Will You Always Love Me?

I've never read Joyce Carol Oates short works, and it's interesting to see here a collection of her consciously taking the same themes of her work (the necessary, hidden, powerful, destructive undercurrents of our personalites and desires and energy) but approaching them from a very different artist......more

The ubiquitous Joyce Carol Oates. An amazing writer. One that I have had to make a pact with myself to take breaks from at times because of the powerful but bleak and dark view of life I often come away from her books with. This is a group of short stories. I enjoyed it more as this enables me to t......more

This collection of stories often focuses on characters who are alienated or going through some sort of mental crisis. Oates is known for delving into violent territory, and while some stories do hinge in some way on a rape, murder, or suicide, most of the darkness here is emotional or psychological.......more

This collection of short stories is pure storytelling gold! I don't mean to sound overdramatic but reading this book has changed my view on short stories as a literary form forever. JCO writes about all sorts of characters on the enormous range of the spectrum of human condition. They can be sad, lon......more

Heartbreaking, real, close to the surface, penetrating, sad and terrifically funny......more