I have seen the piece 'Pinktoes', from this collection, performed. It's wonderfully disturbing, and amazing. The piece is a two-act, two character play, and is fantastic. Great for auditions, or performance.

I find it impossible not to sustain a love affair with a writer of such forward and emotional pieces. I am currently directing "The Sacrifice," and I must say that the theatre is better for Joyce Carol Oates' contribution.

I am a recent High School graduate who is a huge Joyce Carol Oates fan! I was involved in Oral Interp and my first dramatic monologue was the Orange. My senior year I stumbled upon Homesick and used Pinktoes as my dramatic monologue. This piece really brought out deep emotion and I cannot possibly describe my affection for it. Pinktoes is more than just a young prostitute/victim, she is every young girl who has messed up and found herself alone. She is a strong young woman who holds her head proud in the midst of a society who deems her worthless. She asks her audience to look beyond who she was but to the possibility of who she could have been. For the Longhorn district I received third place overall at the National Qaulifier with this piece. It is often misunderstood and many look past its depth and true meaning but it is definately worth the read!!!

If you are looking to take a writing class, save your dollars and buy this book, read your eyeballs out, and turn yourself loose on the personal style you are going to be so amazingly aware of... A ton of great reccommendations, and as always she writes with an ease and flow that is bewildering...

don't buy it if you're looking for guidance on writing-there is very little about craft here but there are some excellent examples of different types narratives and they're grouped in an interesting way. One section, for example, has stories that retell fairy tales, bible stories etc. using modern story lines. Other sections cover such genres as dramatic monologues, miniature narratives and memoir. Useful if your looking for positive examples, but be prepared to draw your own conclusions.

I've used this text for my Writing Fiction 281 class, and it's fantastic! I especially like the "flash fiction" section in the beginning. If you're looking for a reader that includes cannonized authors as well as fresh young voices, this is a solid choice.

This is Joyce Carol Oates' second published novel. It is where she proved her ability to write a powerful epic as she would later do again in novels such as Bellefleur. It follows the life of Clara, a woman born to migrant workers in the midst of the Depression. She is born appropriately in the middle of a violent accident. Here we see the delicacy and terrifying indifference of human life swept up in a sea of natural transformation. Children, parents and friends die in this bleak Darwinian environment. It is part of the course and they must accept it as they move to the next field where labour is required. Clara grows into a defensive and powerful woman bent on carving a safe space for herself in this harsh world. She falls in love with a man named Lowry who is independent and intelligent. Through him Clara establishes a new life for herself. Only after the birth of their son, Swan (Steven), must she make the decision whether to join with a wealthy restricted life with a man named Revere or lead a life of tumultuous romance with Lowry. Through Swan, Clara attempts to realise all the desires for living which were denied to her in her restricted upbringing. However, Swan, intelligent and emotional, has desires of an entirely different sort. This is a compelling novel that knowledgably explores the multifarious stages of life: the tense exploration of childhood, the embittered compromises of adulthood and the difficult choices we must make to survive. It is a beautifully crafted work.

This book combines the best of all things Oatesian. If released as a new work today, it would blast through the awards committees faster than a Philip Roth masterpiece. This reworking of Oates's second novel seamlessly integrates the fire of her yuthful writing, full of her own personal experiences, with the seasoned mastery of her later writing style. This completely rewritten book is ultimately satisfying because there is nothing to overlook due to inexperienced enthusiasm (like many of her early works). If anyone is considering an Oates novel to explore her for the first time, to bring into a summer reading program for youth, or to round out a high school curriculum, this is your book. For anyone who already loves her unique style and phenomenal skill, going back to this early novel will satisfy your cravings like nothing else in the world. This is Oates at her best. Though her murder stories (Zombie and the Rosamond Smith serial killer series) and child abuse novels (First Love, Beasts, and You Must Remember This) provide more of her famous poignant horror, Garden of Earthly Delights carries the weight of John Steinbeck's East of Eden. You can't get better than this for mastery of the classic mid 20th century novel form.

I Lock My door Upon Myself is an example of just how upsetting life can be. It is a disturbing book but also one that is exciting and mind boggling to read. I recomend this book to an older group.

Inspired by the fantastic poem by Christina Rossetti, I Lock My Door Upon Myself is a tremendous novella that recounts the life of Edith "Calla" Freilicht from the perspective of her granddaughter. Calla is raised in a small New England community in the early 20th century isolated and detached from her surroundings. She lets others decide the course of her life because she has little interest in the major decisions and is trapped instead inside conundrums of existence: whether life is a dream and if it is who dreams it? Only rarely does she wake from these deep thoughts to reality of the world and the decisions she makes when she does are staunchly opposed to the opinions of society. Her actions though sparse leave her family befuddled for generations so that her granddaughter constantly wonders who Calla really was.

This novella questions strongly the location of narrative. The granddaughter tells the story, but it is not really hers and often it is broken by the voice of Calla herself in Oates' characteristic italicised sections which mark the sharp emotional responses of the characters. There is great attention paid to the way the tale is told as the story of the tale itself. It also explores the repression of women in this time period as well as the inherent racism of America. The central theme of the book holds close to the dilemma of Rossetti's poem asking how the self can be protected from others who it recognises itself as separate from and, more importantly, how can false conceptions of oneself be separated from the physical reality of being. This is an emotional and serious tale that makes you think how we are bound to each other and how we place ourselves in the world.

This is a solid cross-section of time, authors, style, intent, and soul. I taught this to 50+ teenagers with a high degree of success and corporate enjoyment. The primary downfall of the piece is that Oates comments before each story, sometimes playing the obnoxious neighbor by actually giving away the resolution. Read her comments after you read the story. Otherwise, great work.

"The Oxford Book of American Short Stories," edited by Joyce Carol Oates, is an impressive anthology. The editor herself is well-known as a master writer of short stories, so you know that she has insights into the genre.

This is a truly sweeping anthology. The authors (56 altogether) range chronologically from Washington Irving (1783-1859) to Pinckney Benedict (b. 1964). Many of the "giants" of U.S. literature, among them a number of Nobel and Pulitzer recipients, are included: Herman Melville ("The Paradise of Bachelors..."), Edgar Allan Poe ("The Tell-Tale Heart"), Edith Wharton ("A Journey"), Saul Bellow (Something to Remember Me By"), etc.

In her introduction, Oates notes that one of her goals in this anthology was to present "[f]amiliar names, unfamiliar titles." Thus, it is rewarding to see stories like "Cannibalism in the Cars," by Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain). But she does, in some cases, include an author's best-known story (like Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"). A good balance overall.

Oates also includes many authors who represent ethnic currents in U.S. literature: African-American, Jewish, Native American, Latina, and Asian-American. There are also a number of "regional" writers.

There is a wide variety of themes and stylistic approaches represented in this book. I was particularly interested in those stories that represent various forms of American vernacular speech: Jean Toomer's "Blood-Burning Moon," Eudora Welty's "Where Is That Voice Coming From?", etc. I was also pleased at the inclusion of one of Ray Bradbury's masterful science fiction tales (the haunting "There Will Come Soft Rains").

Obviously, an anthology of this nature will not please everybody perfectly; I'm sure many readers will name favorite stories and authors whom they would have liked to have seen included in this collection. Personally, I would have added a story each by Alice Walker, Hisaye Yamamoto, Samuel Delany, H.P. Lovecraft, and Octavia Butler. But overall, this is a fine anthology, good both for classroom use and individual recreational reading.

From what I've read of Joyce Carol Oate's fiction, it appears she has a predilection for wading into and exploring the darker shadows of her character's consciousness (and she's good at it too), but every once in awhile she'll dive head first into the deep end; hypothetically exploring the thoughts of a full blown psychotic. This book is similar to her 1995 novel, "Zombie" in that we enter the twisted perspective of a psychopathic murderer from the get go and therefore the narrative is a choppy, turbulent ride as the reader travels along strange digressions and bizarre rationalizations and beliefs. There is very little outside objective background storytelling, as in psycho murderer novels like Thomas Harris' "Red Dragon". While the story of Bobbie Gotterson is fiction, it's pretty safe to assume Oates was inspired by nutty, Chucky Manson and his adventures in L.A. during the late sixties, just as I suspect "Zombie" was inspired by Milwaukee serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. If you enjoyed "Zombie", or think perhaps it would be interesting to spend time with the thoughts of a murderous psychopath, you may wish to check this book out. A minor (non-psychotic) digression: Joyce Carol Oates has written numerous novels, countless short stories, essays, poetry, and I've even heard a few plays here and there. Stephen King mentioned he gets called prolific but he says it has more to do with the visibility of his work and, for example, Oates leaves him in the dust. In an interesting book, "Pieces of Work", showing rough drafts by various authors and poets, Oates rewrites her short story at least five times, and rewrites the beginning at least four times. On top of all this she is a professor at Princeton. The ultimate Joyce Carol Oates mystery should be titled, "How does this person manage to write so much?"

This is a very interesting account of a maniac's life, from his birth to his life of unspeakable crime, showing his inner and outer struggles, first person account. I like how it really gets into his mind and how the reader grows to feel for him. Some may find it a little disturbing, but worthwhile reader, especially for Joyce Carol Oates fans.

Joyce Carol Oates must be one of the most prolific contemporary novelists of our time. Her taste for torrid themes, in particular the brutal and bizarre, are well known. "Expensive People", one of her early works, starts off with a bang. A more direct opening you'll not find. The scene is set. You're instantly captivated and as she reels you in, you succumb and immediately find yourself in Richard Everett's head as he unveils his life story to you...bit by bit. You know you're dealing with dysfunctionality as soon as you meet his parents. There's a seething madness underneath just waiting to get out. If the medium were film, you'll see them cast in grainy black and white. But it isn't. Sad to say, the book loses momentum midway and it becomes tedious. You keep waiting for something to happen and when it does, it's anticlimactic. In the words of Richard, life isn't fiction. Nor is it half as dramatic. Oates is a colourful and engaging writer. She's got craft but has a tendency to indulge herself and when she does, she loses focus. "Expensive People" isn't a conventional thriller. It's a social critique of American society at the turn of the 60s decade and about the falseness of respectable society on the brink of a social revolution that will forever shatter time tested norms. While flawed and not entirely satisfying, it's an impressive early work and Oates got much better by the time she wrote Black Water.

JCO takes us deep into the mind of a child killer -- that is a killer who just happens to be a chid. It's a disturbing affair, with the style random and jumbled to give a bit of consistency to this troubled mind.

As an early adult recovering from a near similiar fate as the central character, Richard Elwood, I find it an accurate portrait of the descent into childhood madnesses. It is also a realistic picture of middle America in the 1960s.

JCO writing is superb and she really pulls you into the minds of her characters through Elwood's slow narrative.

A great book

Joyce Carol Oates writes a Nostradamus-like prediction in "Expensive People". She delves deeply and sympathetically into the mind of a maddened child, and what events and conditions have played upon this child to reduce him to his psychotic state.

Her description of suburbia are chillingly real, in the surrealism that they potray about our middle-America life and the saftey net of support that is purported. In the wake of the events at Columbine high school in Littleton, CO, "Expensive People" is a must read for all of our society to better understand ourselves, and our disenchanted teenagers.

What can you say about a fiction anthology that a teacher actually used for a college class? Well, for one thing, you can say that it is probably one of the best representations of contemporary fiction that you can buy at a reasonable price.

There are so many great authors on here, that I don't know where to begin. The editors basically took every great short fiction author, and popped one of their best short stories into this anthology. I've read the whole book cover to cover a couple of times, and it still manages to inspire.

The editors did a good job of selecting stories that represent a broad range of literary styles. Carver's minimalism is represented here, as well as stories from a countless number of his contemporaries. A well rounded collection over all. I think it still might be a little pricey for its size, but it may be well worth it for the present content, regardles.

Contray to what one review said this book is not dull and boring but autual fun and interesting. I recomened this book to people.

This 550-page anthology provides the best introduction to modern short fiction writing available to readers. This is "the textbook" for short story writing.

I'm not sure how to feel about this book. While reading it, I really could not become absorbed by Conrad's dense prose, though, while occasionaly eloquent, is very thick, and, well, British. But now that I am finished with it, I can not get the images the novella invokes out of my head. The conquest of Africa by the Imperialist on the surface, and the corruption of man's very morality underneath. The story is deceptively simple, merely a man working for an Ivory trading company, ominously called "The Company", going up the Congo river to meet up with Kurtz, the archetype of Western Imperialism. During this trip, we are shown the inner workings of man and his heart of darkness. The novella is not perfect though. Conrad's condemnation of Imperialism is uneven. Yes, the only discernable cause of Kurtz's descent into evil and madness is the imperialist ethic of master-slave, and it is fairly clear that Marlowe (conrad) is condemning that ethic, but at the same time, he doesn't work very hard to elevate the view of the African natives any higher in the esteem of his western readers. Anyway, as the novella is only about 100 pages, it is something that can be read in a day. Invest an afternoon in it, and decide for yourself.

Heart of Darkness is a novella that really needs to be read more than just once to fully appreciate Conrad's style of writing. The story is an account of one man's simultaneous journey into the darkness of a river as well as into the shadows of a madman's mind. There is a very brilliant flow of foreshadowing that Conrad brings to his writing that provides the reader with accounts of the time period and the horrible events to come. Through Conrad's illuminating writing style we slowly see how the narrator begins to understand the madness or darkness that surrounds him.

I recommend this particular version of the novella because it contains a variety of essays, which discusses some of the main issues in the reading and historical information. Issues like racism and colonialism are discussed throughout many essays. It also contains essays on the movie inspired by the book Apocalypse Now, which is set against the background of the Vietnam War. I recommend reading Heart of Darkness and then viewing Apocalypse Now, especially in DVD format which contains an interesting directors commentary.

You can sit in your office on your lunch break and read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness while, perhaps, eating a chicken salad sandwich. And while sitting there with an air-conditioned breeze blowing from a vent, you can imagine you are vicariously experiencing a trip up the Congo River in nineteenth century Africa. You can suppose your imagination is powerful enough to project you mentally into the circumstances Conrad relates. It is true Conrad's power of description is such that the reader can almost feel the thick, hot gush of blood fill Marlow's shoes as his assistant dies at his feet -- on his feet. Reading this story in the dead of winter will bring sweat to your brow. The torrid heat of the African night drips from every sentence. But more than anything, this story fills one with a sense of mortality -- it beats bluntly like an indefatigable drummer between every line. Lives like waves crashing against the merciless rocks of time. No man able to escape the malignant truth of his inevitable demise. Not even Kurtz, who wielded the reaper with such dexterity that it seems impossible he would ever have it turned in his own direction.

Heart of Darkness -- heart of virulence. Conrad takes us to a land of death -- a hundred-page trip through a tropical tumor. "The horror -- the horror." Yes! The horror fills every page, every twitch of every character. All is corrupt and dirty, like slime on the edge of a desecrated grave. It is the genius of Conrad that he can so deftly deliver his reader from the most opulent ivory tower of modern comfort, to where the darkest places in nature meets the darkest places in the human soul.

I recently read the novel Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. As a student, I would not recommend this book to other readers. Unless falling asleep after every chapter of a book classifies it as good, Wuthering Heights is only good as a bedtime story. In the novel, it is said that Heathcliff and Catherine are in love, if this is so they wouldn't have spent their times together trying to hurt one another for pleasure. Heathcliff would have not wished that Catherine not rest in piece because she didn't mention him in her last breaths of air before dying (even though she was unconscious). This relationship that the author portrays as love, really is not love. It is more of a hate than anything. Another thing about this novel in which, I did not quite enjoy was its exaggeration in descriptions of everything. It is great to describe things well enough for the reader to create an image on what is happening in the story, in their mind, but don't push it overboard. For example, Liam O'Flaherty an author of short stories and novels uses great descriptions in his works. In his stories, he was able to create a mental image of the story in reader's imaginations, without letting the story get boring, and without over doing it. The thing is in Wuthering Heights, Bronte explained things out far too well and made the story less interesting. So coming from a student, I would not recommend this book to another student.

"It is as if Emily Bronte could tear up all that we know human beings by, and fill these unrecognizable transparencies with such a gust of life that they transcend reality." -Virginia Woolf

Damn straight, sister! I gotta tell you, read this book in the *summer time*. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, read this in the gloom of winter, as I stupidly did.

The epic story of Catherine and Heathcliff plays out against the dramatic backdrop of the wild English moors, and presents an astonishing vision of fate and obsession, passion and REVENGE.

This classic book is a bummer. Not that it's bad writing, but my oh my.. it makes you so sad! Your heart just goes out for Heathcliff and the depression he faces. But also, the um... "inter-breeding" (*blush*) is quite disturbing!! One cousin marries one other cousin and they have kids who marry their other cousins, I was just surprised that the whole lot of them weren't, "messed up".

I really wouldn't recommend this book for happy people. If you want some romance and a historical novel, read "Gone with the Wind". My favorite.

I don't like romance novels, or movies or television shows. Such is the curse of the lion share of my sex, despite our gradual feminization in the modern era.

I'm glad I overcame my aversion to read this excellent portrayal of eros defiled. Heathcliff is the focus, fulcrum and prime mover in this story. He is dragged of the streets and taken in by a wealthy gentleman from the provinces. This man showers great affection on the young street urchin and demands equal treatment from his two natural born children.

The eldest, a son, resents this upstart, so when the father dies, he relegates poor Heathcliff to the status of neglected servant. Catherine, the younger, has become a close friend of Heathcliff and follows him into the relatively untethered but savage life of the servants' children. Growing up unsupervised they develop the manners of the low born, and but develop a strong bond of love that transcends the facile distinctions of filial versus romantic.

Alas, when Catherine comes of age, the duties of her birth beckon and she is taken from Heathcliff and marries someone of higher station.

It is this love, never fulfilled, that sours in Heathcliff makes him a despicable tyrant.

This is the dark side of romance, and Romance as viewed from the man's vantage point.

Worth reading.