The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares

Starred review from September 12, 2011
The seven stories in this stellar collection from the prolific Oates (Give Me Your Heart) may prompt the reader to turn on all the lights or jump at imagined noises. In the excruciating title tale, a novella subtitled “A Love Story,” an adolescent girl leads two of her friends in the kidnapping of 11-year old Marissa Bantry to enact the ritual sacrifice of the Corn Maiden as performed by the Onigara Indians. Children or childhood traumas play significant roles in “Beersheba,” in which a man’s past catches up to him, and “Nobody Knows My Name,” in which the birth of a sibling turns nine-year-old Jessica’s world upside down. Twins figure in both the eerie “Fossil-Figures” and the harrowing “Death-Cup” with its sly allusions to Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson.” In “A Hole in the Head,” a plastic surgeon succumbs to a patient’s request for an unusual operation with unexpected results. This volume burnishes Oates’s reputation as a master of psychological dread.

January 30, 2012
In this chilling audio edition of the latest collection from the prolific Oates, the author offers up a selection of seven dark and psychologically thrilling tales that delve into everything from kidnapping and ritual sacrifice to twins, childhood trauma, and plastic surgery run amok. Of the two narrators, Adam Verner shines the brightest, capturing the tone and rhythm of the author’s prose and demonstrating a keen ability to switch between emotions—something that makes him a perfect reader for these twisting tales. Christine Williams provides workmanlike narration, but her reading lacks the emotional punch and range displayed by Verner, and this makes it feels flat by comparison. A Mysterious Press hardcover.