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Searching... Monmouth Public Library | Fic (m) Oates, J. 2011 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
An incomparable master storyteller in all forms, in The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares Joyce Carol Oates spins six imaginative tales of suspense. "The Corn Maiden" is the gut-wrenching story of Marissa, a beautiful and sweet eleven-year-old girl with hair the color of corn silk. Taken by an older girl from her school who has told two friends in her thrall of the Indian legend of the Corn Maiden, in which a girl is sacrificed to ensure a good crop, Marissa is kept in a secluded basement and convinced that the world has ended. Marissa's seemingly inevitable fate becomes ever more terrifying as the older girl relishes her power, giving the tale unbearable tension with a shocking conclusion. In "Helping Hands," published here for the first time, a lonely woman meets a man in the unlikely clutter of a dingy charity shop and extends friendship. She has no idea what kinds of doors she may be opening. The powerful stories in this extraordinary collection further enhance Joyce Carol Oates's standing as one of the world's greatest writers of suspense.
Author Notes
Joyce Carol Oates was born on June 16, 1938 in Lockport, New York. She received a bachelor's degree in English from Syracuse University and a master's degree in English from the University of Wisconsin.
She is the author of numerous novels and collections of short stories. Her works include We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, Bellefleur, You Must Remember This, Because It Is Bitter, Because It Is My Heart, Solstice, Marya : A Life, and Give Me Your Heart. She has received numerous awards including the National Book Award for Them, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Lifetime Achievement in American Literature. She was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her title Lovely, Dark, Deep. She also wrote a series of suspense novels under the pseudonym Rosamond Smith. In 2015, her novel The Accursed became listed as a bestseller on the iBooks chart.
She worked as a professor of English at the University of Windsor, before becoming the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. She and her late husband Raymond J. Smith operated a small press and published a literary magazine, The Ontario Review.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The seven stories in this stellar collection from the prolific Oates (Give Me Your Heart) may prompt the reader to turn on all the lights or jump at imagined noises. In the excruciating title tale, a novella subtitled "A Love Story," an adolescent girl leads two of her friends in the kidnapping of 11-year old Marissa Bantry to enact the ritual sacrifice of the Corn Maiden as performed by the Onigara Indians. Children or childhood traumas play significant roles in "Beersheba," in which a man's past catches up to him, and "Nobody Knows My Name," in which the birth of a sibling turns nine-year-old Jessica's world upside down. Twins figure in both the eerie "Fossil-Figures" and the harrowing "Death-Cup" with its sly allusions to Edgar Allan Poe's "William Wilson." In "A Hole in the Head," a plastic surgeon succumbs to a patient's request for an unusual operation with unexpected results. This volume burnishes Oates's reputation as a master of psychological dread. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Vulnerability is the key to gripping suspense and one of Oates' core themes. In her newest, exceptionally shrewd and gripping assemblage of nightmares. Oates offers erotically charged, disturbingly counterintuitive variations on the symbiosis between hunter and prey. A man weakened by alcoholism, diabetes, and bad relationship karma answers the phone to hear a sexy, vaguely familiar voice extending what turns out to be a catastrophic invitation. Helping Hands. cousin to the widow stories in Oates' watershed collection, Sourland (2010), portrays with searing detail wealthy Helene, who, so addled and desperate in the wake of her husband's unexpected death, becomes masochistically enamored of an enraged, disabled veteran working at a charity thrift shop. In the riveting yet nuanced novella The Corn Maiden. Marissa, a pretty but slow 11-year-old, disappears. As the case dominates television news, a teacher becomes a hated suspect, while a diabolical older girl and her followers hold Marissa captive. In each astute, creepy, nearly paralyzing tale of longing, malevolence, and calamity, Oates extends her tireless exploration deep into the darkness of damaged and criminal psyches, a realm of terrible power. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The incomparable Oates' readership continues to grow following her memoir, A Widow's Story (2011), while her standing as a master of suspense rises.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Oates's latest collection features six previously published stories and the debut of a new tale, "Helping Hands." The title novella revolves around the kidnapping of 11-year-old Marissa by her classmates. In chilling detail, Oates examines the mindset of not only Marissa's single mother, who was out late with a man, but also the kidnapping's mastermind, who is obsessed with the Indian legend of the Corn Maiden in which a young girl is sacrificed to ensure a good crop, and the teacher who is implicated in Marissa's disappearance. Two stories, "The Death Cup" and "Fossil Figures," involve twin brothers and how their lives are inextricably linked. VERDICT Psychologically compelling and disturbing, this volume is a strong addition to Oates's vast body of work. Short story readers and Oates fans will enjoy it. [See Prepub Alert, 5/9/11.]-Kristen Stewart, Brazoria Cty. Lib. Syst., Pearland, TX (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.