Scan barcode
A review by jsilber42
The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates
3.0
The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares is a collection of dark short stories (and one novella, "The Corn Maiden") which straddle the boundary between suspense and horror, though (with one possible exception), the horror is all of the human variety, and the usual human motivations for bad behavior (jealousy, greed, loneliness, desire, desperation) are behind it.
The titular novella, which features the kidnapping of a girl by a teenage sociopath interested in recreating a native American sacrificial ritual, is the longest and most ambitious story in the volume. Oates jumps between perspectives including the victim, the perpetrator, the perpetrator's disciples, the victim's mother, and an innocent teacher who becomes the primary suspect. She writes urgently, sometimes in staccato sentence fragments to convey panic, or in a group first person (we) to show the group-think of the perpetrator's followers. In one unusual section, she writes in alternating sentences or paragraphs contrasting the teacher and the victim.
The remaining six stories are much shorter, and generally from a single perspective. "Beersheba" is a simple revenge tale, and "Nobody Knows My Name" was an ambiguous tale of childhood jealousy. The paired stories "Fossil-Figures" and "Death-Cup" continue the sibling rivalry theme, both featuring twin brothers, one of whom is ambitious and strong and cruel, and one of whom is more sickly and passive, and shows how their paths diverge and then converge. "Fossil-Figures" is more experimental, though, with a distant, fable-like storytelling, while "Death-Cup" is much more straightforward and features well-executed slow-burn suspense. "Helping Hands" was the most delicately written story, featuring a recently widowed wife struggling to rejoin the world. Her awkwardness and desperation for human connection were almost too vividly rendered, making the story an emotionally tough read (though well-done) and making the eventual dark turn and ambiguous ending even more unpleasant and startling. The final story, "A Hole in the Head" is an effective bit of medical horror, which made me cringe more than once.
Overall, I respected Oates' writing more than I loved it, and I'm not entirely sure why. Some of the stories had an experimental feel that didn't always work for me (for example, her overuse of sentence fragments was sometimes effective but often distracting), and I felt a certain distance from her characters. Nonetheless, she is clearly a skilled writer and kept me turning the pages.
The titular novella, which features the kidnapping of a girl by a teenage sociopath interested in recreating a native American sacrificial ritual, is the longest and most ambitious story in the volume. Oates jumps between perspectives including the victim, the perpetrator, the perpetrator's disciples, the victim's mother, and an innocent teacher who becomes the primary suspect. She writes urgently, sometimes in staccato sentence fragments to convey panic, or in a group first person (we) to show the group-think of the perpetrator's followers. In one unusual section, she writes in alternating sentences or paragraphs contrasting the teacher and the victim.
The remaining six stories are much shorter, and generally from a single perspective. "Beersheba" is a simple revenge tale, and "Nobody Knows My Name" was an ambiguous tale of childhood jealousy. The paired stories "Fossil-Figures" and "Death-Cup" continue the sibling rivalry theme, both featuring twin brothers, one of whom is ambitious and strong and cruel, and one of whom is more sickly and passive, and shows how their paths diverge and then converge. "Fossil-Figures" is more experimental, though, with a distant, fable-like storytelling, while "Death-Cup" is much more straightforward and features well-executed slow-burn suspense. "Helping Hands" was the most delicately written story, featuring a recently widowed wife struggling to rejoin the world. Her awkwardness and desperation for human connection were almost too vividly rendered, making the story an emotionally tough read (though well-done) and making the eventual dark turn and ambiguous ending even more unpleasant and startling. The final story, "A Hole in the Head" is an effective bit of medical horror, which made me cringe more than once.
Overall, I respected Oates' writing more than I loved it, and I'm not entirely sure why. Some of the stories had an experimental feel that didn't always work for me (for example, her overuse of sentence fragments was sometimes effective but often distracting), and I felt a certain distance from her characters. Nonetheless, she is clearly a skilled writer and kept me turning the pages.