Zero-Sum

Oatess imagination is as unique, dystopian and vivid as Lewis Carrolls Rose Tremain Zero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in these arresting stories by one of Americas most acclaimed writers. A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered; diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community; a woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover; a young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as mother. In the collections longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with drafts of his own suicide. In these powerfully wrought stories that hold a mirror up to our time, Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism, and ever-shifting identities. Provocative and stunning, Zero-Sum reinforces Oatess standing as a literary treasure and an artist of the mysterious interior life. 'A master storyteller' The Times Feminist horror runs through Joyce Carol Oatess latest collection Electric New York Times Alluringly dark and spiky New Statesman Zero-Sum is brilliant bloodied, breathless, weird A. K. Blakemore, author of The Manningtree Witches Dark, unsettling stories Theres a disquieting violence simmering a shrill alarm of disquiet Daily Mail Oates is an inspired writer, and a formidable psychologist Independent