The Barrens [Hardcover]

Joyce Carol Oates (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2001

In this gripping psychological thriller, Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times best-selling author and one of the most versatile and original voices in contemporary American fiction, delivers a startling, complex tale of a serial killer and the people that his ghastly crimes touch—and transform. People like Matt McBride. Matt was barely out of junior high when the mutilated body of the first victim—a popular, pretty teenager—was uncovered in the desolate New Jersey Pine Barrens. Although he had hardly known the girl, Matt has long felt guilty at not having been able somehow to prevent the atrocity. Now another attractive young woman has disappeared, and Matt knew this victim, too. Just possibly he knew her more intimately than he is prepared to admit. By degrees Matt becomes obsessed with a guilt he can neither comprehend nor assuage. His seemingly happy marriage begins to deteriorate, while his increasingly erratic behavior heightens police suspicions. It also draws official attention away from an artist—a man of limited talent but of fierce, demented vision—who signs his work Name Unknown. Under the spell of the missing woman, Matt follows a path that leads him out of the maze of tortured memory to a confrontation with not only the baleful Name Unknown but also his own long-unacknowledged self. The outcome is shattering. With “murder as an art and the serial killer as an artist,” National Book Award–winner Joyce Carol Oates shows “how a murderer’s savage creations ... transform a man’s life.”—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times “Oates fans may judge [The Barrens] the best Smith novel yet.”—Boston Herald

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A serial killer and his pursuer engage in a lurid dance in this overextended psychological thriller written under the name Oates uses for her psycho-dramas (like Double Delight). The novel charts the emotional ruin of Matt McBride, a real estate agent in the upscale New Jersey suburb of Weymouth, where he lives with his attractive wife and their two sons. McBride has been haunted since childhood by the memory of a high school classmate whose body was found ravaged in the desolate Pine Barrens. Now, 20 years later, McBride becomes a suspect in the disappearance of local artist Duana Zwoll, a woman whom McBride knew and admired. Although McBride manages to convince the police of his innocence, he remains wracked by guilt that a second female acquaintance has met a ghastly end. As his marriage slowly crumbles, McBride fixates on finding the killer. He narrows his search to another local artist, the marginally talented yet ghoulishly eccentric Joseph Gavin, whose artwork appears to incorporate human body parts. Could he be the man responsible for the deaths of countless East Coast women in recent years? It's a testament to Oates's skill that the suspense is instant and intense. Her setting, which contrasts Weymouth's chi-chi facade with the tormented lives of its residents, is exquisite, as is her treatment of McBride's personal tailspin. Yet the motivation for his obsessive quest for the killer guilt at being unable to prevent two murders never quite convinces. Nor does the character of Gavin, whose repetitive spiritual rants and egomania bloat the story and make him more a figure of absurdity than a credible threat to human life.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Writing under an accustomed pseudonym, Oates offers a psychological thriller that isn't so much about the actual murders as a bystander's obsession with them. Matt McBride has had a lifelong preoccupation with the unsolved abduction and murder of a high school acquaintance. When an artist friend is murdered in a similar fashion, the obsession grows to the point of completely taking over McBride's life, destroying his marriage and career in the process. His uncommon interest and some incriminating evidence found in the victim's home make him a suspect in the eyes of the police. The story is taut, though the author misses several opportunities to capitalize on the circumstances she sets up. After over 200 pages of buildup, the resolution of the multiple murders comes so swiftly that it disappoints and leaves many questions unanswered. But the story seems to be more about missed opportunities, and the ending fits the flawed characters that Oates is so expert at creating. Recommended for all public libraries. Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers; First Edition edition (May 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786708476
• ISBN-13: 978-0786708475
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,242,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Joyce Carol Oates Lite?, August 19, 2001

By 

Lauryn Angel-cann (Frisco, TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Barrens (Hardcover)

Although this novel has some Oates-ian touches, this is not a typical Joyce Carol Oates novel, which is presumably where the "Writing as Rosamund Smith" tagline comes into play. The basic plot is pretty much what you'd expect from an Oates novel: Matt McBride, a thirty-six year old man haunted by the abduction and murder of a young girl that occured when he was fifteen, becomes obsessed with the disappreance of a young woman who lives nearby. Matt sinks further into obsession at the cost of his marriage and career, but he won't rest until he finds out exactly what has happened to Duana Zwolle.

Oates also takes us tinto the mind of the killer, Name Unknown. Name Unknown has an obsession of his own -- ridding the world of impure, vulgar women. The passages written from Name Unknown's point of view are somewhat reminiscent of the narrative voice of Quentin P___ from Oates's earlier novel, Zombie. However, while Name Unknown's thoughts and actions are disturbing, they are nowhere near as frightening as the things Quentin does.

The Barrens also has a more satisfying conclusion -- almost a happy ending -- than many of Oates's novels. I'm reluctant to call this novel "Joyce Carol Oates Lite" because that sounds demeaning. However, while this book is dark, it doesn't get nearly as dark as the aforementioned Zombie, or Foxfire, or a number of other Oates novels. It's a book to be kept in reserve for those times when you want a compelling thriller, but not necessarily one that's going to make you think too hard about what Oates is trying to say.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Subtlety and a serial killer., May 26, 2001

By 

Randall Neustaedter (Redwood City, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Barrens (Hardcover)

The best of the Rosamond Smith / Oates mysteries. It strikes me as amazing that a writer as good (and exponentially prolific) as Oates can get better, but she does. Her recent forays, including The Barrens and Blonde, are so deliciously subtle in their presentation of characters' thought patterns and multiple levels of motives, that it leaves me staggering with respect for her skills. In her biography, some light is shed on her writing process. Oates seems to eat and breathe writing. She will pick up her manuscript in a taxi and continue scribbling exactly where she left off. The command she exerts over her craft shows in this book. She has mastered the form of paranoid mystery. Her characters ooze their deviant personalities. Even her hero in this book has a deep streak of manic perversity.

If you want to know what goes through the mind of serial killers, read The Barrens and her previous book in this Smith series, Starbright will be with you soon. If you enjoy accessible literary excellence and riveted to your seat bones fiction, you can't go wrong with JCO.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book from an author who usually delivers great books, July 5, 2001

By 

"mfshermantank" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Barrens (Hardcover)

The Barrens puts other novels that masquerade as "compelling psycho-dramas" (think anything sold at the grocery store or on the mass paperback table at chain bookstores) to literary shame. For nearly two decades, JCO has been one of a handful of writers whose works I purchase in hardcover the day they become available. So, make no mistake, by any measure against other writers' work, this is a five-star read: suspenseful, harrowing, "true."

But when I think about the body of work Oates has penned under the pseudonym "Rosamond Smith," I find that The Barrens falls short of the excellence she has achieved in this genre in, for example, Nemesis and Lives of the Twins.

Also (and now perhaps I am being unfair by comparing her Smith work to her Oates work), I think JCO presents readers with a far more memorable psychopath in the groundbreaking (and chillingly realistic) Zombie, a slim volume that reminds us that serial killers are people, too.