A new book from the legendary Joyce Carol Oates is always something to celebrate. However, the publication of a work that she wrote four decades ago under the pen name Rosamond Smith is truly special.

SECOND NATURE not only is celebrating 40 years of pseudonymous suspense with two complete Rosamond Smith novels, it also contains two rare short stories: “A Girl Worth Twenty Million” and “First Death.” While these tales are solid, I will focus on the two novels in this review.

DOUBLE DELIGHT

Terence Greene is the executive director of a charitable foundation and appears to be happily married to Phyllis. He came from humble beginnings and gained wealth via his marriage to help him in his professional climb. He is also a father who loves his weekend family time. But he has secrets and feelings that sometimes go unchecked and are difficult to control.

"Although stylistically different, each of these novels displays Oates at the height of her skills. This is hard to believe based on how early this was in her career."

This all comes to a head when he finds himself on the jury of a case involving the assault of a young gypsy lady named Ava-Rose Renfrew. He instantly becomes obsessed with this woman who is so different from what he is used to and works his way into the role of jury foreman so he can manipulate the deliberation in her favor.

Terence soon inserts himself into Ava-Rose’s life, and readers learn more about his perversions and secrets, some of which are deadly. Ava-Rose is no fool, and DOUBLE DELIGHT will take Terence on a ride where the duplicitous face he shows to his own family as a way of satisfying his secret delights will come back to bite him in the worst ways. This is an intense story.

NEMESIS

The setting of NEMESIS is the world of academia, specifically the Forest Park Conservatory, an elite music school. A single middle-aged woman, Maggie is a gifted yet unaccomplished pianist who has turned her goals into a teaching career. One of her students whom she goes out of her way to mentor is Brendan Bauer, a gangly and hopeful young man who is drawn to this renowned school to learn from faculty members like the great Rolfe Christensen.

Maggie has a cocktail party at her home where both Brendan and Rolfe are in attendance. Rolfe is able to lure Brendan to his home, and it turns into a full-blown case of sexual assault. Brendan appears in Maggie’s classroom the next day and tells her what happened. She insists he get medical treatment and vows to support him in his outing of her monstrous colleague. However, as in many cases such as this one, things get wildly out of control and even will become murderous before the dust settles in this very unpredictable tale.

Although stylistically different, each of these novels displays Oates at the height of her skills. This is hard to believe based on how early this was in her career. It proves that the glimpses of greatness shown here were mere harbingers of the fictional output to come from a writer who remains an American institution.