The Massacre at Mount Pitcairn: Stories

by Joyce Carol Oates

A dark, gripping tale that will carry you straight into the shadows of fall. Set in a remote mountain town haunted by its own secrets, Oates spins a story that’s as chilling as it is mesmerizing. Her sharp, lyrical prose and gift for psychological tension pull readers into a world where nothing—and no one—is quite what it seems.

Filled with mysterious characters, haunting imagery, and twists that will leave you breathless, The Massacre at Mount Pitcairn is both a spine-tingling thriller and a powerful reflection on guilt, fear, and the fragility of human nature. One of Oates’s own favorite stories, it’s a masterwork of suspense and storytelling from one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

“I try to write books that can be read in one way by a literal-minded reader, and in quite another way by a reader alert to symbolic abbreviation and parodistic elements. And yet, it’s the same book—or nearly. A trompe l’oeil, a work of ‘as if.’” — Joyce Carol Oates

Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2025

About the author

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

Reviews

[Carol Kowalczik]

⭐️⭐️ 2 stars

This one pains me to write.

Joyce Carol Oates was actually one of my inspirations when I started writing short, macabre stories in my late teens and early twenties. I loved how dark and disturbing her stories could be, and there was a time when seeing her name on a book was enough to make me want to read it.

But somewhere along the way, I started struggling with her writing style. Some of her books became so full of unnecessary words and long, complicated sentences that I found myself zoning out, losing interest, and sometimes not finishing them at all. What once felt complex and literary to me started feeling confusing rather than immersive.

So when I saw The Massacre at Mount Pitcairn available as an ARC through NetGalley, I figured this was the perfect opportunity to find out if Joyce Carol Oates was an author I could still keep on my TBR.

Unfortunately, I think I got my answer.

This is a collection of four stories, all revolving around adolescents. The first story was okay, and I actually enjoyed it more than I expected to. The second was much shorter and didn't have nearly as much substance, but considering how I was feeling by then, the shorter length worked in its favor.

The most disturbing parts of these stories were honestly the best parts. That's the Joyce Carol Oates I remember loving. The problem was how long it took to get to them. Her writing style is simply too slow for me now, and I spent far too much of this book waiting for something to happen.

And then there are the sentences. By the end, I couldn't handle another million-word sentence or another set of parentheses where they didn't seem necessary. On the very first page of one story alone, I got:
(step)daughter
(new)wife
(step)father

Yes. Three times. On one page.

In Story #3, I encountered a single sentence containing 76 words, six commas, a set of parentheses, a colon, and finally, one long-awaited period. Yes, I counted.

At that point, I was exhausted and had no idea what I'd just read.

I made it a couple of pages into the fourth and final story before deciding to DNF it, and the immediate sense of relief I felt when I stopped reading pretty much confirmed the rating for me.

There's something especially disappointing about realizing you've outgrown an author who once inspired you. I can still appreciate Joyce Carol Oates for the writer she is and for the influence her darker stories had on me when I was younger. But I've also learned what kind of reader I am now. I want tighter pacing, cleaner prose, and stories that pull me forward rather than make me work to get through them.

Sadly, this collection confirmed that her writing style just isn't for me anymore.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Xanadu]

This collection of short stories explores the potential for danger of women who find themselves in groups of men (and sometimes other women or girls), lingering especially on abusive and absent fathers. The stories are unified by an indulgence of unconventional syntax, to the point that I had to re-read a significant portion of every paragraph. They also share a super charming and meaningful gimmick in which the protagonists' last names are redacted as if you were reading a criminal case file or a government report.

"Strangle" was by far the best and most coherent of the stories, ending with a very unoriginal resolution, but at least conveying a chronology of events. The titular imitation of Jackson's Hill House was vivid and had a lot of potential, but ended up with two separate narratives desperately stitched together. I'm a huge fan of nautical stories, so I was loving the first half of the last entry, but it went off the rails even more aggressively than the previous stories had. The cover is absolutely gorgeous, so if you've looked at it thoroughly, go ahead and put the book down; you've seen the best it has to offer.

In mystified gratitude to the author, NetGalley and The Mysterious Press for the ARC.

[Whitney Hofstetter]

Thank you to NetGalley and Penzler Publishers for an advance copy of this book.

5/5 stars


Plot: 4 short stories, dark and unsettling

Impression: I had a hard time giving this 5 stars but I couldn’t put it down and won’t be able to stop thinking about these stories! The final short story made me very uncomfortable- see trigger warnings below. However, the collection as a whole has a dark, gothic feel that I love but it is unsettling. I’m left questioning, did that actually happen? I did not see it going there! Definitely the vibe I had reading Iain Reid- psychologically intense with the need to debrief with another reader.

Trigger Warnings: sexual assault of a child very strongly implied especially in Yare.

Star System: 5 star reads are books I can’t put down and/or make me cry. This is a book that will stick with me for either the topic, writing style, or emotional impact.
4 star books are unique or interesting and perhaps teach me something new. A feel good read is usually 4 stars.
3 star reads are good, solid books. I’m not necessarily learning or feeling anything new.
2 star books have some plot holes or timeline issues. These are the books that just aren’t believable.
1 star books are typically offensive

[Amy Del Rio-Gazzo]

Another great short story collection from JCO. An absolute master of the short story, she has this incredible ability to build fully realized worlds and characters in such a short span of time, and this collection is no exception. Each of these stories bring something different, but all of them leave you with such a feeling dread and unease. I'm so unsettled. It rocks. Cannot wait reread this. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC and thank you Joyce Carol Oates for being brilliant and insane.

[Jenna Scribbles]

Did story one appear on Wattpad? I feel like the writing is so rough and juvenile that it could easily be written by a 14 year old. The sentence structure drove me crazy. Run on sentences, parentheses where non were needed, strange word combinations made into phrases. Was this her first draft?

Story two seemed more put together. Not much though.

I feel justified in DNFing this book but still giving a review. So poorly written.

No thanks given to NetGalley for the ARC of this title.