The need for love—obsessive, self-destructive, unpredictable—takes us to forbidden places, as in the chilling world of Give Me Your Heart, a new collection of stories by the inimitable Joyce Carol Oates.In the suspenseful "Strip Poker," a reckless adolescent girl must find a way of turning the tables on a gathering of increasingly threatening young men—can she "outplay" them?In "Smother!" a young woman's nightmare memory of childhood brings trouble on her professor...

In the title story, a white aspiring professor is convinced she is being followed. No need to panic—she has a handgun stowed away in her purse, just in case. But when she turns to confront her black male shadow, the situation isn’t what she expects. In “The Rescuer,” a promising graduate student detours to inner-city Trenton, New Jersey, to save her brother from a downward spiral. But she soon finds out there may be more to his world than to hers. And in “The Last Man of Letters,” the worl...

**“**Oates is a fearless writer.”—Los Angeles Times“Oates is a master of the dark tale—stories of the hunted and the hunter, of violence, trauma, and deep psychic wounds.”—Booklist (starred review)Sourland is a gripping, haunting, and intensely moving collection of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates, one of America’s preeminent authors. Unforgettable tales that re-imagine the meaning of loss—often through violent means—Sourland...

“A mesmerizing storyteller who seems almost unnaturally able to enter the tormented inner lives of her characters.”—Denver PostBlack Dahlia & White Rose is a brilliant collection of short fiction from National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates, one of the most acclaimed writers of our time. These stores, at once lyrical and unsettling, shine with the author’s trademark fascination with finding the unpredictab...

Readers know that few authors are able to create an atmosphere of unease and terror as well as Oates, a fact confirmed by the four novellas presented here.In the title story, “Evil Eye,” a young woman has recently become the fourth wife of a highly demanding man. When his first wife comes to stay with them, she warns the new bride that her husband is insane, and that she must find a way to protect herself. In “So Near Anytime Always,” a fateful meeting in a library leads to a boy's...

Suffused with Russell Banks’s trademark lyricism and reckless humor, the twelve stories in A Permanent Member of the Family examine the myriad ways we try—and sometimes fail—to connect with one another, as we seek a home in the world.In the title story, a father looks back on the legend of the cherished family dog whose divided loyalties mirrored the fragmenting of his marriage. “A Former Marine” asks, to chilling effect, if one can ever stop being a parent. And in the hau...

An aspiring writer moves into a new apartment and discovers that her landlady has murdered her husband. Elsewhere, an accomplished surgeon is approached by a cabaret singer, whose beautiful appearance belies the grotesque condition of her heart. And while the surgeon's jealous lover vows to kill him, a violent envy also stirs in the soul of a lonely craftsman. Desire meets with impulse and erupts, attracting the attention of the surgeon's neighbor—who is drawn to a decaying residence that ...

A major historical novel from "one of the great artistic forces of our time" (The Nation)—an eerie, unforgettable story of possession, power, and loss in early-twentieth-century Princeton, a cultural crossroads of the powerful and the damnedPrinceton, New Jersey, at the turn of the twentieth century: a tranquil place to raise a family, a genteel town for genteel souls. But something dark and dangerous lurks at the edges of the town, corrupting and infecting its residents. ...

The Tin Drum, one of the great novels of the twentieth century, became a runaway bestseller and catapulted its young author to the forefront of world literature. Now on the book’s fiftieth anniversary comes this new translation by Breon Mitchell, one that is faithful to Grass’ style and rhythm, restores omissions, and reflects more fully the complexity of the original work.This is the story of Oskar Matzerath, a dwarfish hunchback detained in a mental hospital, convicted o...

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 Joyce Carol Oates, ""one of the great artistic forces of our time"" (The Nation)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 the unlikeliest of suspects—a decorated Iraq War vete...

“Oates is just a fearless writer…with her brave heart and her impossibly lush and dead-on imaginative powers.”—Los Angeles Times“[An] extraordinarily intense, racking, and resonant novel.”—Booklist (starred review)One of the most acclaimed writers in the world today, the inimitable Joyce Carol Oates follows up her searing, New York Times bestselling memoir, A Widow’s Story, with an extraordinary new work of fiction. Mudw...

**Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction"Redeployment is hilarious, biting, whipsawing and sad. It’s the best thing written so far on what the war did to people’s souls.” —Dexter Filkins, The New York Times Book ReviewSelected as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post Book World, Amazon, and more**Phil Klay's Redeployment takes read...