Zero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in these arresting stories by one of Americaâs most acclaimed writers.
A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered; diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community; a woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover; a young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as âmother.â In the collectionâs longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with âdraftsâ of his own suicide.
In these powerfully wrought stories that hold a mirror up to our time, Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism, and ever-shifting identities. Provocative and stunning, reinforces Oatesâs standing as a literary treasure and an artist of the mysterious interior life.Zero-Sum
A master storyteller''The Times
âFeminist horror runs through Joyce Carol Oatesâs latest collection ⊠ElectricâNew York Times
âAlluringly dark and spikyâNew Statesman
â is brilliant â bloodied, breathless, weirdâZero-SumA. K. Blakemore, author ofThe Manningtree Witches
âDark, unsettling stories ⊠Thereâs a disquieting violence simmering ⊠a shrill alarm of disquietâDaily Mail
âOates is an inspired writer, and a formidable psychologistâIndependent
âOatesâs imagination is as unique, dystopian and vivid as Lewis Carrollâsâ Rose Tremain