Evil Eye: Four Novellas of Love Gone Wrong - Hardcover

Oates, Joyce Carol

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802120474 ISBN 13: 9780802120472

Publisher: Mysterious Press, 2013

Synopsis

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prominent writers of her generation, and she is fearless when exploring the most disturbing corners of human nature. In Evil Eye, Oates offers four chilling tales of love gone horribly wrong, showing the lengths people will go to find love, keep it, and sometimes end it.

In "Evil Eye," we meet Mariana, the young 4th wife of a prominent intellectual. When her husband's brazen first wife visits one night, Mariana learns a terrible secret that threatens her marriage and sanity. In "So Near, Anytime, Always," shy teenager Lizbeth meets Desmond, a charming boy who offers this introverted girl the first sparks of young romance. Yet just as their relationship begins to blossom, Lizbeth realizes that beneath Desmond's perfect façade lies a dark soul that could wreak havoc on Lizbeth and her loved ones. In "The Execution," spoiled college student Bart Hansen has planned the perfect, brutal crime to get back at his parents for their years of condescension. Yet what he didn't plan for is a mother whose love is more resilent than he could have ever imagined, who threatens to derail his carefully laid-out plans.

About this title

About the Author

Joyce Carol Oates is the author of such national best-sellers as The Falls, Blonde, and We Were the Mulvaneys. She has been nominated for six National Book Awards, winning for Them.

Reviews

Oates adds to her treasury of diabolical tales (The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares, 2011; Black Dahlia & White Rose, 2012) a quartet of shrewd and unnerving novellas about toxic entanglements. In the stylishly gothic title story, the legendary director of a performing arts institute swoops in and makes a much younger researcher shattered by the deaths of her parents his fourth wife, installing her in his fastidiously appointed showcase house, where her inchoate fears about his soul-freezing temper crystallize upon meeting his disfigured first wife. Oates has a superbly disconcerting gift for orchestrating slowly coalescing realizations that something is horribly wrong, as in 16-year-old Lizbeth’s reluctant recognition that her polite, Polaroid-snapping boyfriend may, in fact, be dangerous. In other subtly sinister, adeptly paced scenarios, a failing frat boy high on Ritalin and video-game fantasies turns murderous, and a frigid young woman identifies her childhood abuser. Oates’ deft tales of vulnerable women with surprisingly deep reservoirs of strength and a capacity for revenge are infused with wry and knowing commentary on the battle between the sexes, the justice system, and the consequences of entitlement. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Readers are always ready for new dark tales by best-selling Oates, and this potent volume will gain added visibility given all the attention surrounding her latest novel, The Accursed. --Donna Seaman

Edition details

• Publisher: Mysterious Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802120474
• ISBN 13: 9780802120472
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224