Presents a collection of twenty mystery stories, originally published in 2004 and selected by editor Joyce Carol Oates, including work by writers such as Scott Turow, Dennis Lehane, David Means, George V. Higgins, and more.
Sixteen-year-old Darren Flynn, a popular, good-looking high school athlete who lacks self-confidence, learns that his jock friends are hatching a revenge act against their English teacher for failing a member of the swim team.
When sixteen-year-old Matt is falsely accused of threatening to blow up his high school and his friends turn against him, an unlikely classmate comes to his aid.
When their best friend, Tink, dies from an apparent suicide, high school seniors Merissa and Nadia are alienated by their secrets, adrift from each other and from themselves.
A collection of eleven stories explores the slippage between fantasy and everyday life, the commingling of sexual love and violence, and the complexity of family life.
Sixteen short stories explore violence, loss, and grief with tales about a librarian amputee who attracts a married man and a young girl in love with her incarcerated cousin.
This new collection brings together some of Joyce Carol Oates's most brilliant and provocative pieces, covering a diverse range of subjects and ideas. The rough country is both the treacherous geographical/psychological terrains of the writers she analyses--Flannery O'Connor, Shirley Jackson, Cormac McCarthy, Annie Proulx, and Margaret Atwood among others--and also the emotional terrain of Oates's own life following the unexpected death of her husband.
Contains essays in which author Joyce Carol Oates discusses various aspects of the art and craft of writing and shares her personal experiences as a novelist, poet, and essayist.
