A Fair Maiden (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sixteen-year-old Katya Spivak and elderly Marcus Kidder share a bizarre romance in Oates's derivative and unpolished new novel. In bland Bayhead Harbor, N.J., Katya serves as a nanny to the Engelhardts' two young children. Attractive Katya—unappreciated by her alcoholic mother, mistreated by the tyrannical Engelhardts—is intrigued by the attentions of wealthy Mr. Kidder, a former children's book author and amateur painter. The courting is slow at first, but after Katya accepts Mr. Kidder's money to help her mother pay off a debt, things accelerate. Soon Katya is posing for Mr. Kidder in lingerie and receiving payment upon each visit. She begins to feel used, but is thankful for the attention—until one evening when Mr. Kidder possibly drugs her, at which point something equally bizarre and predictable happens. Katya and Mr. Kidder's final meeting reveals Mr. Kidder's true intention for Katya, but the revelation isn't worth the buildup. This is certainly one of Oates's lesser works. (Aug.)
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From Booklist

Sixteen-year-old Katya is spending the summer working as a nanny in a wealthy Jersey Shore community when she meets Marcus Kidder, an elderly yet dashing artist to whom libraries and pavilions are dedicated all over town. He catches her eyeing display-case lingerie and offers to buy it for her; she refuses. Later, when she visits his mansion, he tries to gift her the same lingerie; again, she refuses. But despite each rebuff, she keeps returning to  Kidder and soon is posing for his paintings, some of which require the shedding of clothes. What sounds like a story of older-man-seduces-waif becomes, in Oates’ hands, something far thornier—a treatise on the faceted push-and-pull of female aspiration. There is a subtle mystery at the center of this unsettling short novel: Kidder insists that he has a “mission” for Katya that will be revealed in time. The mission, when it comes, is a dark one, involving not just transactions of subservience and control but of life and death, and readers’ takes on character motivations will govern their reactions. Fans of Oates’ gothic stylings will not be disappointed, however, and Katya’s belligerent exuberance (“He wants me! Me, me!”) gives the prose plenty of punch. --Daniel Kraus

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (January 6, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151015163
• ISBN-13: 978-0151015160
• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #290,432 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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