The Collector of Hearts by Oates
The Collector of Hearts: New Tales of the Grotesque (1998)
by Joyce Carol Oates
323 pages - Plume
A collection of stories by Joyce Carol Oates. Some of these are what you could think of as her standard kind of story, while others are more dream-like, or have more of an obvious element of fantasy or horror. Twenty-seven stories are included, grouped into five sections; which is a way Oates often arranges her short story collections, though it's up to the reader to guess at the common theme in each grouping.
Some of the highlights are: "██████" about the recall of a childhood experience that contains a lot of incomplete, confused, and missing memories; "Labor Day" about a missing child in a beachfront community; and "Unprintable" in which an abortion-rights activist attends a function on her birthday, and thinks about how her own parents had desired to abort her, while she is also haunted by her own aborted fetuses, and those of the women she has counseled.
But, I think the most remarkable story here is "The Affliction", which is a really powerful metaphorical story. On the surface it's about a person with a strange physical mutation that's extremely painful, but that he finds a way to turn into something else. What it's a metaphor for is pretty clear to me, but I think it's probably best discovered by each individual reading the story.
Not every story here is wonderful, but quite a few of them are; it's a very strong collection, and I have to marvel in admiration at how Oates can just kick out high quality story after story after story.
by Joyce Carol Oates
323 pages - Plume
A collection of stories by Joyce Carol Oates. Some of these are what you could think of as her standard kind of story, while others are more dream-like, or have more of an obvious element of fantasy or horror. Twenty-seven stories are included, grouped into five sections; which is a way Oates often arranges her short story collections, though it's up to the reader to guess at the common theme in each grouping.
Some of the highlights are: "██████" about the recall of a childhood experience that contains a lot of incomplete, confused, and missing memories; "Labor Day" about a missing child in a beachfront community; and "Unprintable" in which an abortion-rights activist attends a function on her birthday, and thinks about how her own parents had desired to abort her, while she is also haunted by her own aborted fetuses, and those of the women she has counseled.
But, I think the most remarkable story here is "The Affliction", which is a really powerful metaphorical story. On the surface it's about a person with a strange physical mutation that's extremely painful, but that he finds a way to turn into something else. What it's a metaphor for is pretty clear to me, but I think it's probably best discovered by each individual reading the story.
Not every story here is wonderful, but quite a few of them are; it's a very strong collection, and I have to marvel in admiration at how Oates can just kick out high quality story after story after story.