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About
Joyce Carol Oates is an unparalleled investigator of human personality. In these eight stories, she deftly tests the bonds between damaged individuals-brother and sister. teacher and student, two lonesome strangers on a subway-in the beautiful, bracing prose that has become her signature. In the title story, a white, aspiring professor in Detroit tries to shake a black, male shadow during the summer of the city's 1967 race riots. In "The Rescuer," a promising graduate student detours to inner-city Trenton, New Jersey, to save her brother from a downward spiral, only to find herself entranced by his dangerous new world. Meanwhile, a young woman prowls the New York City subways in search of her perfect man in "Lorelei." In each of these short stories, Oates portrays a desperate confrontation with the demons inside us. Sometimes it's the human who wins, and sometimes it's the demon.
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Reviews
"These 'tales of darkness and dread' won't put you to sleep, but they'll give you more interesting nightmares. . . . In a way, every story is a character study . . . sure to focus a basilisk eye on the weak spot that reveals our own ugly impulses and make us defenseless against the terrors of the night."
New York Times Book Review
"[In High Crime Area], there's little overt violence; it's all in the mind, as [Oates] slowly tightens the noose. Drenched in clammy atmosphere, Oates' work explores the heads of both ordinary people and those who are at least a little damaged."
The Seattle Times
"Scary, brooding and entertaining. . . . The despair is palpable and the tension always high in these stories told in a combination of hyper-realism and emotionally charged suspense. Horrific and creepy, High Crime Area still manages to smartly critique American society and its uneasy feelings on race, sexuality, gender, academia and family dynamics."
Bookreporter