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Dear Husband
A gripping and moving new collection of stories by Joyce Carol Oates, which reimagines the meaning of family—by unexpected, often startling means
With the unflinching candor and sympathy for which Joyce Carol Oates is celebrated, these fourteen stories examine the intimate lives of contemporary American families: the tangled ties between generations, the desperation—and the covert, radiant happiness—of loving more than one is loved in return. In Cutty Sark and Landfill, the bond between adolescent son and mother reverberates with the force of an unspoken passion, bringing unexpected consequences for the son. In A Princeton Idyll, a woman is forced to realize, decades later, her childhood role in the destruction of a famous, beloved grandfather's life. In Magda Maria, a man tries to break free of the enthralling and dangerous erotic obsession of his life. In the gripping title story, Oates boldly reimagines the true-crime story of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her children in 2001. Several stories—Suicide by Fitness Center, The Glazers, and Dear Joyce Carol,—take a less tragic turn, exploring with mordant humor the shadowy interstices between self-awareness and delusion.
Dramatic, intensely rendered, and always provocative, Dear Husband, provides an unsettling and fascinating look into the mysterious heart of America.
With the unflinching candor and sympathy for which Joyce Carol Oates is celebrated, these fourteen stories examine the intimate lives of contemporary American families: the tangled ties between generations, the desperation—and the covert, radiant happiness—of loving more than one is loved in return. In Cutty Sark and Landfill, the bond between adolescent son and mother reverberates with the force of an unspoken passion, bringing unexpected consequences for the son. In A Princeton Idyll, a woman is forced to realize, decades later, her childhood role in the destruction of a famous, beloved grandfather's life. In Magda Maria, a man tries to break free of the enthralling and dangerous erotic obsession of his life. In the gripping title story, Oates boldly reimagines the true-crime story of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her children in 2001. Several stories—Suicide by Fitness Center, The Glazers, and Dear Joyce Carol,—take a less tragic turn, exploring with mordant humor the shadowy interstices between self-awareness and delusion.
Dramatic, intensely rendered, and always provocative, Dear Husband, provides an unsettling and fascinating look into the mysterious heart of America.
326 pages, Hardcover
First published March 31, 2009
103 people are currently reading
1036 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
854 books9,624 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 196 reviews
December 11, 2009
I picture Joyce Carol Oates laughing to herself with a sinister grin, and thinking “Wait till they get a load of these.” Fourteen stories, some are dark, some darker. Three stories rate five stars, some of the rest rate two. If you have just started this collection, and aren’t yet interested, just keep going. The first three stories didn’t ring my bell. By the end, I can see the most ordinary looking people, and know that they are capable of almost anything.
August 27, 2016
اصولا خیلی راحت نمیتونم با داستان های کوتاه کنار بیام. در واقع با آشفتگی و نداشتن جزئیات در داستان های کوتاه مشکل دارم. چیزهایی که کمتر در این اثر دیده شدند.
این کتاب ۱۰ داستان کوتاه است که جزو پر فروش ترین های نیویورک تایمز بوده.
داستان های کتاب، جزئیات و پیش زمینه هایی از افراد در دل داستان به خواننده می دهند که باعث درک بیشتر خواننده از افراد و اتفاقات می شود.
به همان اندازه که داستان ها در طول خواندن شان ممکنه ملال آور باشه، به همون اندازه بعد از پایان هر کدوم، از خوندنش احساس پشیمونی نمی کنید.
در سطر های پایانی میخوام از داستان ها بنویسم. که اگر تصمیم به خواندن کتاب دارید، سطر های پایین را نخوانید.
استثنایی: به نظرم بهترین داستان کتاب، همین داستان اول هست.داستان دخترک نه ساله و خواهر عقب مانده اش.
دختران بینای مرد نابینا: برعکس بقیه داستان هایی که در رابطه با نگهداری سالمندان هست، در این داستان دلمان برای دختر پیرمرد که از او مراقبت میکن میسوزد.
دوران زیبای پرینستون: این هم یکی از بهترین ها بود. نامه نگاری دختری با خدمتکار خانه قدیمی پدربزرگش که رازهایی را برملا می کند.
گورستان زباله: پسری که مرده، و به حالت بدی هم مرده .ولی باز هم من رو جذب نکرد.
هوشیار: داستان خوبی نبود.
جویس کرول عزیز: نامه های یک طرفدا به یک نویسنده که با عشق شروع و با تنفر تمام میشود.این هم خوب بود.
خودکشی در باشگاه بدنسازی: زنی که میخواهد در حال کار کردن سخت با دستگاه های باشگاه خودکشی کند ولی در پایان و بعد از معرفی افراد باشگاه از دید زن، سالم به خانه برمیگرده.
خانواده گلیزر: عجیب بود و دیگر هیچ
دادرسی بی نتیجه: به نظرم بامزه بود ولی خوب نبود.
شوهر عزیزم: زنی که ۵ بچه اش را می کشد و در طی نامه ای دلایلش را برای شوهرش می گوید. خوب بود و البته شتاب زده.
این کتاب ۱۰ داستان کوتاه است که جزو پر فروش ترین های نیویورک تایمز بوده.
داستان های کتاب، جزئیات و پیش زمینه هایی از افراد در دل داستان به خواننده می دهند که باعث درک بیشتر خواننده از افراد و اتفاقات می شود.
به همان اندازه که داستان ها در طول خواندن شان ممکنه ملال آور باشه، به همون اندازه بعد از پایان هر کدوم، از خوندنش احساس پشیمونی نمی کنید.
در سطر های پایانی میخوام از داستان ها بنویسم. که اگر تصمیم به خواندن کتاب دارید، سطر های پایین را نخوانید.
استثنایی: به نظرم بهترین داستان کتاب، همین داستان اول هست.داستان دخترک نه ساله و خواهر عقب مانده اش.
دختران بینای مرد نابینا: برعکس بقیه داستان هایی که در رابطه با نگهداری سالمندان هست، در این داستان دلمان برای دختر پیرمرد که از او مراقبت میکن میسوزد.
دوران زیبای پرینستون: این هم یکی از بهترین ها بود. نامه نگاری دختری با خدمتکار خانه قدیمی پدربزرگش که رازهایی را برملا می کند.
گورستان زباله: پسری که مرده، و به حالت بدی هم مرده .ولی باز هم من رو جذب نکرد.
هوشیار: داستان خوبی نبود.
جویس کرول عزیز: نامه های یک طرفدا به یک نویسنده که با عشق شروع و با تنفر تمام میشود.این هم خوب بود.
خودکشی در باشگاه بدنسازی: زنی که میخواهد در حال کار کردن سخت با دستگاه های باشگاه خودکشی کند ولی در پایان و بعد از معرفی افراد باشگاه از دید زن، سالم به خانه برمیگرده.
خانواده گلیزر: عجیب بود و دیگر هیچ
دادرسی بی نتیجه: به نظرم بامزه بود ولی خوب نبود.
شوهر عزیزم: زنی که ۵ بچه اش را می کشد و در طی نامه ای دلایلش را برای شوهرش می گوید. خوب بود و البته شتاب زده.
August 29, 2019
این اواخر اسم جویس کارول رو زیاد شنیده بودم و خیلی مشتاق بودم کتابی ازش بخونم، اما متاسفانه با کتاب خوبی شروع نکردم. از کل مجموعه، فقط داستان اول رو پسندیدم. البته دو تای آخر هم بد نبودن، اما مابقی هیچ جذابیتی برام نداشتن.
+ موقعی که کتاب رو میخریدم نمیدونستم مجموعه داستانه. اگر میدونستم نمیخریدمش، چون خیلی کم پیش میاد از مجموعه داستانی خوشم بیاد.
++نسخه فیدیبو خیلی بد بود: تو داستان کوتاه زیاد پیش میاد که در پاراگراف بعدی زمان و مکان عوض بشه. معمولا در این شرایط بین پاراگرافها یکی دو خط فاصله میذارن که خواننده گیج نشه، اما نسخهی ایپاب این ویژگی رو نداشت و به همین علت خوندنش خیلی سخت بود. غلط املایی هم زیاد داشت.
+ موقعی که کتاب رو میخریدم نمیدونستم مجموعه داستانه. اگر میدونستم نمیخریدمش، چون خیلی کم پیش میاد از مجموعه داستانی خوشم بیاد.
++نسخه فیدیبو خیلی بد بود: تو داستان کوتاه زیاد پیش میاد که در پاراگراف بعدی زمان و مکان عوض بشه. معمولا در این شرایط بین پاراگرافها یکی دو خط فاصله میذارن که خواننده گیج نشه، اما نسخهی ایپاب این ویژگی رو نداشت و به همین علت خوندنش خیلی سخت بود. غلط املایی هم زیاد داشت.
July 12, 2015
4.5. I was looking back at my comments at each story and overwhelmingly had a brilliant selection for this book. I love that when I read JCO it's like putting on my favorite Jammie's. It's comfy and soothing. It's just the way she writes. It sounds strange but from suicidal wives to murderous criminals she does it al in a poetic voice that can make you feel like you're setting off on a literary adventure. I will definitely keep this book and continue to chip away at her work!
February 12, 2010
Joyce Carol Oates is considered a classic contemporary writer. And she boasts it too. She says she's a "serious" writer. And she obviously makes efforts to invoke an American timelessness in her work, as if naming specific cities might win her a prize or two, and perhaps it has.
However, perhaps Oates is just another name hyped up by publishers and this collection of short stories proves that she is. I guess I expected more from the author, but the stories were a mixture of sensationalism matched with horrible writing made of air quotes, excessive exclamation marks, and annoying run-ons. She tackles huge and sometimes taboo subjects--incest, pornography, divorce, patricide. Yet, the stories main focus seem to be just that without digging much deeper. For example, "Cutty Sark," a story about incest, is at best scattered. Oates starts with a contemplation of suicide, a character wondering if suicide is genetic in his family, yet somehow we end with the mother's incestuous affair with her brother. She draws her character in that story well enough, yet the incest taken out would have done nothing to the story, nor did adding it in do anything. That story in particular focused upon the relationship between mother and son, and the addition of the incest information adds absolutely nothing, and becomes just sensationalist.
Oates is a sensationalist. To say she is a realist is laughable. Her characters are not real, they overact and are not characters to whom we as human beings can relate. Not that rich authors and PhD drug addicts aren't relatable, but it seems like Oates is writing from a different generation and a different paradigm and is no longer for this time in literature: it was for, maybe, another time, in the past.
Despite, this however, there were highlights. "Landfill," for example, is a great story in which Oate's once horrific use of run-ons and air quotes profits into a haunting story about the murder of a college boy. Also, "The Blind Man's Sighted Daughters," is a story in which Oates skillfully shows the tensions between family members, in this case, two daughters and their blind father.
Other than these, however, themes are reworked throughout the collection in a way that is repetitive and bland, even with the sensationalistic events. Perhaps the "serious" writer is grasping for something from her ivory tower, yet if readers can't relate to her work, she loses an audience and runs the risk of looking pompous in interviews and boring in writing, something Oates does rather well.
May 26, 2009
Wow. This is not a book to read if you are feeling even slightly glum. And if you are feeling good, it is a major buzz kill. Well written but so cynical and sad you need anti-depressants to make it through. It made "Catcher on the Rye" feel like a light-hearted romp. If you're into dysfunctional families, alcoholics, narcissism, drug abuse, cruelty and hopelessness (and it amazes me how many readers are), this is the book for you. My book club was divided. Some loved it, some couldn't handle the distress. I was in the latter category. My spirit couldn't stand another story. I stopped 3/4 of the way through.
Joyce Carol Oates has a wide and adoring audience but I think I will stay off that bandwagon. I need more hope in my stories: short or otherwise.
Joyce Carol Oates has a wide and adoring audience but I think I will stay off that bandwagon. I need more hope in my stories: short or otherwise.
Currently reading
April 13, 2009Finished the first story. She is a masterful short story writer. I read one, then put it down to think on it. Yummy. Dark. Reminds me of Chesil Beach and all the ways married people disappoint and surprise each other unknowingly/knowingly.
May 21, 2011
This writer certainly has a dark side! She's great at character development, and creating a "slice of life" in a few pages. Are people really this dark as she makes her characters to be? Maybe. (copied review) A gripping and moving new collection of stories by Joyce Carol Oates, which reimagines the meaning of family—by unexpected, often startling means
With the unflinching candor and sympathy for which Joyce Carol Oates is celebrated, these fourteen stories examine the intimate lives of contemporary American families: the tangled ties between generations, the desperation—and the covert, radiant happiness—of loving more than one is loved in return. In "Cutty Sark" and "Landfill," the bond between adolescent son and mother reverberates with the force of an unspoken passion, bringing unexpected consequences for the son. In "A Princeton Idyll," a woman is forced to realize, decades later, her childhood role in the destruction of a famous, beloved grandfather's life. In "Magda Maria," a man tries to break free of the enthralling and dangerous erotic obsession of his life. In the gripping title story, Oates boldly reimagines the true-crime story of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her children in 2001. Several stories—"Suicide by Fitness Center," "The Glazers," and "Dear Joyce Carol,"—take a less tragic turn, exploring with mordant humor the shadowy interstices between self-awareness and delusion.
Dramatic, intensely rendered, and always provocative, Dear Husband, provides an unsettling and fascinating look into the mysterious heart of America
With the unflinching candor and sympathy for which Joyce Carol Oates is celebrated, these fourteen stories examine the intimate lives of contemporary American families: the tangled ties between generations, the desperation—and the covert, radiant happiness—of loving more than one is loved in return. In "Cutty Sark" and "Landfill," the bond between adolescent son and mother reverberates with the force of an unspoken passion, bringing unexpected consequences for the son. In "A Princeton Idyll," a woman is forced to realize, decades later, her childhood role in the destruction of a famous, beloved grandfather's life. In "Magda Maria," a man tries to break free of the enthralling and dangerous erotic obsession of his life. In the gripping title story, Oates boldly reimagines the true-crime story of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her children in 2001. Several stories—"Suicide by Fitness Center," "The Glazers," and "Dear Joyce Carol,"—take a less tragic turn, exploring with mordant humor the shadowy interstices between self-awareness and delusion.
Dramatic, intensely rendered, and always provocative, Dear Husband, provides an unsettling and fascinating look into the mysterious heart of America
September 27, 2017
Joyce Carol definitely has a way with words and she has the innate ability to make you feel repulsion and empathy at the same time. Good stories but I shouldn't have read all of part II at the same time. very bleak. Part I was gentler.
June 18, 2013
Pick up this book if you're interested in: infanticide, matricide, patricide, fratricide, suicide, alcoholism, heroin addiction, porn addiction, fetishism, human cloning, incest, blackmail and religious delusions. Avoid it if a constant onslaught of the baser forms of human behaviour either offends you or bores you after listening to the audio version of Dear Husband for a couple of weeks. The way that each story started from the perspective of a reasonably normal narrator, who would then either reveal themselves to be monsters or discover their intimates were monsters, reminded me of when I read a complete collection of O. Henry stories: when you're expecting a twist, it has little effect when it comes. Perhaps these stories would be more effective if they were spread out. I also really didn't enjoy the work of the three people who narrated the version I listened to, so that probably added to my impatience.
There were some stories that worked for me overall (The Blind Man's Sighted Daughters, Mistrial, Special, Magda Maria). I did quite enjoy Landfill, likely because I can feel for parents whose son is missing and can imagine the torture of dreading, and receiving, the call from the police that he has been found, dead. Better than just the plot was the revelation of how different the son and his behaviour were from his parents' image of him. This part was chilling to listen to:
The police investigation has yet to determine whether Hector died in the early hours of March 25th in the steep-sided Dumpster behind the Phi Epsilon frat house—where investigators found stains and swaths of blood, as if made by wildly thrashing bloody wings—or whether he died as many as forty-eight hours later, after lying unconscious, possibly comatose from brain injuries, until Monday morning, and then being hauled away unseen beneath mounds of trash, cans, bottles, Styrofoam and cardboard packages, rancid raw garbage, stained and filthy clothing, and paper towels soaked in vomit, urine, even feces. At approximately 6:45 A.M. on March 27th, he was dumped into the rear of a thunderous Tioga County Sanitation Department truck and hauled sixteen miles north of the city to the Packard Road recycling transfer station, to be compacted and then hauled away again to the gouged, misshapen, ever-shifting landscape of the Tioga County landfill… Only the police investigators can bring themselves to imagine that Hector Campos, Jr., may have been “compacted” while still alive.
But then when I was looking for that passage from the story online, I discovered that there was some controversy when Landfill was originally published in the New Yorker. Apparently, "John Fiocco, Jr., a college student at The College of New Jersey, died in the same mysterious way, and was discovered in the same way (at a landfill) a few weeks later. Oates even uses the date of Fiocco's own death/disappearance -- March 25." As there are real grieving parents involved, I don't know how fair it was for Oates to barely mask the real details in her fictional treatment. Most especially since in her story the dead kid was such a creep.
The title story, Dear Husband, is a letter written by a fictionalised Andrea Yates, explaining to her husband why she has drowned their five children and taken an overdose of painkillers. I also found this to be exploitative, and the fact that she blamed her actions on the voice of God and her husband's lack of help and understanding, superficial and non-compelling explanations, didn't justify the intrusion on the privacy of the very real people left behind in that tragedy -- I would be much more forgiving if Oates had written the story with some psychological depth regarding post-partum depression, or even used it as a statement about modern society.
Other stories were painfully long, turning inside out to be entirely different stories by the end (Cutty Sark, The Glaziers) or employ cutesy devices with willful misdirection (A Princeton Idyll, Dear Joyce Carol). In the end, each is a sensationalistic tale with people behaving badly, attempting to shock the reader, and I am likely too cynical to have been properly affected.
There were some stories that worked for me overall (The Blind Man's Sighted Daughters, Mistrial, Special, Magda Maria). I did quite enjoy Landfill, likely because I can feel for parents whose son is missing and can imagine the torture of dreading, and receiving, the call from the police that he has been found, dead. Better than just the plot was the revelation of how different the son and his behaviour were from his parents' image of him. This part was chilling to listen to:
The police investigation has yet to determine whether Hector died in the early hours of March 25th in the steep-sided Dumpster behind the Phi Epsilon frat house—where investigators found stains and swaths of blood, as if made by wildly thrashing bloody wings—or whether he died as many as forty-eight hours later, after lying unconscious, possibly comatose from brain injuries, until Monday morning, and then being hauled away unseen beneath mounds of trash, cans, bottles, Styrofoam and cardboard packages, rancid raw garbage, stained and filthy clothing, and paper towels soaked in vomit, urine, even feces. At approximately 6:45 A.M. on March 27th, he was dumped into the rear of a thunderous Tioga County Sanitation Department truck and hauled sixteen miles north of the city to the Packard Road recycling transfer station, to be compacted and then hauled away again to the gouged, misshapen, ever-shifting landscape of the Tioga County landfill… Only the police investigators can bring themselves to imagine that Hector Campos, Jr., may have been “compacted” while still alive.
But then when I was looking for that passage from the story online, I discovered that there was some controversy when Landfill was originally published in the New Yorker. Apparently, "John Fiocco, Jr., a college student at The College of New Jersey, died in the same mysterious way, and was discovered in the same way (at a landfill) a few weeks later. Oates even uses the date of Fiocco's own death/disappearance -- March 25." As there are real grieving parents involved, I don't know how fair it was for Oates to barely mask the real details in her fictional treatment. Most especially since in her story the dead kid was such a creep.
The title story, Dear Husband, is a letter written by a fictionalised Andrea Yates, explaining to her husband why she has drowned their five children and taken an overdose of painkillers. I also found this to be exploitative, and the fact that she blamed her actions on the voice of God and her husband's lack of help and understanding, superficial and non-compelling explanations, didn't justify the intrusion on the privacy of the very real people left behind in that tragedy -- I would be much more forgiving if Oates had written the story with some psychological depth regarding post-partum depression, or even used it as a statement about modern society.
Other stories were painfully long, turning inside out to be entirely different stories by the end (Cutty Sark, The Glaziers) or employ cutesy devices with willful misdirection (A Princeton Idyll, Dear Joyce Carol). In the end, each is a sensationalistic tale with people behaving badly, attempting to shock the reader, and I am likely too cynical to have been properly affected.
June 22, 2014
This is a good book. Not an amazing book, but a good one. Certain stories I wasn't as interested in, or found anti-climatic. I was intrigued by Magda Maria; the descriptions of this woman he was obsessed with, how she changed from being this glamorous, youthful looking woman to basically looking like a cheap prostitute that had aged considerably. The thing was, he was just as entranced by this woman, so much so, that he drives to a hotel and attempts to kill himself with her. It made me sit there wondering WTH kind of people are these, and do they really exist? But it was an intriguing story, as I say.
Dear Joyce Carol was entertaining. I don't know whether or not some might look at this story as narcissism (writing about someone being obsessed with you? Sounds a little narcissistic to me) but there was a draw to reading into this psycho-stalker and how he changed suddenly from being your typical obsessed fan into something much more dark and sinister.
I also enjoyed reading Dear Husband, the title story, although it was depressing. For everyone who is complaining that this story is depressing - no duh. Read the inside of the cover and you'll see that it's based off of the Andrea Yates case. If that's too much for you, then don't pick up the book. Part of beauty of this was that it made me sad - only a good story can actually make you feel something. This woman truly was suffering. It doesn't paint her as this evil woman that people like to believe she was, but as a woman who was truly suffering from some sort of mental disorder, as you can tell from how the writing flips all over the place and how, out of all things, she agonizes over a destroyed casserole dish.
Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy all the stories the way I did the above. Panic, the first story in the book, I found to be kind of dull. Even though the point was that this guy got jealous over his wife choosing to save the baby over him, therefore meaning that "she doesn't love him" and that hey, that truck driver that got shot could have been them - just no. I didn't care. This story didn't do anything for me. I just really didn't care about the characters, how they felt, or anything that happened to them. It was dry and boring, with a moody guy who's upset and throwing a hissy fit over something stupid.
The Blind Man's Sighted Daughters wasn't a big hit with me either. They start out talking about how this old man with dementia or Alzheimer's might have been involved in a murder many years ago. Guess what? You never find out. You never know what happens, and it's barely mentioned, except in passing. And that's really the only exciting thing in this story. Sure, it shows difficult caring for a parent can be - though it only does an OK job at that, nothing spectacular- but there's nothing really interesting going on here. The woman's sister shows up from her fancy life and acts high class, like she's doing something good by helping out her poor sister, and then she runs for the hills as soon as things get tough. I waited this whole story for something exciting to happen, particularly with the murder. It never happens.
All in all, this book is a mixed bag. If you're looking for sparkly happy ending stories, this book isn't for you. If it doesn't bother you, then you'll probably find something you like in here.
Dear Joyce Carol was entertaining. I don't know whether or not some might look at this story as narcissism (writing about someone being obsessed with you? Sounds a little narcissistic to me) but there was a draw to reading into this psycho-stalker and how he changed suddenly from being your typical obsessed fan into something much more dark and sinister.
I also enjoyed reading Dear Husband, the title story, although it was depressing. For everyone who is complaining that this story is depressing - no duh. Read the inside of the cover and you'll see that it's based off of the Andrea Yates case. If that's too much for you, then don't pick up the book. Part of beauty of this was that it made me sad - only a good story can actually make you feel something. This woman truly was suffering. It doesn't paint her as this evil woman that people like to believe she was, but as a woman who was truly suffering from some sort of mental disorder, as you can tell from how the writing flips all over the place and how, out of all things, she agonizes over a destroyed casserole dish.
Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy all the stories the way I did the above. Panic, the first story in the book, I found to be kind of dull. Even though the point was that this guy got jealous over his wife choosing to save the baby over him, therefore meaning that "she doesn't love him" and that hey, that truck driver that got shot could have been them - just no. I didn't care. This story didn't do anything for me. I just really didn't care about the characters, how they felt, or anything that happened to them. It was dry and boring, with a moody guy who's upset and throwing a hissy fit over something stupid.
The Blind Man's Sighted Daughters wasn't a big hit with me either. They start out talking about how this old man with dementia or Alzheimer's might have been involved in a murder many years ago. Guess what? You never find out. You never know what happens, and it's barely mentioned, except in passing. And that's really the only exciting thing in this story. Sure, it shows difficult caring for a parent can be - though it only does an OK job at that, nothing spectacular- but there's nothing really interesting going on here. The woman's sister shows up from her fancy life and acts high class, like she's doing something good by helping out her poor sister, and then she runs for the hills as soon as things get tough. I waited this whole story for something exciting to happen, particularly with the murder. It never happens.
All in all, this book is a mixed bag. If you're looking for sparkly happy ending stories, this book isn't for you. If it doesn't bother you, then you'll probably find something you like in here.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2019
Joyce Carol Oates’s short story collections are hit or miss. The hits are near perfection like Heat, and the misses feel like Atreyu and Artax in the Swamp of Sadness. This one is a miss. Her novels are the same too, either they’re so damn good that they destroy you or they read like smug word vomit. So badly I wanted to blame this dud as being the right book at the wrong time, but it’s just the wrong book no matter what.
Panic – a dude has a nightmare.
Special – a story about a family with a developmentally delayed daughter. It feels dated, like 1950s dated where kids with autism spectrum disorders were institutionalized. The kid’s name is Sallie Grace; don’t take a shot every time it's mentioned because you will be dead by the 2nd page.
The blind man’s sighted daughters – a miserable dickhead lives with his daughter after suffering a series of strokes. The story felt unfinished and the huge question never answered.
Magda maria – If you put Leonard Cohen, Romeo and Juliet, Sunset Strip, a whole lot of drugs, and some religious stuff in a blender, the result would be this story. It's dedicated to Leonard Cohen too.
A Princeton idyll – a letter exchange between a woman and her childhood caretaker and maid. The caretaker is supposed to sound ignorant and not know how to spell, but it’s a half assed attempt at dumbing down the caretaker.
Cutty Sark – pick an episode of Gossip Girl. Any episode, it really doesn’t matter. Rich people problems would be a better title.
This is where I pulled the bookmark. Maybe the other stories are better, but I just don't care enough to finish them.
Panic – a dude has a nightmare.
Special – a story about a family with a developmentally delayed daughter. It feels dated, like 1950s dated where kids with autism spectrum disorders were institutionalized. The kid’s name is Sallie Grace; don’t take a shot every time it's mentioned because you will be dead by the 2nd page.
The blind man’s sighted daughters – a miserable dickhead lives with his daughter after suffering a series of strokes. The story felt unfinished and the huge question never answered.
Magda maria – If you put Leonard Cohen, Romeo and Juliet, Sunset Strip, a whole lot of drugs, and some religious stuff in a blender, the result would be this story. It's dedicated to Leonard Cohen too.
A Princeton idyll – a letter exchange between a woman and her childhood caretaker and maid. The caretaker is supposed to sound ignorant and not know how to spell, but it’s a half assed attempt at dumbing down the caretaker.
Cutty Sark – pick an episode of Gossip Girl. Any episode, it really doesn’t matter. Rich people problems would be a better title.
This is where I pulled the bookmark. Maybe the other stories are better, but I just don't care enough to finish them.
May 28, 2009
God damn. Joyce Carol Oates is a great writer, but she's just comically overwrought. These stories involve suicides, violent deaths or else murders, children who hate their parents, vehemently, or else parents who hate their children. The collection's title story concerns a woman drowning her children in a bathtub and swallowing seventeen oxycontin pills (a true story). There's one piece that kind of picks up where DFWallace's "Incarnations of Burned Children" leaves off, in that it involves a young girl being accidentally doused with boiling spaghetti water. In the end it all reads as kind of a one-note shock-fest, where by story's end you've rolled your eyes at least once. Sure, we're all a little messed up, but Dear Husband, seems to be saying that's all we are, and all we'll ever be.
January 11, 2016
This type of fiction is not in my usual wheelhouse but it was suggested by a dear friend of mine so i tried it out. I am glad I did.
Typically I am used to stories that have a definite arc. Intro of protagonist, the problem and either the protagonist's triumph or failure. I tend to hate stories that have ambiguity or just seem to be maybe a slice of life with no real story. These type of stories made the Mars Chronicles very hard to finish for me. A few of the stories in this book fit this mold, but I liked them.
I am of split opinion of the book. I enjoyed it, but I feel like if I was smarter maybe I could have gotten more out of it. The stories feel like the kind i would have been assigned in a college English class, with layers, many of which are hidden and not revealed on a first read.
Now I will say that unlike most books of short stories I remember each one of the stories so that is something.
Overall I would say the key word to this book is ambiguity.
Panic-During a car ride a husband and wife are confronted by a possibly life and death situation. Afterwards the husband is resentful because his wife chose to protect their child rather than stay with him. I didn't fully care for this one. Points of Ambiguity, was it really a gun? Is he mad because he thinks that in protecting the baby she was saying, you've passed on your seed, I need you no more, or was he upset that she acted decisively while he panicked. He in either case is a jerk.
Special-A girl grows up with her autistic sister and and imaginary friend named Jesus. Early in the story she is physically disfigured by the sister, but by the end she is free. You can really feel her frustration with the total unfairness of her situation. Ambiguity-Why does she think she is the cause of the attack at the end, the final weapon wasn't the scissors but did she think the scissors gave her sister the idea?
The Blind Man's Sighted Daughters-One sister is taking care of her aged infirm father why the other is off on her own and thinks she can do a better job. Not much ambiguity here.
Magda Maria-I hated this because the main character claims to love Magda, but does nothing to stop her downfall and eventual death.
A Princeton Idyll-This one rings with me. When you look back at your childhood you use the lenses of your life. You may see your parents as saints or sinners, but how does a third party see them. I was a little confused by the happiness the housekeeper had at the end.
Cutty Sark-Growing up the protagonist was always over shadowed by his mother. A late blooming writer she abandoned him and his father to write successful books some of which are very scandalous. One night shortly after his 17th birthday he is alone with her and she may or may not be trying to have sex with him in the end he is arrested and his life is in shambles. Was his mother really trying to seduce him? Did she love him or was he just another way for her to grab headlines?
Landfill-Here is a big ambiguity, we are given the last day of a young man's life, but given two equally plausible stories of what happened, was it murder or accidental death?
Vigilante-A young man comes home for the holidays and eventually goes on a bender where he confronts his abusive father and is eventually arrested. I am wonder with this one if the Christian couple were really talking bout his dad or about him. After the story does he get back on the straight path, it almost feels like he does with him throwing away the pills.
The Heart Sutra-This is the first of two stories in which a matriarch decides to kill herself and her children. It's scary.
Dear Joyce Carol-A man in prison writes to Joyce Carol. It is eventually revealed that he is delusional and at the end has a very large grudge against her. My two questions are is he getting out or is he being executed. And depending on the question is the scary part him getting out or is it that the government is executing a man who is so mentally handicapped he doesn't realize that he is being put to death rather than released?
Suicide by Fitness Center-A woman decides to end her life at a fitness center. She fails but someone else may have died. Did the guy die? Why did Carrot Top, not the comedian, turn away from her? Why is she committing suicide in the first place?
The Glazers-A story about clones. I guessed it quite soon after the beginning. But are they really clones? And who is the bad person in this story. The family of clones? Or the girl who can no longer stomach the idea of a relationship with a man because him being a clone means she knows more about him then she wants, seeing older iterations of the clone.
Mistrial-A woman decides that she is not going to convict a man in a trial before the trial begins. She does it as a fuck you to the system, but may also have done it to get someone to murder her brother. Was his brother really into women's shoes or was this something she made up?
Dear Husband-The second story of a woman killing her children. Very chilling. The woman was so disturbed that she is more worried about the burnt pot she hid underneath the basement stairs then about drowning her children.
Typically I am used to stories that have a definite arc. Intro of protagonist, the problem and either the protagonist's triumph or failure. I tend to hate stories that have ambiguity or just seem to be maybe a slice of life with no real story. These type of stories made the Mars Chronicles very hard to finish for me. A few of the stories in this book fit this mold, but I liked them.
I am of split opinion of the book. I enjoyed it, but I feel like if I was smarter maybe I could have gotten more out of it. The stories feel like the kind i would have been assigned in a college English class, with layers, many of which are hidden and not revealed on a first read.
Now I will say that unlike most books of short stories I remember each one of the stories so that is something.
Overall I would say the key word to this book is ambiguity.
Panic-During a car ride a husband and wife are confronted by a possibly life and death situation. Afterwards the husband is resentful because his wife chose to protect their child rather than stay with him. I didn't fully care for this one. Points of Ambiguity, was it really a gun? Is he mad because he thinks that in protecting the baby she was saying, you've passed on your seed, I need you no more, or was he upset that she acted decisively while he panicked. He in either case is a jerk.
Special-A girl grows up with her autistic sister and and imaginary friend named Jesus. Early in the story she is physically disfigured by the sister, but by the end she is free. You can really feel her frustration with the total unfairness of her situation. Ambiguity-Why does she think she is the cause of the attack at the end, the final weapon wasn't the scissors but did she think the scissors gave her sister the idea?
The Blind Man's Sighted Daughters-One sister is taking care of her aged infirm father why the other is off on her own and thinks she can do a better job. Not much ambiguity here.
Magda Maria-I hated this because the main character claims to love Magda, but does nothing to stop her downfall and eventual death.
A Princeton Idyll-This one rings with me. When you look back at your childhood you use the lenses of your life. You may see your parents as saints or sinners, but how does a third party see them. I was a little confused by the happiness the housekeeper had at the end.
Cutty Sark-Growing up the protagonist was always over shadowed by his mother. A late blooming writer she abandoned him and his father to write successful books some of which are very scandalous. One night shortly after his 17th birthday he is alone with her and she may or may not be trying to have sex with him in the end he is arrested and his life is in shambles. Was his mother really trying to seduce him? Did she love him or was he just another way for her to grab headlines?
Landfill-Here is a big ambiguity, we are given the last day of a young man's life, but given two equally plausible stories of what happened, was it murder or accidental death?
Vigilante-A young man comes home for the holidays and eventually goes on a bender where he confronts his abusive father and is eventually arrested. I am wonder with this one if the Christian couple were really talking bout his dad or about him. After the story does he get back on the straight path, it almost feels like he does with him throwing away the pills.
The Heart Sutra-This is the first of two stories in which a matriarch decides to kill herself and her children. It's scary.
Dear Joyce Carol-A man in prison writes to Joyce Carol. It is eventually revealed that he is delusional and at the end has a very large grudge against her. My two questions are is he getting out or is he being executed. And depending on the question is the scary part him getting out or is it that the government is executing a man who is so mentally handicapped he doesn't realize that he is being put to death rather than released?
Suicide by Fitness Center-A woman decides to end her life at a fitness center. She fails but someone else may have died. Did the guy die? Why did Carrot Top, not the comedian, turn away from her? Why is she committing suicide in the first place?
The Glazers-A story about clones. I guessed it quite soon after the beginning. But are they really clones? And who is the bad person in this story. The family of clones? Or the girl who can no longer stomach the idea of a relationship with a man because him being a clone means she knows more about him then she wants, seeing older iterations of the clone.
Mistrial-A woman decides that she is not going to convict a man in a trial before the trial begins. She does it as a fuck you to the system, but may also have done it to get someone to murder her brother. Was his brother really into women's shoes or was this something she made up?
Dear Husband-The second story of a woman killing her children. Very chilling. The woman was so disturbed that she is more worried about the burnt pot she hid underneath the basement stairs then about drowning her children.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 14, 2017
Can I say I finished it even though I didn’t read it in its entirety? Because I am in fact finished with the book. I wanted to read Joyce Carol Oats so I could say I’ve read Joyce Carol Oats. So I’ve read her. Moving on.
September 22, 2016
When a book pops up on my screen from author Joyce Carol Oates I download it, always. When it is a collection of short stories, I am even happier. Dear Husband: Stories is a collection of previously published stories, completely portable and fun to read. For me, Oates is unique in the way she presents thought-stopping surprise sentences in the middle of excellently crafted stories. The surprise sentences are like gifts; the stories alone are great. As I usually do with short stories, I will comment on each one.
Panic Imagine you are a parent and must choose between saving your only child or saving your spouse. You choose the child but everyone survives, how does the family dynamic change? What does the “sacrificed” spouse think of the choice?
Special Aimee grew up fast. She had to. It was as if her older sister had evil designs on her.
The Blind Man’s Sighted Daughters Lyle Sebera controlled his daughters all their life. Abigail moved away, Helen stayed to take care of Lyle even though he was in his eighties and almost blind. But Abigail came back when Helen called, just for a couple of days, but during those days Lyle demonstrated his control.
Magda Maria The unnamed narrator is in love with Magda Maria but he has to stand in line and wait for a chance. There are Danto and Wolverine and Maria’s frequent disappearances to live through. But she always returns and our narrator is always waiting. There is a final meeting but only because our narrator has fled after one last meeting. But he knows where to find his love should he ever want to.
A Princeton Idyll Muriel had worked for Sophie’s family for years and had been a part-time nanny to Sophie. After three decades Muriel wrote to Sophie with some memories. Not all of them were pleasant.
Cutty Sark Kit had a famous writer mother. Quincy’s books were famous for tell-all honesty. But some family secrets shouldn’t be told, especially when there are implications for present relationships.
Landfill Many married couples want children but for some, kids are just an afterthought.
Vigilante After reading this you might think you have discovered the possible thinking behind those who commit random shootings.
The Heart Sutra There is a commonly held belief that genius is close to madness. What if two geniuses were in a relationship and one person’s genius began to pull ahead of the others? Would there be jealousy or would there be a fast descent into madness?
Dear Joyce Carol, This is a truly scary stalker story. Guess who the one stalked is.
Suicide by Fitness Center There is a hint of the occult here in the presence of a cat. While the narrator may contemplate suicide by overwork in a fitness center, it is her colleagues who seem nearer to death.
The Glazers Penelope went to visit the family of a man she might marry, Glen Glazer. Penelope had a secret she had never told Glen; she was waiting for the right time to do so. But when she found out the Glazer secret, her secret paled to the point of insignificance.
Mistrial I don’t want to say anything about this story except I consider it the best of the collection. Since short stories don’t have to be read in any order, think about reading this one first. It is truly outstanding with a really great no-way-you-will-guess-this ending.
Dear Husband, While "Mistrial" is the best, this story comes in second but it is a story of true horror. I would never consider Joyce Carol Oates to be a horror (genre) writer but this story fits into that genre.
Panic Imagine you are a parent and must choose between saving your only child or saving your spouse. You choose the child but everyone survives, how does the family dynamic change? What does the “sacrificed” spouse think of the choice?
Special Aimee grew up fast. She had to. It was as if her older sister had evil designs on her.
The Blind Man’s Sighted Daughters Lyle Sebera controlled his daughters all their life. Abigail moved away, Helen stayed to take care of Lyle even though he was in his eighties and almost blind. But Abigail came back when Helen called, just for a couple of days, but during those days Lyle demonstrated his control.
Magda Maria The unnamed narrator is in love with Magda Maria but he has to stand in line and wait for a chance. There are Danto and Wolverine and Maria’s frequent disappearances to live through. But she always returns and our narrator is always waiting. There is a final meeting but only because our narrator has fled after one last meeting. But he knows where to find his love should he ever want to.
A Princeton Idyll Muriel had worked for Sophie’s family for years and had been a part-time nanny to Sophie. After three decades Muriel wrote to Sophie with some memories. Not all of them were pleasant.
Cutty Sark Kit had a famous writer mother. Quincy’s books were famous for tell-all honesty. But some family secrets shouldn’t be told, especially when there are implications for present relationships.
Landfill Many married couples want children but for some, kids are just an afterthought.
Vigilante After reading this you might think you have discovered the possible thinking behind those who commit random shootings.
The Heart Sutra There is a commonly held belief that genius is close to madness. What if two geniuses were in a relationship and one person’s genius began to pull ahead of the others? Would there be jealousy or would there be a fast descent into madness?
Dear Joyce Carol, This is a truly scary stalker story. Guess who the one stalked is.
Suicide by Fitness Center There is a hint of the occult here in the presence of a cat. While the narrator may contemplate suicide by overwork in a fitness center, it is her colleagues who seem nearer to death.
The Glazers Penelope went to visit the family of a man she might marry, Glen Glazer. Penelope had a secret she had never told Glen; she was waiting for the right time to do so. But when she found out the Glazer secret, her secret paled to the point of insignificance.
Mistrial I don’t want to say anything about this story except I consider it the best of the collection. Since short stories don’t have to be read in any order, think about reading this one first. It is truly outstanding with a really great no-way-you-will-guess-this ending.
Dear Husband, While "Mistrial" is the best, this story comes in second but it is a story of true horror. I would never consider Joyce Carol Oates to be a horror (genre) writer but this story fits into that genre.
February 6, 2014
Oates, an incredibly prolific writer, can be relied on to craft haunting and macabre short stories that leave the reader shaken and shell-shocked. Her longer fiction is, however, more chequered and inconsistent in my opinion, and one takes a risk when ploughing into one of her novels. Perhaps it is too claustrophobic to be trapped inside her dark gothic world for prolonged periods, and the narrative sags.
There is fortunately no such failing in this collection. In each of the stories in Dear Husband, which are slotted into two parts, miscreant characters dot the storyscape; from the deceptively stately middle-aged librarian, whose obsession with a defendant interferes with her juror duties in “Mistrial”, to the young upright lawyer in the opener “Panic”, who grapples with feelings of inadequacy, doubt and betrayal, in the aftermath of what he had mistaken as a threatening gesture from the boys in the school bus in front of his family car and his wife’s reaction to it.
Oates’s brand of urban horror works because of the seemingly innocuous settings, which are almost invariably suburban, and the relatively ‘safe’ backgrounds of the characters, with arguably strong (or suffocating) familial ties. Many of these stories deal with family relationships and explore the crises that arise, often from little kinks in an otherwise wholesome exterior. In “Special”, a young girl scarred in a domestic accident, struggles to heal and move on, even as she confronts the ambivalence of her family, and the unspoken tussle with her intellectually-challenged sister.
Elsewhere, Oates uses the epistolary form to track the unravelling of a Vietnam veteran as he bombards the (fictional?) author with a series of increasingly aggressive missives to write his biography in the playfully-titled “Dear Joyce Carol”. Letters also tell the story through the correspondence between a children’s author and her grandparents’ housekeeper in “A Princeton Idyll”, where she finds out more than what is hoped for about her grandfather. Oates’s blurring of fiction with reality is seen also in the story “Landfill”, which is loosely based on the actual tragedy of a boy who died in a dumpster.
These fourteen tales are disparate in nature and tone, and yet they are unified by Oates’s nightmarish vision, so razor sharp it draws blood, because they delve into the recognisably dark realms of the human psyche, and leave the reader with the niggling fear that we who reside outside her storyworlds need not be necessarily any better.
There is fortunately no such failing in this collection. In each of the stories in Dear Husband, which are slotted into two parts, miscreant characters dot the storyscape; from the deceptively stately middle-aged librarian, whose obsession with a defendant interferes with her juror duties in “Mistrial”, to the young upright lawyer in the opener “Panic”, who grapples with feelings of inadequacy, doubt and betrayal, in the aftermath of what he had mistaken as a threatening gesture from the boys in the school bus in front of his family car and his wife’s reaction to it.
Oates’s brand of urban horror works because of the seemingly innocuous settings, which are almost invariably suburban, and the relatively ‘safe’ backgrounds of the characters, with arguably strong (or suffocating) familial ties. Many of these stories deal with family relationships and explore the crises that arise, often from little kinks in an otherwise wholesome exterior. In “Special”, a young girl scarred in a domestic accident, struggles to heal and move on, even as she confronts the ambivalence of her family, and the unspoken tussle with her intellectually-challenged sister.
Elsewhere, Oates uses the epistolary form to track the unravelling of a Vietnam veteran as he bombards the (fictional?) author with a series of increasingly aggressive missives to write his biography in the playfully-titled “Dear Joyce Carol”. Letters also tell the story through the correspondence between a children’s author and her grandparents’ housekeeper in “A Princeton Idyll”, where she finds out more than what is hoped for about her grandfather. Oates’s blurring of fiction with reality is seen also in the story “Landfill”, which is loosely based on the actual tragedy of a boy who died in a dumpster.
These fourteen tales are disparate in nature and tone, and yet they are unified by Oates’s nightmarish vision, so razor sharp it draws blood, because they delve into the recognisably dark realms of the human psyche, and leave the reader with the niggling fear that we who reside outside her storyworlds need not be necessarily any better.
April 1, 2009
This is a great collection of stories which really hits on the core meaning of family and its special operation. These regular families show us a little bit about our lives at home and the different relationships between generation. she touches on the ups and downs of being happy and being happy as a family and how they are two very different ideas and feelings.
There is also the hard truth that we all know of loving someone more then they love you and the emotional hardship brought with that. I love how all of the stories talk about different relationships between son parents, granddaughter grandfather and husband wife. It really opened up the way I thought about my family that it is not just my relationship with the people in my family it is their relation with me, just because they are family does not mean that the love equal.
There is also the hard truth that we all know of loving someone more then they love you and the emotional hardship brought with that. I love how all of the stories talk about different relationships between son parents, granddaughter grandfather and husband wife. It really opened up the way I thought about my family that it is not just my relationship with the people in my family it is their relation with me, just because they are family does not mean that the love equal.
March 14, 2016
7/19/09
"First time reading Joyce Carol and I am smitten, She had me at the very first story in the book 'Panic'. I am in awe of her keen observation..like her use of the words aggressively 'elegant' in Cutty Sark. The way she gets it when she names the suburbia township "Whispering woods estates' the pride of the upward moving lower middle class family on their move to the afore mentioned "whispering woods"
Joyce has her razor sharp pen at the jugular of the American family of twenty first century.
"First time reading Joyce Carol and I am smitten, She had me at the very first story in the book 'Panic'. I am in awe of her keen observation..like her use of the words aggressively 'elegant' in Cutty Sark. The way she gets it when she names the suburbia township "Whispering woods estates' the pride of the upward moving lower middle class family on their move to the afore mentioned "whispering woods"
Joyce has her razor sharp pen at the jugular of the American family of twenty first century.
July 8, 2009
The most powerful collection of stories I've read in ages. You could go to school on Oates's writing in this book. Each of the stories is unique -- characteristically for Oates dark, but oddly not depressing. Her strength is twofold in my opinion: (1) the voice in each story is clear and unique; you feel her intimate knowledge of her characters and (2) this is raw writing from the heart. Oates is amazing and her talents are fully on display in this collection.
July 23, 2009
Savage, poetic and ruthless. Oates deals with characters and themes she has often covered before -- violent men, desperate women, lives scarred by alcohol and poverty -- but her touch has never been surer, her insights never more piercing. At least one of these stories ("Landfill") can break your heart, and several of the others, astonishingly, are among the best things she's ever done. From the WASHINGTON POST, July 8, 2009.
June 25, 2009
Most of the stories in this collection were VERY grim, I had a tough time getting through them. On exception? "Dear Joyce Carol", hysterical!
April 19, 2015
Every short story in this collection was a surprising, twisty, and sometimes a little creepy. Loved it!
September 13, 2016
Ugh! I loathed it.
Knock yourself out. People seem to like it.
Knock yourself out. People seem to like it.
July 28, 2019
Way to dark for my taste. If you are seeking solace in the mystery of human condition, here’s your read.
January 1, 2021
The 14 stories collected here are by turns grim ("The Blind Man's Sighted Daughters"), seedy ("Magda Maria"), disturbing ("Cutty Sark"), tragic ("Dear Husband," "Landfill"), creepy ("Dear Joyce Carol,"), troubled ("Mistrial"), and generally bleak ("Suicide by Fitness Center"). Actually, bleak is probably an adjective pertaining to all of them, so in short this was superbly fitting to be my final good read of 2020. There's little in the way of optimism or uplift here; turkey buzzards and locusts are recurrent symbols. All parents are either hostile, withdrawn, smothering, deranged, or just falling apart. The packaging of these tales in one volume is almost merciless. That said, they're all masterfully done, each with a different shade of dread. One can see Oates having some kind of cathartic fun writing "Dear Joyce Carol," presented solely as fan mail written from prison by a deluded Vietnam vet who movies pretty swiftly from expressing "True Love" to murderous hate in about a month and a half. The other epistolary story, "A Princeton Idyll," is also a standout, consisting of the correspondence between a children's author reaching out for information from the woman who was formerly the housekeeper in the author's grandparents' house. (Things turn nasty.) My favorite of the bunch, though, was "The Glazers," which I don't want to spoil with details but will say it differs from all the others in atmosphere and is less bleak or depressing than just eerie or ominous. The denizens and environment of the athletic club in "Suicide by Fitness Center" reminded me at times of something out of "Twilight Zone," but "The Glazers" topped even that, for me.
First lines of "The Glazers":
"She had known him for several months and she had been in love with him, in secret, for most of that time when, with disarming casualness, and the dimpled smile that sliced at her heart like a razor blade, he said: 'Will you come home with me this weekend? I'd like you to meet my family.'"
First lines of "The Glazers":
"She had known him for several months and she had been in love with him, in secret, for most of that time when, with disarming casualness, and the dimpled smile that sliced at her heart like a razor blade, he said: 'Will you come home with me this weekend? I'd like you to meet my family.'"
December 14, 2019
ده داستان کوتاه و مجزا از هم ؛ وقتی داشتم هر داستانشو میخوندم توی ذهنم فیلمشو هم میدیدم به سبک امریکایی، چون مدل هر قصهی کتاب ، مدل فیلم های امریکایی بود بنظرم .
استثنایی : داستان یه دختر بچه به اسم ایمی ، که یه خواهر بزرگتر با یه نوع بیماری روانی داره و مشکلاتو روابط افراد خانواده باهم رو میگه. من از اول که کتابو شروع کردم فکر نمیکردم که کتاب چند تا داستان داشته باشه ، چون عادت ندارم قبل ز خوندن کتاب اونو ورق بزنم ، برای همین فکر نمیکردم داستان ایمی به این زودیا تموم بشه
دختران بینای مرد نابینا: دختری به نام هلن که از پدر پیر و نابیناش نگهداری میکنه .
دوران زیبای پرینستون : دختری که طی نامه هایی از خدمتکار قدیمی در مورد پدربزرگش که سالهاست مرده می پرسه .
گورستان زباله : پسرک دانشجو که جسدش در زباله ها پیدا شده .
هوشیار : پسرک که مدتیه مواد را ترک کرده برای تعطیلات نزد مادرش برگشته .
جویس کرول عزیز: نامه های یک خواننده کتاب به نویسنده اش از اولین نامه تا اخریش حس نویسنده تغییر میکنه .
خودکشی در باشگاه بدن سازی : تفکرات زن در مورد مرگ و اعضای باشگاه .
خانواده ی گلیزر : پنه لوپه قراره با دوست پسر جدیدش به خانوادش معرفی بشه ، موضوع شوک برانگیز نبودن مادری توی خونهست.
دادرسی بی نتیجه: زن به عنوان هیات منصفه انتخاب شده و حس می کند این فرصتی برای اوست .
شوهر عزیزم : زن خانهداری که با وجود سعی زیاد برای بچهها و شوهرش بازم وقت کم میاره و مورد انتقاد شوهرش و حتی کتک زدن قرار میگیره و ...
اسم کتاب هم از داستان آخر برداشته شده که بنظر من بهترین داستان این کتابه، داستان یه زن که هیچ گناهی نداره .
داستان زنایی که خودشونو جوونیشونو وقف شوهر و بچه و زندگیشون میکنن ولی با این حال برخورد خوبی از سمت بچه و شوهر و خانواده شوهرشون نمیبینن، بنظر من خیلی خیلی غم انگیزه ...
استثنایی : داستان یه دختر بچه به اسم ایمی ، که یه خواهر بزرگتر با یه نوع بیماری روانی داره و مشکلاتو روابط افراد خانواده باهم رو میگه. من از اول که کتابو شروع کردم فکر نمیکردم که کتاب چند تا داستان داشته باشه ، چون عادت ندارم قبل ز خوندن کتاب اونو ورق بزنم ، برای همین فکر نمیکردم داستان ایمی به این زودیا تموم بشه
دختران بینای مرد نابینا: دختری به نام هلن که از پدر پیر و نابیناش نگهداری میکنه .
دوران زیبای پرینستون : دختری که طی نامه هایی از خدمتکار قدیمی در مورد پدربزرگش که سالهاست مرده می پرسه .
گورستان زباله : پسرک دانشجو که جسدش در زباله ها پیدا شده .
هوشیار : پسرک که مدتیه مواد را ترک کرده برای تعطیلات نزد مادرش برگشته .
جویس کرول عزیز: نامه های یک خواننده کتاب به نویسنده اش از اولین نامه تا اخریش حس نویسنده تغییر میکنه .
خودکشی در باشگاه بدن سازی : تفکرات زن در مورد مرگ و اعضای باشگاه .
خانواده ی گلیزر : پنه لوپه قراره با دوست پسر جدیدش به خانوادش معرفی بشه ، موضوع شوک برانگیز نبودن مادری توی خونهست.
دادرسی بی نتیجه: زن به عنوان هیات منصفه انتخاب شده و حس می کند این فرصتی برای اوست .
شوهر عزیزم : زن خانهداری که با وجود سعی زیاد برای بچهها و شوهرش بازم وقت کم میاره و مورد انتقاد شوهرش و حتی کتک زدن قرار میگیره و ...
اسم کتاب هم از داستان آخر برداشته شده که بنظر من بهترین داستان این کتابه، داستان یه زن که هیچ گناهی نداره .
داستان زنایی که خودشونو جوونیشونو وقف شوهر و بچه و زندگیشون میکنن ولی با این حال برخورد خوبی از سمت بچه و شوهر و خانواده شوهرشون نمیبینن، بنظر من خیلی خیلی غم انگیزه ...
October 21, 2023
These fourteen short stories focus on family and how different the composition of families can be. As with most books of short stories, I had some that really stood out ....
MISTRAIL -- A prudish middle aged woman is called for jury duty with shocking and surprising consequences.
THE GLAZERS -- Penelope has a dark secret but after meeting the family of the man she intends to marry, her secret is very insignificant.
SPECIAL AIMEE -- Aimee has an older sister with special needs. This doesn't bode well for Aimee.
This was a raw, savage, bitter, and somewhat scary book. Only JCO could make these dynamics work so well. Most of these stories really creeped me out; but yet, they are wonderful in a way that only JCO can make them.
MISTRAIL -- A prudish middle aged woman is called for jury duty with shocking and surprising consequences.
THE GLAZERS -- Penelope has a dark secret but after meeting the family of the man she intends to marry, her secret is very insignificant.
SPECIAL AIMEE -- Aimee has an older sister with special needs. This doesn't bode well for Aimee.
This was a raw, savage, bitter, and somewhat scary book. Only JCO could make these dynamics work so well. Most of these stories really creeped me out; but yet, they are wonderful in a way that only JCO can make them.
March 13, 2017
This is a collection of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates that I read on my iPad. I have naturally forgotten most of the earlier ones which I read long ago, but I remember the overall feeling of stories about families and relationships gone terribly wrong. There are deaths and murders and drugs and a multitude of overwhelmgly needy unhappy people, so definitely not a cheery collection, and yet Oates' ability to create totally believable flawed characters is impressive. I'm ready to move on to something less dreary!
November 15, 2021
There's no doubt Oates is an exceptional and prolific writer, but the stories are really very sinister and disturbing. I would like to think that there isn't that much near violent mental illness going on behind the scenes in every person's life, but maybe there is. I don't think there is any work of Joyce Carol Oates that is at all uplifting, but you have to applaud her to be able to describe the disturbed mind and toxic relationships in so many ways and through so many different types of people.
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