Review by Booklist Review
Claire, Mia, Alyce, Elisabeth--three women and one just coming into womanhood--confront malevolent and vengeful forces as they navigate worlds in which the balance of power and the vulnerability of the outsider are in constant play. In each of these four suspenseful novellas, one of Oates' protagonists faces circumstances that are both ordinary and remarkable: an inheritance from an unknown biological grandmother, a sexually predatory stepfather, an unwanted pregnancy, a recalcitrant stepchild. Gaslighting, a concept much in the news of late, is performed by male counterparts, villainous figures of authority in the guise of husbands, fathers, professors, lawyers, even children. In each tale, these women walk a shaky tightrope, teetering between self-deception and self-actualization, between doubt and certitude, as they encounter threats real and imagined. Indeed, their interior lives abound with recriminations and suspicions, while physical interactions remain open to interpretation. Careful reading is advised, for Oates' menacing novellas can turn on a single sentence buried deep in the narrative, making the reader, much like the characters, distrust what they thought to be true.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The four novellas in this spellbinding collection from Oates (Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.) carefully tread the boundary between psychological and supernatural expressions of the macabre. In the title story, a sinister gothic confection, a young woman inherits a house from the grandmother she never knew, prompting her to explore the harrowing family history that led to her adoption as a toddler. "Phantomwise: 1972" evokes the work of Lewis Carroll in its account of a heroine, Alyce, enmeshed in a skewed reality. In "The Surviving Child," a new wife caring for her stepson is haunted by the palpable presence of the boy's mother, who killed both herself and her young daughter. Oates masterfully digs into the turbulent psyches of her characters and makes it ambiguous to the reader how much of the strange worlds they navigate are projections of their own anxieties and longings--especially in "Miao Dao," about a teenage heroine who obsessively protects a feral cat. This superb outing is sure to captivate. Agent: Warren Frazier, John Hawkins & Assoc. (Oct.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Creeping dread and dark violence haunt parents and children in four novellas of suspense. In her latest collection, the indefatigable Oates returns to the theme of parents and what they will--or won't--do to protect their children. The title novella is the story of Clare Seidel, an art historian in her 30s. Adopted as a toddler, she's never been curious about her birth family until, out of the blue, she receives a call from a lawyer in the (fictional) Maine town of Cardiff, informing her that a grandmother she's never heard of has died and left her a bequest. Soon she has discovered an eccentric trio of living relatives as well as the terrifying story of her long-dead immediate family. But every answer she gets about her past only raises new questions, and dangers. In Miao Dao, 12-year-old Mia is having a rough year. After her parents divorce, her mother finds a new man who makes the girl uneasy. Mia is also disturbed by the physical changes that adolescence brings. Her only solace is a nearby colony of feral cats, from which she rescues a tiny white kitten with strange black eyes that might or might not be her savior. Phantomwise: 1972 is the story of Alyce, a bright but naïve college student. She becomes involved with both her ambitious young philosophy professor and her kindly, older writing professor, a famous poet who tells her she reminds him of the girl in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. When she becomes pregnant, she goes down a very bad rabbit hole. The literary allusion that haunts The Surviving Child is the life and death of poet Sylvia Plath. In Oates' fictional take, the poet is N.K., a brilliant, successful, but troubled woman. The story takes place several years after the murder-suicide that killed N.K. and her toddler daughter but left her young son alive. Told from the point of view of Elisabeth, who becomes the second wife of N.K.'s formidable husband, it's a twisted tale of toxic patriarchy. Family secrets bloom into nightmares in these skillful, chilling stories. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
