High Crime Area

"These 'tales of darkness and dread' won't put you to sleep, but they'll give you more interesting nightmares. . . . In a way, every story is a character study . . . sure to focus a basilisk eye on the weak spot that reveals our own ugly impulses and make us defenseless against the terrors of the night."--New York Times Book Review "[In High Crime Area], there's little overt violence; it's all in the mind, as [Oates] slowly tightens the noose. Drenched in clammy atmosphere, Oates' work explores the heads of both ordinary people and those who are at least a little damaged."--Seattle Times "Scary, brooding and entertaining. . . . The despair is palpable and the tension always high in these stories told in a combination of hyper-realism and emotionally charged suspense. Horrific and creepy, High Crime Area still manages to smartly critique American society and its uneasy feelings on race, sexuality, gender, academia and family dynamics."--Bookreporter "Oates carries forward the great American dark-tales tradition with spellbinding craft, a cutting female eye, and a keen sense of how the diabolical infiltrates everyday existence. . . . Powerhouse Oates brings both exterior and interior worlds into excruciatingly sharp focus, evoking dread, grim exaltation, and the paralysis of prey. Oates' potent dark tales are addictive."--Booklist "Oates' mastery of imagery and of stream of consciousness enhances the gritty settings and the frailties of her grotesque and pitiable subjects."--Kirkus Reviews "Exquisitely written . . . there is no better stylist alive than Joyce Carol Oates. . . . Read High Crime Area and prepare yourself for eight surprises, the number of stories in the book."--Huntington News "Oates offers unexpected glimmers of redemption amid the grotesquerie, degradation, and exploitation that fill this collection's eight tales. . . . Oates is at her best depicting characters who seem perplexed by their own needs, desires, and obligations."--Publishers Weekly "These stories take the reader to desolate intersections and grimy tenements that mirror the dark reaches of the human soul; the combined elements of literary fiction with genre fiction and true crime offer added audience appeal."--Library Journal