«PRAISE FOR JOYCE CAROL OATES: 'This collection of stories is Oates at her best – spare, swift, beautifully observed and quietly lethal' The Times. 'Both haunting and sublime' Literary Review. 'An unsettling read worth every resulting jump in the night... [Oates is a] literary goddess' Daily Mail. 'As usual with Oates, it is horribly readable, but driven by something disturbingly like genuine misanthropy' Sunday Times. 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday' Sunday Express. 'A writer of extraordinary strengths' Guardian. 'A sense of helplessness is the essence of horror, and Oates conveys that feeling as well as any writer around'»

New York Times Book Review