An ingenious dystopian novel of one young woman’s resistance against the constraints of an oppressive society‘Unrelentingly disturbing’ Observer‘Taps deep into contemporary anxieties over the rise of surveillance, totalitarian governments and invasive technology’ Daily Mail‘Oates is still casting some awfully dark magic’ Washington PostWhen a recklessly idealistic girl in a dystopian future society dares to test the perimeters of her tightly controlled world, she is punished by being sent back...
A haunting new novel from one of America’s most prolific and respected novelists.Mudgirl is a child abandoned by her mother in the silty flats of the Black Snake River. Cast aside, Mudgirl survives by an accident of fate – or destiny. After her rescue, she will slowly forget her own origin, her past erased, her future uncertain. The well-meaning couple who adopt Mudgirl quarantine her poisonous history behind the barrier of their Quaker values: compassion, modesty, and hard work – seemingly...
An eerie, unforgettable story of power, loss, and family curses in early 20th century Princeton.New Jersey, 1906: soon-to-be commander-in-chief Woodrow Wilson is president of Princeton University. On a neighbouring farm, muck-raking novelist Upton Sinclair, enjoying the success of The Jungle, has taken up residence with his family. Grover Cleveland, fresh out of his second term in the White House has retired to town for a quieter life. Meanwhile, the elite families of Princeton have been beset...
“My husband died, my life collapsed.”On a February morning, Joyce Carol Oates drove her ailing husband, Raymond Smith, to the Princeton Medical Center where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. In less than a week, Ray was dead and Joyce was faced – totally unprepared – with the reality of widowhood.In this beautiful and heart-breaking account, Joyce takes us through what it is to become a widow: the derangement of denial, the anguish of loss, the disorientation of the survivor and the solace of...
A momentous memoir of childhood and adolescence from one of our finest and most beloved writers, as we’ve never seen her before.In The Lost Landscape, Joyce Carol Oates vividly recreates the early years of her life in western New York state, powerfully evoking the romance of childhood and the way it colors everything that comes after. From early memories of her relatives to remembrances of a particularly poignant friendship with a red hen, from her first friendships to her first experiences with...
A young girl’s disappearance rocks a community and a family, in this stirring examination of grief, faith, justice and the atrocities of war, from literary legend Joyce Carol Oates.Zeno Mayfield’s daughter has disappeared into the night, gone missing in the wilds of the Adirondacks. But when the community of Carthage joins a father’s frantic search for the girl, they discover instead the unlikeliest of suspects – a decorated Iraq War veteran with close ties to the Mayfield family. As grisly...
The unforgettable story of the rise, fall and ultimate redemption of an American family.The Mulvaneys are seemingly blessed by everything that makes life sweet. They live together in the picture-perfect High Point Farm, just outside the community of Mt Ephraim, New York, where they are respected and liked by everybody.Yet something happens on Valentine's Day 1976. An incident involving Marianne Mulvaney, the pretty sixteen-year-old daughter, is hushed up in the town and never discussed within...
‘A writer of extraordinary strengths’ GuardianSet in the mythical small city of Sparta, New York, this searing, vividly rendered exploration of the mysterious conjunction of erotic romance and tragic violence in late 20th-century America.When a young wife and mother named Zoe Kruller is found brutally murdered, the Sparta police target two primary suspects: her estranged husband Delray and her longtime lover Eddy Diehl. In turn, the Krullers's son Aaron and Eddy's daughter Krista become obsessed...