Rating: 5/5
Review:
An excellent collection
I thought The Doll Master was an excellent collection of
stories. I'm not a fan of horror fiction
and I don't usually like short stories much so I really wasn't expecting to
like it but I tried it because it's by Joyce Carol Oates whom I respect
greatly. It turned out to be subtle,
insightful, unsettling and utterly gripping.
To describe the plots of individual stories would act as
more of a spoiler than I'd have wanted before I started, but these are set in
contemporary, or near contemporary times and allow Oates to examine minds
disturbed in different ways and those who are affected by them. There is a variety of narrative voices, some
first-person, some third-person and all are distinctive and completely
convincing. They describe a range of
fears and terrors in everyday life, and the truth or reality often emerges
slowly from a subjective, possibly unreliable narrative. It's remarkably effective; the stories build
toward usually inexplicit but horribly suggestive, threatening endings and they
made me late for things more than once because I had to finish the story I was
reading.
The writing is excellent; it is unshowy but precise,
superbly crafted and very readable.
Oates uses her prose at times with an almost forensic skill to give
vivid portraits of her protagonists and their state of mind – for example, the
portrait in Equatorial of an insecure woman in marriage to a domineering man,
unsure whether he is trying to kill her or whether she is imagining it all, is
quite brilliant and completely compelling.
This is a collection of haunting, memorable stories by a
very, very fine writer. I'm very glad
that I took a chance in it even though it's not my normal sort of reading and I
can recommend it very warmly.
(I received a free ARC via Netgally.)
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