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The Corn Maiden (2012)

by Joyce Carol Oates(Favorite Author)

3.31 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0802155081 (ISBN13: 9780802155085)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Mysterious Press

review 1: Sibling rivalry, alienation, greed, and loneliness play vital roles in these tightly plotted and well executed stories.In the title story, “Corn Maiden,” the evil within children makes a mockery out of the police search for a missing girl. Told in multiple stream-of-consciousness voices, we get an interior story and a lesson on what leads to murder in a small town. The victim may be rescued, but she is left alienated, just as her oppressors once were, while the rest of the town goes back to its interrupted life. “Beersheba” tells of another crazy woman and her lustful step-father playing out the aftermath of childhood abuse; it is hard to feel sympathy for either of them.Three stories, “Nobody Knows My Name,” “Fossil Figures,” and “Death Cup,” deal with... more sibling rivalry. The first story is between a 9-year old girl, her baby sister and a mysterious thistledown cat, the latter more imagined than real; the second deals with fraternal twins where the best genes flowed into one while leaving the other a husk at birth, and yet the emotional bonds forged in the womb overcome mortal circumstances that divide them; the third, also involving twins, takes sibling rivalry to the point of murder.“Helping Hands” deals with a widow’s loss and her urgent need to replace the dead husband with anyone who will pay her some attention, even if it’s of the wrong kind. Contrasting her loneliness is the alienation of the injured young war vet who is out to take back what society has robbed of him – a dangerous liaison. The dinner scene where Nicholas, the vet, reveals his feelings, is effectively rendered: unorthodox, powerful fragments dropped on paper.The final story, “A Hole in the Head,” is an indictment of the rich and bored in American society, and of the “service providers” who leech off them. Like with “Helping Hands,” the reader is left to write his own ending to this story.The financial collapse of 2008 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq feature as constant backdrops to these stories, all condemned for being mindless and wasteful ventures.The writing style is unconventional for such a middle class milieu. I detected weak editing and proofing, and strange punctuation, but if the net result is that the voices of these bizarre characters come out more distinctly, then the author succeeds brilliantly (and damn the grammarians!) Oates certainly demonstrates that great fiction can be dark, and that there need not be happy endings for us to chronicle human drama effectively.
review 2: Long story short (!): simply masterful.Discovering Oates' talents feels like meeting a beautiful woman at an unintentional party: I'm exhilarated where things could go.Probably not for some readers, these stories are crafted a frame of humanity's flaws. Dark, deeply disturbing flaws that are nevertheless very real. The bogeyman touches this close to the reader's truest fears. Oates' writes gorgeously, even when it's ugly. And that combination is utterly satisfying to this reader.Highly recommended, with... reservations on content. less

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