The doll-master and other tales of terror

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE , now a major motion picture, six terrifying tales to chill the blood.

A young boy plays with dolls instead of action figures. But as he grows older, his passion takes on a darker edge...

A white man shoots dead a black youth creating a media frenzy. But could it have been self-defense as he claims?

A nervous woman tries to escape her husband. He says he loves her, but she's convinced he wants to kill her...

These quietly lethal stories from a unique imagination reveal the horrors that dwell within us all.

Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates:

'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian
'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express
'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review
'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times
'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Oates (Jack of Spades) convincingly demonstrates her mastery of the macabre with this superlative story collection. Though the titular opening tale sets the creepy tone, narrator Robbie, who starts stealing dolls as an eighth grader, is odd enough that its denouement is less surprising than it could have been. More effective is the Hitchcockian "Equatorial," in which Mrs. Wheeling, her husband's third wife, begins to suspect during an excursion to the Galapagos that her scientist spouse may be trying to clear the decks for the fourth Mrs. Wheeling; Oates deftly manipulates the reader through this novella, in part by doling out key bits of backstory that dramatically shift the narrative kaleidoscope. And she truly hits her stride in the stories rooted in apparent normalcy, as in the George Zimmerman riff "Soldier," and "Big Momma," in which angry, unloved 13-year-old Violet ends up taking a horrific turn from the Jersey suburbs into the Twilight Zone. This devil's half-dozen of dread and suspense is a must read. Agent: Warren Frazier, John Hawkins & Associates. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

School Library Journal Review

This collection of disturbing stories will send chills up readers' spines and have them looking over their shoulders. Each of the tales has its own style, but all shine a light into the dark corners of humanity. (http://ow.ly/Saef305MDNh)-Mark Flowers, Rio Vista Library, CA © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* In this collection of six previously published stories, Oates has created a book of intense tales filled with unreliable narrators. Using an economy of words to produce an overflow of feelings in particular, extreme unease and tension she ropes readers in and takes them on a dark and twisted ride before pulling the rug out from under them, over and over again. Readers may start to see the twists coming, but that is not her purpose, obscuring the denouement. Rather, these stories are all about the anxiety, tension, and mood and the extremely damaged, unlikable characters within. When a story ends, one is left both gasping for air and rushing to turn the page to begin the next story. The first, The Doll-Master, may be the most predictable of the bunch, but the creepy feeling it produces lingers, casting an anxious shadow over the entire collection. Stories four and five, Equatorial and Big Mama, build the collection to an intense climax, with Big Mama in particular proving that Oates can be the best macabre writer in the world when she wants to be. The final story, Mystery Inc., a love letter to crime fiction and bookselling that could be the evil twin of 2014's The Storied Life of AJ Fikry, makes for a fun and unsettling conclusion. This is a collection with wide appeal, especially for fans of compelling and intense psychological suspense as found in the stories of Shirley Jackson or Gillian Flynn.--Spratford, Becky Copyright 2016 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

The prolific Oates (The Man Without a Shadow, 2016, etc.) delivers a sextet of creepy stories to disturb your nights and cast shadows across your days. In the title story, a man waxes eloquent about the doll collection he began keeping as a child when his cousin died of leukemia. Very quickly, it becomes apparent that his "dolls" have a much more sinister significance. In another story, a woman remembers a traumatic time in her past when she was asked to take care of her favorite teacher's house and was instead assaulted and left for dead. A lonely young girl meets a new friend with a big, terrifying secret. A troubled man defends the actions that have landed him in jail as the front page of every newspaper brands him a racist. On holiday in the Galapagos, a wife begins to suspect her dashing older husband is trying to kill heror is it merely a case of survival of the fittest? In the most effective of these stories, a paranoid narrator, seemingly modeled after so many of Poe's unstable characters, calmly plans and executes a perfect murderonly to have the tables turned. Oates' signature move, at least in these stories, is to end in medias res, or in the middle of thingsunlike other authors, who tend to start there. When this works, it causes a lingering sense of dread and discomfort, but sometimes it is merely frustrating, leaving one with a "lady or tiger" sensation. The collection provides some chills and some domestic psychological warfare much in the classic vein of Ruth Rendell, but it does feel a bit uneven and underdeveloped. What it lacks: deep, well-plumbed explorations of truly troubled and disturbing psyches. For readers who like the frisson of psychological horror without too much commitment. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.