Showing results by author "Joyce Carol Oates"

Bad things have been happening since Mia began to mature. Her dad left. Boys at school can’t keep their hands to themselves. A lecherous stepfather has moved in. Her only refuge is an abandoned lot on her suburban cul-de-sac, crawling with feral felines - one of which follows Mia home. Ghostly white and affectionate, she is Mia’s new companion and - as Mia’s tormenters will soon discover - her fierce protector.

L.A. Theatre Works presents Five Short Stories by Women, a quintet of tales from some of America’s most distinguished female authors.

Judd is the youngest of the four Mulvaney children - three boys and a girl - on their parents’ lush farm in upstate New York. In his childhood, Judd is swept along by the sheer energy of the Mulvaneys and their wealth of beloved family stories. But now, 30 years old, Judd looks back through his memories to tell the secrets that eventually ripped apart the fabric of his storybook family.

Matt Donaghy has always been a Big Mouth. But it's never gotten him in trouble, until the day Matt is accused of threatening to blow up Rocky River High School.

Ursula Riggs has always been an Ugly Girl. A loner with fierce, staring eyes, Ursula has no time for petty high school stuff like friends and dating, or at least that's what she tells herself. Ursula is content with minding her own business. And she doesn't even really know Matt Donaghy.

A compilation of classic tales by great American writers performed by terrific actors, with a lineup including Pulitzer Prize winners, National Book Award winners, and PEN Award winners.

An incomparable master storyteller in all forms, in The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares Joyce Carol Oates spins six imaginative tales of suspense. The Corn Maiden is the gut-wrenching story of Marissa, a beautiful and sweet, but somewhat slow, eleven-year-old girl with hair the color of corn silk. Her single mother comes home one night to find her missing and panics, frantically knocking on the doors of her neighbors.

She was an all-American girl who became a legend of unparalleled stature. She inspired the adoration of millions, and her life has beguiled generations of fans and fellow artists. The story of Norma Jeane Baker, better known by her studio name, Marilyn Monroe, has been dissected for more than three decades, but never has it been captured in a narrative as breathtaking and transforming as Blonde.

The Lost Landscape is Joyce Carol Oates' vivid chronicle of her hardscrabble childhood in rural Western New York State. From memories of her relatives to those of a charming bond with a special red hen on her family farm, from her first friendships to her earliest experiences with death, The Lost Landscape is a powerful evocation of the romance of childhood and its indelible influence on the woman and the writer she would become.

The Mulvaneys are blessed by all that makes life sweet: a hardworking father, a loving mother, three fine sons, and a bright, pretty daughter. But an incident occurs on Valentine's Day, 1976 - hushed up in the rural town of Mt. Ephraim, New York and never spoken of in the Mulvaney home - that rends the fabric of their family life.

From the legendary literary master, winner of the National Book Award and New York Times best-selling author Joyce Carol Oates, a collection of ten spellbinding stories that maps the eerie darkness within us all. Insightful, disturbing, and mesmerizing in their lyrical precision, the stories in Lovely, Dark, Deep display Joyce Carol Oates's astonishing ability to make visceral the fear, hurt, and uncertainty that lurks at the edges of ordinary lives.

What is it about the cat that captivates the creative imagination? No other creature has inspired so many authors to take pen to page. Mystery, horror, science fiction, and fantasy stories have all been written about cats.

The need for love - obsessive, self-destructive, unpredictable - takes us to forbidden places, as in the chilling world of Give Me Your Heart, a new collection of stories by the inimitable Joyce Carol Oates. In ten razor-sharp stories, National Book Award winner Oates shows that the most deadly mysteries often begin at home.

A collection of 13 mesmerizing stories by American master Joyce Carol Oates, including the 2017 Pushcart Prize-winning "Undocumented Alien". The diverse stories of Beautiful Days explore the most secret, intimate, and unacknowledged interior lives of characters not unlike ourselves, who assert their independence in acts of bold and often irrevocable defiance.

Written when Joyce Carol Oates was in her early 20s, and first published in 1964, With Shuddering Fall is her powerful debut novel. Following the turbulent story of two lovers who discover themselves mortal enemies, the author explores the struggle for dominance in erotic relationships that has become a predominant theme in her work, as well as the perils of patriarchal inheritance, and the ripple-effects of emotional loss in adolescence.

Foxfire chronicles the life of five unforgettably real teenage girls in upstate New York in the 1950s. This controversial, topical tale captures the exhilaration of conspiracy, the blaze of youth, and the inevitable end of violence.

In a work unlike anything she's written before, National Book Award-winner Joyce Carol Oates unveils a poignant, intimate memoir about the unexpected death of her husband of 46 years and its wrenching, surprising aftermath.

"Why do we write?" With this question Joyce Carol Oates, in this new collection of seminal essays and criticism, begins an imaginative exploration of the writing life and all its attendant anxieties, joys, and futilities. Leading her quest is a desire to understand the source of the writer's inspiration - do subjects haunt those who might bring them back to life until the writer submits? Or does something "happen" to us, a sudden ignition of a burning flame? Can the appearance of a muse-like Other bring about a writer's best work?

On Grayling Island, off the coast of Maine, Kelly Kelleher meets the Senator at a Fourth of July beach party. He is old enough to be her father; she is young enough to find his attention flattering. And with an optimism born of inexperience, she believes she can take care of herself. As evening approaches, the two move unaware toward a shattering appointment with destiny. When the Senator offers Kelly a ride to the ferry, it is not love but death that awaits her.

"Options", by Steve Coll; "Ringers", by Reeves Wiedeman; "Unsung", by Tad Friend; "The Lyme Wars", by Michael Specter; "The Orange Trapper", by John McPhee; "Mastiff", by Joyce Carol Oates; and "Life and Undeath", by David Denby.

In this striking, enormously affecting novel, Joyce Carol Oates tells the story of two very different yet intimately linked American families. Luther Dunphy is an ardent Evangelical who envisions himself as acting out God's will when he assassinates an abortion provider in his small Ohio town while Augustus Voorhees, the idealistic doctor who is killed, leaves behind a wife and children scarred and embittered by grief.