High Crime Area

January 13, 2014
Oates (Evil Eye) offers unexpected glimmers of redemption amid the grotesquerie, degradation, and exploitation that fill this collection’s eight tales. The volume picks up momentum after the predictable and slow-paced opener, “The Home at Craigmillnar,” as Oates delves into denser, more complex realms in the subsequent entries. Several stories—notably, “High” and the novella-length “The Rescuer”—deal with privileged white women who (perhaps) naively force themselves from their sheltered academic world into situations fraught with economic, racial, sexual, and social tensions. Monstrosity, apathy, and despair plague family relationships in “The Rescuer,” “Demon,” and “Toad-Baby.” Many of the characters’ most intimate connections are with strangers, or with the potential those strangers have to indelibly alter the narrators’ lives for better or worse. Oates is at her best depicting characters who seem perplexed by their own needs, desires, and obligations, and readers seeking tidy resolutions and clear endings won’t find them in these tales. Agent: Warren Frazier, John Hawkins and Assoc.

February 15, 2014

Among the most compelling of Oates's many literary personae is the one with a deep-rooted interest in the pathology of criminals and their crimes. Her latest story collection opens with a Roger Ackroyd-like confession that elicits the reader's sympathy before the crime itself is described ("The Home at Craigmillnar"). The other stories range from horror to dark comedy, including a revenge fantasy perpetrated on a misogynistic world-renowned writer ("The Last Man of Letters"). Oates is particularly adept at revealing the lure of the criminal element among failed or failing academics who drift well beyond the statute of limitations of their doctoral degrees. VERDICT These stories take the reader to desolate intersections and grimy tenements that mirror the dark reaches of the human soul; the combined elements of literary fiction with genre fiction and true crime offer added audience appeal. [See Prepub Alert, 10/20/13.]--Sue Russell, Bryn Mawr, PA

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