FEBRUARY 2018 - AudioFile
In this latest short story collection by the celebrated 79-year-old author Joyce Carol Oates, all three narrators read with tempered voices. Their no-frills deliveries capture the tension and hard realities of these modern tales of infidelity, deception, and broken dreams. Oates has never been easy on her characters or her audiences. She has always searched for stark truth no matter what the cost. Oates also has a distinctly American voice, and Tavia Gilbert, Stephen Graybill, and Caitlin Kelly are quick to make the most of the straightforward rhythms and singular tones that can make a simple sentence sound at once brightly optimistic and devastating. Oates’s work remains insightful, sometimes brutal, and always vital. B.P. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - Benjamin Markovits
…a very strong collection…Oates is a master of many different kinds of story, including the gothic and something like science fiction—"Fractal," for example, and the extraordinary "Undocumented Alien," which follows a Nigerian man tricked into applying for a bogus degree at a New Jersey engineering college. Eventually, to stop himself from being deported, he agrees to take part in a secret government experiment designed to test the extent to which people can be denatured. The power of the conceit, of course, comes from the fact that this is happening anyway. This is Oates's real trick, that her formal games and realism tend to reinforce each other—they make the same case.
From the Publisher
A very strong collection. . . . Oates is a master of many different kinds of story.” — New York Times Book Review
“In Beautiful Days, the prolific author once again delivers a selection of skillfully written stories as powerful as any she has produced in her long and distinguished career.” — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Perceptive, unmissable work.” — Library Journal (starred review)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In Beautiful Days, the prolific author once again delivers a selection of skillfully written stories as powerful as any she has produced in her long and distinguished career.
New York Times Book Review
A very strong collection. . . . Oates is a master of many different kinds of story.”
