Heat and Other Stories

Poet, novelist, critic, and the 1990 recipient of the Rea Award, given annually "to honor a writer who has made a signifciant contribution to the short story as an art form." Joyce Carol Oates in her new collection offers readers 25 rich, hard-edged stories stamped with her inimitable touch: tales of violence...or uncertainty...or the macabre running like life-blood through them. In the O. Henry award-winning title story, "Heat," young twin sisters are murdered, and both they and their killer remembered by a woman who was their contemprary and, in a way, a victim as well...In "Leiila Lee," a young woman who married an older man tried to develop a relationship with her husband's angry teenage son...In "House Hunting," a husband perplexed by his disintegrating marriage goes househunting without his wife, and embarks on a quest - not only for a house, but for his future. From small towns to big cities, from the working-class to the upper-class, there is scarcely an aspect of the American experience that Joyce Carol Oates has not magically made her own. Her stories shock, provoke, and astound us with their commentary on the human condition.