Black Dahlia & White Rose

September 10, 2012
The new short story collection from the prolific Oates (after the novel Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You) contains sinister and charged moments tempered by humor and masterful storytelling. The title tale blends fact and fiction and narrates the intertwining lives of two young women in 1940s Hollywood, roommates whose lives diverge as one becomes an internationally acclaimed actress (Marilyn Monroe), and the other (Elizabeth Short) the victim of a gruesome, unsolved murder case. In "Deceit," a woman must face school authorities to explain the fresh bruises on her daughter's body, and in "Run Kiss Daddy," a man is given a second chance at life with a "beautiful new family small and vulnerable as a mouse cupped trembling in the hand," but is confronted by old ghosts when he takes them to a favorite vacation spot and unearths something morbid. Unsettling, potent, and suspenseful, these well-crafted and haunting stories attest to Oates' superior imagination and mastery of the craft, and provide a welcome addition to her oeuvre.

December 24, 2012
With this latest collection, Oates continues to delve into the dark depths of the human condition with diverse stories of loss, regret, angst, and murder. This audio edition features a series of winning performances from narrators Paul Michael Garcia, Coleen Marlo, and Tavia Gilbert. Among the highlights are “I.D.,” “Run Kiss Daddy,” “San Quentin,” and “Anniversary,” the latter two providing different and disturbing perspectives of prison life. However, the title story shines brightest. In it, Oates fictionalizes the lives of Elizabeth Short, better known as the Black Dahlia, and her roommate, Norma Jean Baker, soon to become the legendary Marilyn Monroe. As both women tell their stories, Gilbert and Marlo give spot-on performances. Garcia rounds out the cast with his rendition of an opportunistic photographer who may have placed the two women on their respective paths through history. An Ecco hardcover.

September 1, 2012
In the crisply unnerving title story in her latest, masterfully honed collection of dark tales, Oates audaciously improvises on the rumor that Marilyn Monroethe subject of her novel Blonde (2000)was friends with Elizabeth Short, who was dubbed the Black Dahlia after her gruesome, unsolved 1947 murder. In I.D. and Deceit, Oates channels the inner frequencies of girls endangered by family violence. In The Good Samaritan, she lures us into a small world of depthless subtleties and sorrows as a lonely young composer becomes embroiled in the troubles of strangers. As commanding and definitive as her psychologically charged portraits are, Oates cannily leaves the denouements of her most intense and haunting tales open to interpretation. In several staggering tales, Oates maps the frozen hell of loveless marriages and unsought solitude as women experience hallucinogenic ruptures in reality while navigating an airport, a prison, and Rome, that fabled city of ghosts. With precision and force, the ever-mesmerizing Oates rips open the scrim of ordinariness to expose the chaos that undermines every human notion of control, reason, and sanctuary. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Virtuoso Oates' twenty-fifth story collection will be nationally promoted on all fronts, from print to radio to online media.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)