Editorial Content for The Frenzy: Stories
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Reviewer (text)
For over half a century, Joyce Carol Oates has been recognized as one of the finest and most respected authors in the business. She has a mastery of the written word and is able to detail human complexities in a way that lesser writers can only dream about.
Oates’ latest release, THE FRENZY, is a collection of short stories that have been published over the past decade. One running theme that permeates each of these tales is characters having to deal with significant change, including the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here are brief summaries of the stories that especially stood out to me and my thoughts on them.
"[Oates] has a mastery of the written word and is able to detail human complexities in a way that lesser writers can only dream about.... THE FRENZY will give you plenty to think about as you let the language she creates wash over you."
“The Frenzy”: A young woman is set to enjoy a romantic weekend in Cape May, New Jersey. She will be spending it with the man with whom she is having an affair --- the married father of a girl who is just a few years behind her in high school. He turns a tad obsessive and at one point tosses her cell phone into the ocean. She decides to get back at him in a very unexpected way.
“The Fear”: Juliet and Janette may be mistaken at times for being twins when they are actually cousins. As a child, Janette was never jealous of the slightly older Juliet; she just wanted to be her. We witness how these feelings subtly change over the years, beginning with the cancer that disfigures Juliet’s features straight through to a tragic occurrence that takes place when the girls are college-age.
“The Call”: When S. receives the unexpected call that her father has died, she has no idea in that moment how much her response will paint the rest of her life --- first when it comes to her relationship with her husband, and later when she is faced with her mother’s own end-of-life challenges.
“The Return”: When Maude reconnects with Audra, with whom she had lost touch during the pandemic, she is startled by how much her old friend has changed and in ways she never could have predicted.
“The Redwoods”: When a young hiker in the woods comes upon an unexpected scene --- a couple violently fighting in the heart of the woodlands --- he does not know how to respond. The decision he ultimately makes will have a significant impact on everyone involved. Vann had grown up in Northern California and always saw the famous redwood trees that grew there as calming and inspiring. Now, they would only bring about his own feelings of negative solitude due to his most recent experience there.
While Oates indicates that these stories may have appeared in slightly different forms in their original incarnations, they still contain a feeling of human fear and isolation, mostly of the unknown. THE FRENZY will give you plenty to think about as you let the language she creates wash over you.
Teaser
In THE FRENZY, Joyce Carol Oates plunges us into the lives of her characters at moments of crisis and confusion, when much of what they understand about themselves and those they love comes undone. A young woman on a supposedly romantic weekend trip to Cape May, New Jersey, turns the tables on her older, married lover. A freak bicycle accident on a bridge haunts one family for decades. A girl jealous of her popular cousin discovers she is the lucky one. A widow waits at her riverside house for her dead husband's return. A young man hiking in the woods comes upon a couple in a heated, possibly violent argument. Should he intervene?
Promo
In THE FRENZY, Joyce Carol Oates plunges us into the lives of her characters at moments of crisis and confusion, when much of what they understand about themselves and those they love comes undone. A young woman on a supposedly romantic weekend trip to Cape May, New Jersey, turns the tables on her older, married lover. A freak bicycle accident on a bridge haunts one family for decades. A girl jealous of her popular cousin discovers she is the lucky one. A widow waits at her riverside house for her dead husband's return. A young man hiking in the woods comes upon a couple in a heated, possibly violent argument. Should he intervene?
About the Book
A gripping collection of propulsive, psychologically suspenseful stories by the legendary Joyce Carol Oates “who is surely on any shortlist of America’s greatest living writers” (The New York Times Magazine)
Frenzy (noun): a temporary madness; a violent mental or emotional agitation; intense usually wild and often disorderly compulsive or agitated activity
Joyce Carol Oates is a master of the short story and one of the legends of the form. Her collections of short fiction have twice been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and have won numerous awards, including the O. Henry Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Art of the Short Story. In THE FRENZY: Stories, Oates plunges us into the lives of her characters at moments of crisis and confusion, when much of what they understand about themselves and those they love comes undone.
A young woman on a supposedly romantic weekend trip to Cape May, New Jersey, turns the tables on her older, married lover. A freak bicycle accident on a bridge haunts one family for decades. A girl jealous of her popular cousin discovers she is the lucky one. A widow waits at her riverside house for her dead husband's return. A young man hiking in the woods comes upon a couple in a heated, possibly violent argument. Should he intervene?
Suspenseful and psychologically astute, Oates’ short stories enthrall and captivate as they dissect her characters’ deepest fears --- revealing our own in turn. “Literature is a texture of words,” says Oates of her short fiction, “evoking life in the most vivid ways --- psychologically, physically.” These new stories blazingly evoke life at its most vivid and perilous, when fate and free will intersect, and one ominous encounter or bad choice can be the difference between an ordinary day and the point of no return.
Audiobook available, read by a full cast
