Joyce Carol Oates

Five Short Stories by Women

• UNABRIDGED (2 hrs and 54 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates, Amy Hempel, Rebecca Lee, and others
• Narrated By Emily Bergl, Lynn Collins, Sarah Drew, and others

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

A Book of American Martyrs: A Novel

• UNABRIDGED (24 hrs and 47 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Neil Hellegers, Tavia Gilbert, Kirsten Potter
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

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.

Black Water

• ABRIDGED (3 hrs and 9 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Amanda Plummer

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.

Tails of Wonder and Imagination

• UNABRIDGED (25 hrs and 39 mins)
• By Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin, and others
• Narrated By Teresa DeBerry, Jeremy Arthur, Cynthia Barrett

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.

Selected Shorts: American Classics

• ORIGINAL (3 hrs and 45 mins)
• By Amy Tan, Donald Barthelme, Eudora Welty, and others
• Narrated By Freda Foh Shen, David Strathairn, Stockard Channing, and others

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.

Big Mouth & Ugly Girl

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Hilary Swank, Chad Lowe

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.

The Accursed

• UNABRIDGED (22 hrs and 54 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Grover Gardner
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Princeton, New Jersey, at the turn of the 20th century: a tranquil place to raise a family, a genteel town for genteel souls. But something dark and dangerous lurks at the edges of the town, corrupting and infecting its residents. Vampires and ghosts haunt the dreams of the innocent. A powerful curse besets the elite families of Princeton; their daughters begin disappearing. A young bride on the verge of the altar is seduced and abducted by a dangerously compelling man - a shape-shifting, vaguely European prince who might just be the devil.

We Were the Mulvaneys

• UNABRIDGED (22 hrs and 47 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Scott Shina

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.

A Widow's Story: A Memoir

• UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 58 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Ellen Parker
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

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.

Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang

• ABRIDGED (2 hrs and 57 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Jane Gabbert

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.

Master's Choice Volume 1: Mystery Stories by Today's Top Writers and the Masters Who Inspired Them

• UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 39 mins)
• By Stephen King, Tony Hillerman, W.F. Harvey, and others
• Narrated By Juliet Mills, Michael Gross

Listen to mystery stories by today's top writers and the masters who inspired them. The idea for this collection came to Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Lawrence Block when he was asked, "What is your favorite mystery story?" Block compiled this unique collection by posing the same question to some of today's favorite writers of the genre, including Stephen King, Tony Hillerman, and John Lutz.

Lovely, Dark, Deep

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 11 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Jason Culp, Maggi-Meg Reed
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

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.

The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares: Novellas and Stories of Unspeakable Dread

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 59 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Adam Verner, Christine Williams

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.

American Appetites

• UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 11 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Barbara Caruso
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Ian and Glynnis McCullough, intelligent, professional, and successful, are the envy of their affluent friends. But suddenly, an unexpected plea for help and a cancelled check send their tranquility spinning out of control.

Prison Noir

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 53 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates (editor)
• Narrated By Mark Boyett, David Marantz, Joe Barrett, and others
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

This anthology, with stories set in different prisons across the US, presents an absolutely new perspective on prison literature. Featuring brand-new stories by: Christopher M. Stephen, Sin Soracco, Scott Gutches, Eric Boyd, Ali F. Sareini, Stephen Geez, B.M. Dolarman, Zeke Caligiuri, Marco Verdoni, Kenneth R. Brydon, Linda Michelle Marquardt, Andre White, Timothy Pauley, Bryan K. Palmer, and William Van Poyck.

We Were the Mulvaneys

• ABRIDGED (6 hrs and 56 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By J. Todd Adams

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.

Blonde

• ABRIDGED (8 hrs and 24 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Jayne Atkinson

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.

Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart

• ABRIDGED (3 hrs and 2 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Constance Towers

Lonely Iris Courtney learns about life in the small town of Hammond, New York, where blacks and whites live separate lives. She learns of love from her parents - hard-drinking, hard-living Duke Courtney and his stormy marriage with the lovely but troubled Persia Courtney. But Iris learns most from Verlyn "Jinx" Fairchild, star of the basketball courts, his hopes for a way out of Hammond pinned to a college scholarship.

Mudwoman

• UNABRIDGED (19 hrs and 32 mins)
• By Joyce Carol Oates
• Narrated By Susan Ericksen
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Mudgirl is a child abandoned by her mother in the silty flats of the Black Snake River. Cast aside, Mudgirl survives by an accident of fate - or destiny. After her rescue, the well-meaning couple who adopt Mudgirl quarantine her poisonous history behind the barrier of their middle-class values, seemingly sealing it off forever. But the bulwark of the present proves surprisingly vulnerable to the agents of the past.