Customer Reviews

The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense

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Scripture says that the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons. The meaning of this verse is commonly taken to imply the consequences of sinful parenting. For Oates, the sins of the parents are visited on the daughters. Here is an outstanding collection of women and girls of varying ages and circumstances who have in common both a horrible past or current hurt/injury by the one who they should trust the most and the horrible psychological and often sociopathic, violent and self-destructive effects of these hurts. Nabokov explores these themes. What makes Oates' contribution worthwhile is the brevity of the genre and glimpse into each life leaving you wanting to know more. In a sense, we often come across people with such backgrounds and who are severely disturbed as they briefly cross our paths. It is all too common and real. A book worth reading and thinking about.

One should never assume that the fairer sex is the weaker and in this collection of stories, the prodigious Oates reveals the dark side of a woman's psyche, whether inspired by childhood abandonment or a married woman's rapidly escalating sexual obsession. Flying to the very edge of reason, each of these stories plunges into the darker waters of female behavior, some macabre, some grotesque, others giving voice to the secret impulses that drive women to extremes, to the edge of reason, innocent children taxed beyond the fragile structures of their emotional boundaries.

In the first tale, "So Help Me God", a young woman falls in love with a bad boy cop, caught in a web of abuse with the husband she met at fourteen and married at eighteen. The exhilarating sexual energy of their early encounters feels far more dangerous as he toys with her dependency, obsession turning to terror. In "Doll, A Romance of the Mississippi", eerily reminiscent and a cross between "Baby Doll" and Lolita, a young girl travels the Midwest with her (step)father, preying on the sexual fantasies of vulnerable paying customers, frequently betrayed by her own twisted demons, home-schooled from the trunk of their 1953 Buick La Salle. "Madison at Guignol" speaks to a woman's quest for perfection: "But it is my soul I seek continuously, where I can and however." This fashion maven is a victim of her own pathetic hubris, caught in a horror beyond her ability to comprehend.

A personal favorite is "Hunger", one of the longer pieces in The Female of the Species. Kristine, the second wife of a wealthy man, begins a casual dalliance with an enigmatic, exotic stranger, Jean-Claude, a new arrival in the elite oceanside community where she is vacationing with her small daughter. In the accepting society of this well-heeled colony, Kristine opens a door she is unable to close, her impulsive romance imbued with the menace of incipient violence, helpless against her consuming passion for the forbidden, en route to a stunning and elaborate betrayal. There are more: "The Banshee"; "The Haunting"; "Tell Me You Forgive Me?"; "The Angel of Death" and "The Angel of Mercy", each with a uniquely bizarre perspective. This collection is fascinating and unsettling, written in the evocative prose that is natural to this author, with random images of threat and menace, birds screeching through the sky, teeming hordes of feral cats, bucolic scenes threaded with nature's unpredictability, the power of one character's preoccupation with another, stalking death, all the ingredients to send a chill up your spine in the dark of the night. Luan Gaines/ 2006.

Joyce Carol Oates, a writer long fascinated with the macabre, has compiled a solid collection of tales of suspense and violence. These nine stories portray women at their most murderous, motivated by passion, desperation, righteousness, or just plain nastiness.

One of the most chilling tales is "Doll: A Romance of the Mississippi," a story about perpetually eleven-year old Doll, a shrewd child prostitute prone to "mean moods." Oates plunges into the psyches of both Doll and her (step)father Ira, exposing the deranged and macabre relationship between the two: what keeps them together and what divides them. "Hunger" is equally memorable, although less for its actual violence than for the way Oates develops the story of a woman hungry for passion. Kristine is vacationing on Cape Cod with her six year old daughter when she meets a mysterious stranger on the beach. When the stranger begins to show up at the upscale parties thrown in Kristine's circle, Kristine finds herself driven to possess him. But her actions have repercussions she does not expect. "The Haunting" focuses on the horrifying hallucinations (or are they?) of a girl whose mother is said to have burned her father alive. The more experimental "Angel of Mercy" entwines the lives of a long-dead, infamous nurse with the youngest nurse of the ward nicknamed "the City of the Damned." "So Help Me God," the story of a woman prompted to take action against her controlling husband after receiving a series of anonymous calls, is less successful, primarily because the motivation Oates provides is more overlaid than deep-seated in the protagonist.

Each story is this collection varies enough from the others to keep the reader's attention through one sitting or many. While Oates's characters might not always seem to be capable of the atrocities they commit, the suspense she builds holds everything together. The most engrossing stories have the momentum of inevitability, where both the reader and the characters know where events are heading but from which neither can tear herself away. -- Debbie Lee Wesselmann

This latest book of short stories by Joyce is quite good. In this book, she abandons her usual esoteric vocabulary for a "plain language" writing style. Interestingly, while the stories are very good, they are not her best. Her style is a little prosaic in comparison to most of her other works. And; her plots and especially the endings lack a certain degree of poignancy that so characterizes most of her work.

On the positive side, she has not lost her touch for incredible character development. While most of the stories involve murder, they also touch on other highly interesting and sometimes perverse topical areas. Her story "Doll" is truly fascinating as she centers on a kiddie prostitution scheme which is run by the girls father. He had developed a concept that is `look, don't touch.' The clients get to have an hour with Doll, a radiant girl of about 13 who undresses for them and poses, talks and watches TV, while the "John" gets excited.

Her story "Angel of Wrath" is truly an inside look at a very strange and psychopathic boy how is in love with a woman he does not know. Yet still, he believes he has a connection to her. And in fact, before the story is over, he has a very clear connection to her.

It is interestingly noticeable that her longer stories are better than her short ones in this book. With more words, she can be more precise about the nature of the sociopathic behaviors she is describing. Some of the shorter stories are lacking in the development, and also lacking in the ending. They do not give you the typical feeling that her stories usually do. She seems to be fond in this book, of leaving as much up to the imagination of the reader as possible. In some cases, too much to the reader.

Nonetheless, this book is highly recommended as a very fine use of plain language to tell tales of serious psychosis and other maladies. It is surely recommended to all Joyce Carol Oates readers, and also all readers who are interested in seeing society from the inside out. The book is well worth the time it takes to read it.

Would the woman writing under Joyce Carol Oates' name these days please return America's greatest living author to us?

Seriously, this was the most unenjoyable, in fact most distressingly bad, book by Oates I've read, among the maybe thirty I have had the utmost pleasure to read.

I don't know what vein Oates is tapping to construct these writings but the prose does not sound like her at all, the stories themselves are unimpressive, unwelcoming, unpleasantly centered on people who do not merit consideration. And worse still, I find this is a trend with Oates these days. I can't think of a single book she's published since Middle Age that has been (yes, strictly in my opinion) any good. The short story in Female of the Species that was called "Madison at Guignol" was perhaps the worst Oates story ever published. (And yes I do understand the connotation of the word "Guignol" in the title.)

Some might accuse me of approaching Oates with preconceived notions and then recoiling when she fails to deliver what I, myself, wanted, but that's not the case. One thing I have always applauded in this author is her chameleon-like ability to cross genre boundaries and create tales so divergent in theme and tone that they could have been the opus of a half-dozen different people. I have avidly read along thru Gothic stories, mysteries, romances, non-genre pieces, novellas, poems, short fiction, novels, literary criticism and plays by Oates, and so I believe I can fairly say I do not stereotype Joyce Carol Oates or expect any one thing from her, but in this case, as much as reporting it pains me, this was a bad book and I can only hope Oates bucks the trend and reaches back into the well of talent the world knows she has, and that her next book(s) will be much better.

I certainly beg to differ with some of the disappointing customer reviews I have read here for Joyce Carol Oates's latest short story collection, "The Female of the Species". While Oates is not my favorite writer, I have yet to be disappointed with any of her work; whether these are short stories, novellas or novels demonstrate her considerable range and artistic abilities as a writer of superb fictional prose. In her latest collection, Oates certainly doesn't disappoint with her richly textured, stylish prose offering tales of women and children who are forced to commit acts most foul. My own favorite stories are "So Help Me God", "Madison at Guignol", and "Hunger", but the others are well worth reading too. "So Help Me God" chronicles the loneliness of a young wife who takes matters into her own hands when she finally deals with her older, violent husband, after being taunted by an unknown obsessive caller who knows intimate details about her life. "Madison at Guignol" is Oates at her stylishly wicked best, as a young fashionista gets her just desserts at the hands of some salesgirls in an opulent Madison Avenue store. "Hunger" describes a married woman's obsession with a young, handsome French-speaking visitor, who wins not only her heart, but also her young daughter's. Without question, Oates is still at the height of her creative powers with these elegant tales of diabolical mischief and mayhem; these are tales worth reading, but in small doses - as an editorial reviewer noted - to enjoy not only her elegant prose but also her splendid plotting.

After reading First Love, I realized I hadn't read Joyce Carol Oates in a while and missed her incredible writing and dark, literary language. I love her short story collections and have read some of her novels and novellas (and I still have some unread stuff by her on my TBR pile). I wanted to read one of her short stories again, which is why I picked up The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense. I wondered if Oates still had it in her when it comes to writing short stories. The answer is a resounding yes! This incredible collection centers on women, women who are far from ordinary. These women are murderers, and they have needle-sharp teeth, razor claws and killer instincts that would make a male serial killer shake in his boots. The women in this collection have also had a history of abuse and obsessive behavior. This isn't surprising, for most, if not all of Oates's works have centered on some form of abuse. My favorite stories are "Angel of Wrath," "Angel of Mercy," "The Hunting," "Hunger," and "Tell Me You Forgive Me?" My one complaint is that I wish this collection had been longer. There are only nine stories total in this collection. Joyce Carol Oates's writing is rich with substance, symbolism and darkness and she is one of my favorite authors. I hope I will read another new short-story collection by her soon.

Dark and fierce, these girls are ultimately savage yet all too believable. The writing is personal and bold, specific and so full of life one can almost smell the threat of danger.

I guess I should disclose that I'm totally biased about Joyce Carol Oates. She's my female fiction writer fantasy, so of course I am thrilled and delighted that she does not slack off in this story collection. Now for that cold shower.

It's definitely worth the read if you're into noir and dangerous women.

This short story collection centers around the workings of the female minds, from six years of age onwards. The mystery and suspense are provided by everday incidents, ranging from something as seemingly banal as playing with a baby brother to murder and euthanasia. It's creepy how Oates lets us into the protagonist's mind and have readers live the story.

This is my first Joyce Carol Oates book and I didn't know what to expect. I think this collection is very well-written and was successful in stringing me along for the heroines' adventures (and misadventures). I look forward to reading other books by Oates.

This collection of short storis examines the capacity of women to do evil. Bringing us into the depths of horror, Oates's protagonists range in age, interest, and situation. We meet a six-year-old girl, a young nurse, a middle-aged fashionista, and an elderly woman dying in a nursing home, among others. What unites all of these women across their stories are the desperate personal circumstances in which they find themselves, and the realization that the only path out is a dark and disturbing one. As with much of Oates's work, this collection addresses the exploitation and marginalization of women in American society, yet it does so through horror and suspense. This is a deliciously suspenseful collection, excellent reading for a spooky October night.