Review by Booklist Review
All crime stories implicate the reader in some way--if you weren't thrilled by criminal acts, you wouldn't be reading about them, would you?--but in two of the tales in this new collection, Hi! Howya Doin! and Stripping, Oates takes that concept one step further, implicating the reader by use of second-person point of view. In other stories, guilt shifts more unpredictably: in Suicide Watch, a father ponders his own culpability for a horrific crime that he thinks--he can't be sure--his son has committed; in Bad Habits, the children of a serial killer find similarities between themselves and their father's victims; in Valentine, July Heat Wave, a philosopher plans revenge against his less-intelligent wife, whom he blames for their impending divorce. Oates clearly isn't interested in the usual suspects. It's almost customary, when reviewing her, to get off a crack at her prodigious output. But the care and intellect she applies to all of her projects, even what is theoretically just genre fare, are anything but jokes. These stories sizzle, and turning pages only fans the flames. --Keir Graff Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The words "gothic" and "macabre" rather than "mystery" and "suspense" might better describe the 10 beautifully told stories in this superb collection from the prolific Oates (The Female of the Species). In the startling opening tale, "Hi! Howya Doin!," an overly friendly jogger encounters someone with a less rosy outlook on life. In the horrifying "Valentine, July Heat Wave," an estranged wife finds a very unpleasant surprise in the home she once shared with her academic husband. In the haunting "Feral," a near-death experience transforms a much-loved only child into something wild and unknowable. The title story concerns a horrific exhibit in the home of an aging coroner in upstate New York (whose behavior is even more troubling). The book's best story, "The Man Who Fought Roland LaStarza," about an aging boxer in a bout that will make or end his career, happens to be the least gruesome. Powerful narratives, a singular imagination and exquisite prose make this a collection to relish. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Stories from "Suicide Watch" to "Valentine, July Heat Wave" set the tone for this collection from a master who likes to darken things up. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-Ten stories that are at once suspenseful and macabre. In "Valentine, July Heat Wave," an estranged wife returns to collect her things only to find a repulsive "valentine" awaiting her. In "Suicide Watch," a drug-addicted son teases his father with a shocking story about his grandbaby. The collection culminates with the most frightening of all, "The Museum of Dr. Moses," in which the young protagonist finds a multitude of horrors awaiting her in the museum/house where her mother now lives with her infamous new husband. Oates's succinct sentences and carefully chosen words convey emotion with sledgehammer impact. The exception to this style is "Hi, How Are You," a one-sentence story with a big-bang conclusion about two joggers in which the commas seem to act as the breaths of the runners. The author is a master storyteller, and teens will identify with the themes here: approval, friendship, love, death, and family relationships, especially between parents and children. Readers who are interested in tales of abuse, such as Dave Pelzer's autobiographical A Child Called It (Health Communications, 1995), or Stephen King-like tales of horror will gobble up this well-crafted collection.-Ellen Bell, Amador Valley High School, Pleasanton, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Ten reprints (2001-2006) that run the gamut from almost-realism to out-of-this-world. The most naturalistic entry is the longest, "The Man Who Fought Roland LaStarza," whose heroine's recollection of her prizefighter father's betrayal echoes Hemingway's "Fifty Grand." A rejected husband contemplates the ugly surprise he's preparing for his estranged wife in "Valentine, July Heat Wave." Moving further away from realism, "Bad Habits" presents the ordeal of a serial killer's family; "The Hunter" follows a man released from prison but not from his demons; "Feral" shows that (but not how) a near-drowning turns a model child into a clinical case; and "The Twins: A Mystery" uses a metafictional frame to present a father who orchestrates (or does he?) a murderous sibling rivalry between his sons--a rivalry that plays out in generational terms, with a maybe-dead grandson serving as the battlefield between father and son, in "Suicide Watch." "Hi! Howya Doin!" and "Stripping" are brief monologues moving from routine annoyance to murderous rage. And the heroine's tour in the title story of a ghoulish museum run by her mother's new husband shows how deft Oates is at sliding into overheated horrors before transposing her conventional settings into psychological anatomies with a precision worthy of Poe. Surreal interior landscapes, shamelessly incantatory prose and an enduring ambivalence toward the neo-gothic conventions from which Oates (The Gravedigger's Daughter, 2007, etc.) draws her power to shock and dismay. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by School Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
