Solid but inconsistent collection of JCO's dark side...

books:


	• Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque Joyce Carol Oates, 1995 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 24 reviews view larger image
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Up and Down Your Spine I Shall Pace and Stomp Hyenas

Please permit me an introduction...this is my newest ally, the pink and fluffy malcontent known as DREAD. Wanna meet his momma? Her name is Joyce Carol Oates and she weaves ensnaring webs of dystopian mortal landscapes that cause me to raise an eyebrow towards the filthy gleaming curs of nightmarish origin that procreate and assimilate through our tenures like phantasmogorical mirthpots.

Yeah. I like the book. Read it.

No one does it like Joyce Carol Oates

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.

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Dark and Depressing

The tales in this collection are certainly grotesque, and if dark and depressing is the standard for what constitutes a horror tale, then these are definintely horror. (Oates has something to say about what defines horror in her Afterword.)

But I digress, and shouldn't be quibbling about whether these stories are or are not truly horror stories. Instead, I should be concentrating on whether or not they are entertaining.

My answer to that is that they are beautifully written (as is most of Oates' work), and technically well-crafted. Thus, the four-star rating.

But...entertaining? I'm sorry to say: not for this reader.
The psychological effects of the stories, was, for me, not "chillng", but depressing.

The characters droned, seemed hopeless, usually WERE hopeless (no discernable changes by the end of a story), and generally just plodded on, until the author abruptly ended their adventure.

Oates is a skilled writer, but less so in crafting horror fiction than other genres.

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Solid but inconsistent collection of JCO's dark side...

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."

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Revealing another side of the accomplished writer's unlimited imagination, sixteen tales of the grotesque include ""Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly,"" a reworking of The Turn of the Screw, and the chilling ""No Trespassing."" Reprint. NYT.