Haunted: 2tales of the Grotesque

The author's stories are always unsettling, and the fascinating part sometimes is trying to figure out just why you've gotten the creeps so badly. The horrors she writes about are almost never easily definable.

There are dozens of reviews here, so I'll tell you about my two favorite short stories and what I don't like about Oates, and you decide. My two favorite books in this solid but inconsistent collection are "The Premonition" and especially "Thanksgiving." "The Premonition": Whitney learns that his abusive brother Quinn has started drinking again, so shortly before Christmas he decides to check in with Quinn's wife and daughters to make sure they're alright. Without resorting to any cheap gimics or even spelling out for the reader exactly what's going on, Oates slowly builds a tension that can cut with a knife; a truly haunting story. "Thanksgiving": By far my favorite story in the book. The young narrator's mother is sick, so she accompanies her father to the supermarket to buy food for the meal. Oates turns this ordinary setup into one of the most disturbing, carvinalesque nightmares I've ever read; a story that stayed with me for weeks afterward. Fans of Clive Barker or Stephen King might find a limited payoff to JCO's stories -- instead of outright shocking the reader her stories typically lull them into an almost hypnotic sort of dread. She's a master storyteller and re-reading many of the stories in "Haunted," it's interesting to find the subtle clues and language play that Oates will use to trigger fear in her reader. The two things that I found frustrating about this book: JCO often rights in the first person, and her narrators have a tendency to all come off as the same souless, damaged person. And second, JCO is clearly a writer in command of her craft, but sometimes she gets a little too clever for her own good and her writing style occassionally slips into an inappropriate pretentiousness. These are habits I've noticed in a LOT of Oates writing, so if you're a fan and it doesn't bother you already, maybe it's just me. Overall though, you could do a lot worse than to start with this collection, or the (in my opinion) superior followup, "The Collector of Hearts: More Tales of the Grotesque."

The title of this book is quite appropriate: it is both haunting and grotesque. I read it a few years ago and could not put it down. I found the atmosphere of this book in whole to be one of a dark wintery place that chills your insides and leaves you feeling alone and isolated. Not a place a lot of people like to visit, but I was mesmerized. The deeper I got into this book the more distant I felt from reality. When I was forced to put the book down and return to the world as we know it, some icy slivers remained.One story in particular - "Thanksgiving" - stuck with me the longest. A father and daughter go to the grocery store to buy food for Thanksgiving. A nice bonding experience for parent and child, right? A celebration of family togetherness and warmth during the holdiays, right? Hardly! Joyce turns this simple task into a creepy, apocalyptic nightmare. It took quite some time before I could shake the feeling of the story each time I went grocery shopping. Burrrrr.........All in all, it is one freaky trip and you'll be relieved when you get back home. Just don't forget your mittens.

But also notice: Joyce Carol Oates. It's disturbing. And, it's not for everyone. It's for open-minded readers, who seriously want to feel creeped out from every purposeful nuance of the tight, economic text of one of America's premier gothicists. If you want to feel your skin crawl, eyes half-blinded by a stagnant North American summer sun as your mind revels in the paranoid, sickly reality next door, then you'll like this. Some of her greatest horror stories of the past decade are in this collection, most of which aren't easy to find elsewhere.