Joyce Carol Oates

I was actually surprised to see the search didn't turn up a threads on JCO and I was certain we had one! Anyway, I have been meaning to start getting into her books for the longest time and I think just the sheer scope of her work seemed daunting (and keeps expanding, her being so prolific she seems to put out multiple books a year, more so than King in some ways).

With the upcoming release of the film adaptation of Blonde in September on Netflix, I was thinking of picking that up at long last, or maybe starting with something slimmer, and as usual ended up going into a magnificent rabbit hole. I pulled up an excerpt from her recent novel "Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars." and the opening chapter was magnificent.

Does anyone here read her and/or collect her books?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eohEVwY_AMc

I adore her work.

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Originally Posted by Tommy

I adore her work.

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What would you recommend to start with, Tommy? Maybe a short story collection? (She seems to publish a new one every year, and it's all new stories! And she's in her 80s! Goddess bless her with many more years!) And would you agree with that Top 10?

I haven't read any of them. :unsure:

I have read Zombie, Mudwoman and Daddy Love and think Horror fans would appreciate those works. I've read a fair amount of her short stories, there are many, and novellas and will have to go through and see which ones I remember the best.

The way she uses a single word, sometimes a word in parentheses or sometimes odd punctuation has a way of unnerving me like no other author. She is fearless in her subject matter often basing her stories around real life events like Kennedy crashing the car into the water, Tawana Brawley case and Dahmer, which Zombie is loosely based on and it will make you feel a bit woozy by the end.

I want to read more of her but my reading is getting tough and few of hers are available in large print from my local library system. Even now, large print is getting harder to read but I keep trying!

My favorite read, keeping in mind that I am from Massachusetts is a sliver of a novel called Black Water. The novel is about a young woman who attracts the attention of a certain powerful senator from the state of Massachusetts. The novel is told from her perspective as she drowns in a car that went off a bridge. Sound familiar?

Where Have You Been, Where Are You Going, a marvelous short story collection, was my first introduction to Oates. The title short story about a sexual predator was turned into a creepy movie called Smooth Talk starring Laura Dern and Treat Williams.

Yeah, Black Water is excellent. The Sacrifice, The Man without a Shadow, Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque, High Crime Area, Beasts, Jack of Spades (which features Stephen King as part of the plot), First Love, and the ones I've mentioned Zombie, Mudwoman and Daddy Love are ones that I've read and recommend all of them. There's probably one or two short story collections I'm forgetting because she does put so many out.

The muse won't seem to leave her alone, I have a LOT to catch up on. I've been eyeing We were the Mulvaney's for a while. My reading has crawled to a near stop but hopefully one day.....

I love her writing and short stories but her endings are weak, usually leaving it up to the reader to decide.

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Originally Posted by mikeC

I love her writing and short stories but her endings are weak, usually leaving it up to the reader to decide.

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She's mastered the short story. Some of her endings can be ambiguous but take Mudwoman for example. That book still bothers me because of it's ambiguity. Having it leak all it's answers, if any at all, would make it lose some of it's power I feel. I hear you though and I really hope more people start reading her. Zombie is a good start because it's short but any of her short story collections would work nicely.