Extenuating Circumstances

(Paperback)

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Description

A collection of twenty-two disturbing tales of crime and suspense from literary icon Joyce Carol Oates, 'America's preeminent fiction writer' (New Yorker) Two hitmen in a depressed rust belt town struggle with a job gone wrong. A girl witnesses a horrifying accident and carries it with her for the rest of her life. Medical students bring a severed foot to a college party. Five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Joyce Carol Oates has made a career of exploring the forbidden corners of human experience, and the stories collected here, spanning her first three decades as a writer, are among her most unsettling and unforgettable works to date. Originally published in long out-of-print volumes, these tales have not appeared in any form this century until now. Formally fresh and endlessly experimental, they show a writer boldly engaging with disturbing truths and terrifying possibilities, and deconstructing the tropes and expectations of traditional prose writing as she does so. But beyond their stylistic ingenuity, these are creepy, suspenseful stories that cut straight to the bone; their darkness will linger long after the final page is turned. A must-read for long-time fans of Joyce Carol Oates and an excellent introduction for the uninitiated, the twenty-two tales included in Extenuating Circumstances exemplify the author's idiosyncratic spookiness: 'visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute' (Booklist).

Reviews

PRAISE FOR JOYCE CAROL OATES: 'A writer of extraordinary strengths' Guardian. 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday' Sunday Express. 'A sense of helplessness is the essence of horror, and Oates conveys that feeling as well as any writer around' * New York Times *

Author Bio

Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon, is the author of more than 70 books, including novels, short story collections, poetry, plays, essays, and criticism, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. Among her many honours are the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the National Book Award. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. Follow Joyce on @JoyceCarolOates