were my favorites), there were others that I found completely unmemorable. I'd rather read a bad short story than one I immediately forget. Unfortunately, I'd say about half the stories in this selection are rather forgettable. Some fit the dark specification ("Demon" and "Toad Baby") but were just to bizarre for me to really enjoy. As I mentioned above, I really enjoy her most when she sticks in the realm of the mostly-believable and doesn't try to get too experimental or fantastical.
Overall
There were some selections I loved and some that were only ok. I definitely recommend giving Oates a try, especially if you're a fan of short stories, but I'm not sure that this collection is the one I'd start with. If you're a fan of hers, however, I think there are enough good stories in here to merit reading it.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a copy to review.
July 2, 2018
Despite her prodigious output--over 100 novels and collections of short stories and essays--I haven't read a whole lot of Joyce Carol Oates. I've only read four titles, one of them being her nonfiction meditation on the sport of boxing. The other three have been collections of novellas and stories in the Gothic tradition: The Doll Master and Other Tales of Terror, Evil Eye: Four Novellas of Love Gone Wrong, and High Crime Area: Tales of Darkness and Dread. I must admit I enjoy Oates' writing but I am also intimidated by it, which is why I'm reluctant to tackle one of her novels.
When I was a teenager I discovered John Champlin Gardner; even though I didn't always understand them or suspected I was missing much of what Gardner was really getting at, I nonetheless eagerly devoured his works. Reading Joyce Carol Oates now as as mature adult (i.e., an old man), I experience something of the same feelings as when I read Gardner so many years ago. Oates' horror stories are about the monsters within us--they are psychological horror stories about the complexities of of the human heart (I think that's another reason I'm reminded of Gardner) and I'm not always sure I'm "getting" all of what she's trying to tell me. But I enjoy trying. Maybe now I'll take the plunge and try one of her longer works.
When I was a teenager I discovered John Champlin Gardner; even though I didn't always understand them or suspected I was missing much of what Gardner was really getting at, I nonetheless eagerly devoured his works. Reading Joyce Carol Oates now as as mature adult (i.e., an old man), I experience something of the same feelings as when I read Gardner so many years ago. Oates' horror stories are about the monsters within us--they are psychological horror stories about the complexities of of the human heart (I think that's another reason I'm reminded of Gardner) and I'm not always sure I'm "getting" all of what she's trying to tell me. But I enjoy trying. Maybe now I'll take the plunge and try one of her longer works.
Read
April 18, 2023A sometimes ok to pretty collection of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates. On the one hand, I think there’s a couple of long stories that are pretty good over all. The opening story involves an orderly at a retirement home (that happens to house an older nun who has just died) is an interesting exploration about the assumptions of forgiveness and redemption, especially in relationship to how the assumption of faith functions. It works and it’s a good start to the collection.
The other story that I think works really well involves an older woman–a college professor recently widowed–first seeking out drugs and human connection from a wastrel niece only to be burned. She recalls working in prisons and remembers a fleeting but seemingly intense connection with a former student she met there. So she seeks him out.
A story that almost works and has an HP Lovecraft level of cosmic mystery involves a graduate student looking for her brother, a seminary student whose fallen out of favor with his studies in Trenton NJ. It’s good story that turns into absolute parody as Oates very inadvisably has several of the characters speaking in horrifying parodies of AAVE to the point where I almost stopped reading. To quote my wife reading poorly written dialect “She knows they’re speaking English, right”
That one made me not care much about the other stories.
The other story that I think works really well involves an older woman–a college professor recently widowed–first seeking out drugs and human connection from a wastrel niece only to be burned. She recalls working in prisons and remembers a fleeting but seemingly intense connection with a former student she met there. So she seeks him out.
A story that almost works and has an HP Lovecraft level of cosmic mystery involves a graduate student looking for her brother, a seminary student whose fallen out of favor with his studies in Trenton NJ. It’s good story that turns into absolute parody as Oates very inadvisably has several of the characters speaking in horrifying parodies of AAVE to the point where I almost stopped reading. To quote my wife reading poorly written dialect “She knows they’re speaking English, right”
That one made me not care much about the other stories.
March 4, 2016
I really love Joyce Carol Oates. I especially love her short stories. But not this one. The stories themselves seem a little dull and cliched and the characters just didn't seem as interesting as her usual. Oates sometimes has some stilted dialogue or some moments of unrealistic interactions, but she mostly has a good grasp on compelling characters that may or may not be likeable or redeemable, but are at least compelling as characters. There was no character that was interesting to me. It's not that they were bad people, which they were, but it's that they were dull and listless bad people.
But the book's biggest flaw is how disturbing the representations of people of color are. It is not inaccurate to write a story from the perspective of a privileged white character that portrays black people in a sort of skewed light, based on their perceptions, I get that. But that is how nearly every one of these stories dealing with race goes. Every black or Latino character (with the exception of an abused baby) is mysterious or threatening or predatory. It's off-putting. Like I said, you can tell a story like that, that plays off perceptions of the white characters, but when every story is like that, it's very telling.
But the book's biggest flaw is how disturbing the representations of people of color are. It is not inaccurate to write a story from the perspective of a privileged white character that portrays black people in a sort of skewed light, based on their perceptions, I get that. But that is how nearly every one of these stories dealing with race goes. Every black or Latino character (with the exception of an abused baby) is mysterious or threatening or predatory. It's off-putting. Like I said, you can tell a story like that, that plays off perceptions of the white characters, but when every story is like that, it's very telling.
July 29, 2018
I enjoyed/fully understood only half of the stories. I believe the first about the nuns was my favourite. I didn't fully grasp what in the world was going on in "The Rescuer." Why did she keep mentioning how short he was? I thought the big reveal was going to be that it wasn't actually her brother. Why did they kill Tin? It was just aggravating how nothing was fully explained in that story.
I usually love Oates' short stories, but these feel short (pun intended).
I usually love Oates' short stories, but these feel short (pun intended).
April 30, 2017
High Crime is a collation of short stories about people been beaten down by childhood, society and their current environment. The stories are dark and go places that we don’t want to go but need to go to better understand these individuals and ourselves. Julia Whelan, Ray Chase, Donna Postel, Luci Christian, Tamara Marston, Chris Patton were great in telling the stories.
March 3, 2019
I did not realize this was a short story collection when I picked it up at a library book sale a few months ago. The first two stories were good, but the rest fell into the pit of most short stories that leave me irritated either with no closure or with complete confusion. I'm just not a short story fan.
September 18, 2021
If I could give this book 0 stars I would. Typically I like Oates, but in this collection she leaned on problematic and beyond offensive stereotypes to develop characters/setting which just made these boring stories that much more unlikeable. So bad
February 11, 2016
This is a collection of eight short stories about the dark side of human nature. I particularly liked The Home at Craigmillnar, Demon, & Lorelei.
February 27, 2017
Stale and - it's weird to criticize a book of spooky stories for being joyless right but whatever - joyless.
November 30, 2021
Read for Horror Book Club.
Not supernatural or ghostly horror, but definitely an uncomfortable horror that makes you think. Here are my thoughts jotted down while I read it:
Would I have enjoyed this had I read it without prompting? No. Most probably not. Was it a book that made me think about it long after I had finished? Yes, and it made for a good book club book.
Not supernatural or ghostly horror, but definitely an uncomfortable horror that makes you think. Here are my thoughts jotted down while I read it:
Would I have enjoyed this had I read it without prompting? No. Most probably not. Was it a book that made me think about it long after I had finished? Yes, and it made for a good book club book.
March 12, 2021
I enjoyed this collection of suspenseful stories from one of the masters of suspense, Joyce Carol Oates. The subtitle of this collection is “Tales of Darkness and Dread,” and there is plenty of both in these stories. “The Home at Craigmillnar” reveals the horrors that occur at Catholic orphanages; “High” is another in a series of recent Oates stories that have a recently widowed woman who is not coping well with her sudden isolation; “Toad-Baby” explores the fate of unwanted babies; “Demon” is also about an unwanted “child of Satan” who can no longer reconcile the pain of being alive; the title character in “Lorelei” is a desperate young woman desperately looking for someone to love in the subterranean world of the New York subway system; “The Rescuer,” the longest story in the collection is, for me, the most disturbing because of its depiction of two talented siblings who allow their promising lives to spiral downward toward inevitable tragedy; “The Last Man of Letters” is about a haughty, arrogant, and self-righteous author of some renown whose disdain for those around him leads to violent retribution; and “High Crime Area” is about a teacher at Wayne State University in Detroit who believes she’s being stalked and threatened after class by a shadowy figure (whom she assumes is a black man) one night on her way to the parking garage where she has left her car. These stories pulsate with darkness and dread indeed, and they all unfold with taut precision. Grade: B+
March 29, 2018
Joyce Carol Oates's High Crime Area: Tales of Darkness and Dread is a collection of short stories about the terror of living in Eastern cities, particularly as it is intensified by race. The two stories I liked the most were "The Rescuer," about a graduate student going to Trenton to look after her brother, who has left the seminary and is running with a bad crowd, and "High Crime Area," about the thoughts that run through a young professor's mind as she is being followed by one of her former black students and who is wondering whether she should draw her gun to protect herself.
I have not read any Oates for several years. I think I will turn next to some of her novels, which I have always enjoyed.
I have not read any Oates for several years. I think I will turn next to some of her novels, which I have always enjoyed.
May 4, 2020
This is the second collection of short stories I have read by JCO. As with the first book I found this one stagnant and depressing. Again I expected so much but received so little. Instead of enjoying it, the work reminded me of school English lessons when you had to read books and interpret meanings out of something that held no interest for you.
I understand the book is titled High Crime Area: Tales of Darkness and Dread so they’re not going to be a bundle of laughs. But the work is so dire in its subjects that after a while you become immune to whatever the message of the stories are.
Some of the stories are needlessly long and the endings disappointing. I read another review of this book and it stated the work was old fashioned. I agree with this. Good works of fiction should be entertaining as well as teaching you something. This book does neither of these in my opinion.
I understand the book is titled High Crime Area: Tales of Darkness and Dread so they’re not going to be a bundle of laughs. But the work is so dire in its subjects that after a while you become immune to whatever the message of the stories are.
Some of the stories are needlessly long and the endings disappointing. I read another review of this book and it stated the work was old fashioned. I agree with this. Good works of fiction should be entertaining as well as teaching you something. This book does neither of these in my opinion.
January 16, 2020
Man, if this was reproduced through a tv medium, it would definitely be more horrifying and unnerving. The gruesome and disconcerting themes present in this novel make it an electrifying read. The prose structure is a nice addition as it aids in accelerating the tension that some of these characters experience. Some find themselves executing vengeance upon others, while others are abused and mistreated. As in one story, where the protagonist takes a stand of decades of gratuitous torment by suffocating the one responsible, to another, where a young promising academic is coerced to oblige to the demands of a ruthless, haughty drug dealer.
These stories are able to capture the intensity of human fragility and the horror and dread of finding ourselves exposed and inferior.
These stories are able to capture the intensity of human fragility and the horror and dread of finding ourselves exposed and inferior.
March 1, 2021
I love how JCO is able to articulate the inner monologues of her characters-making a sentence or two a sort of intellectual earworm. I also prefer her short stories to her longer fiction because I find them more potent and the effects more lingering. These stories definitely deliver what the subtitle promises - JCO does dread and menace like a master. Some of these stories, however, feel like they turn a corner before their conclusion for an unclear (at least to me) reason or some of them stop rather than finish. But this could be that with short stories (as with a box of chocolates) I tend to gorge myself rather than savor one at a time.
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