''A page-turner ... nothing less than magical'' Observer ''An extraordinary slice of suburban noir'' Daily Mail From one of America''s most renowned storytellers comes a novel about love and deceit, and lust and redemption, against a background of child abductions in the affluent suburbs of Detroit.

In the waning days of the turbulent 1970s, in the wake of unsolved killings that have shocked Detroit, the lives of several residents are drawn together, with tragic consequences. There is Hannah, wife of a prominent local businessman, who has begun an affair with a darkly charismatic stranger whose identity remains elusive; Mikey, a canny street hustler who finds himself on an unexpected mission to rectify injustice; and the serial killer known as Babysitter, an enigmatic and terrifying figure at the periphery of elite Detroit. As Babysitter continues his rampage of killings, these individuals intersect with one another in startling and unexpected ways.
Suspenseful, brilliantly orchestrated and engrossing, Babysitter is a starkly narrated exploration of the riskiness of pursuing alternate lives, calling into question how far we are willing to go to protect those whom we cherish most. In its scathing indictment of corrupt politics, unexamined racism, and the enabling of sexual predation in America, Babysitter is a thrilling work of contemporary fiction.

''Simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going, as far as I''m concerned'' Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl ''Joyce Carol Oates is a writer who always takes your breath away'' Mail on Sunday ''A writer of extraordinary strengths'' Guardian Lire la suite Fermer

À Mont-Ephraim, une petite ville des États-Unis située dans l'Etat de New York, vit une famille pas comme les autres : les Mulvaney. Au milieu des animaux et du désordre ambiant, ils cohabitent dans une ferme qui respire le bonheur, où les corvées elles-mêmes sont vécues de manière cocasse, offrant ainsi aux autres l'image d'une famille parfaite, comme chacun rêverait d'en avoir. Jusqu'à cette nuit de 1976 où le rêve vire au cauchemar... Une soirée de Saint-Valentin arrosée. Un cavalier douteux. Des souvenirs flous et contradictoires. Le regard des autres qui change. La honte et le rejet. Un drame personnel qui devient un drame familial. Joyce Carol Oates épingle l'hypocrisie d'une société où le paraître règne en maître ; où un sourire chaleureux cache souvent un secret malheureux ; où il faut se taire, au risque de briser l'éclat du rêve américain. Lire la suite Fermer

We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University and a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction.

Les premiers mémoires de Joyce Carol Oates, une plongée dans la formation d'une autrice majeure et mystérieuse.
C'est avec un mélange d'honnêteté brute et d'intuition acérée que Joyce Carol Oates revient sur ses jeunes années. Son enfance pauvre dans une ferme de l'État de New York fourmille de souvenirs : ses parents aimants, ses grands-parents hongrois, les animaux, la végétation, le milieu ouvrier, l'école. Ces années lui offrent un univers intime rassurant, mais un univers limité, cerné par des territoires inaccessibles, propices à enflammer l'imagination de la jeune fille qui trouve là ses premières occasions de fiction. La mort y rôde, des êtres y souffrent : des enfants sont battus par un père ivrogne qui mettra le feu à leur maison ; sa camarade Cynthia, ambitieuse élève qui se suicidera à l'âge de dix-huit ans ; sa soeur cadette autiste, Lynn Ann, qui deviendra violente au point de dévorer littéralement les livres de son aînée...
Joyce Carol Oates explore le monde à travers les yeux de l'enfant et de l'adolescente qu'elle était, néanmoins consciente des limites de sa mémoire après tant d'années. Cette lectrice d'
Alice au pays des merveilles sait que la vie est une succession d'aventures, où se mêlent comédie et tragédie, réalité et rêverie.
La plume toujours ciselée, l'oeil aiguisé, Oates arpente un espace et un temps oubliés qui virent la naissance de l'écrivain qu'elle est devenue - un voyage captivant qui ne manquera pas de renvoyer son lecteur à ses propres paysages perdus. Lire la suite Fermer

Zero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in these arresting stories by one of America''s most acclaimed writers.

A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered; diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community; a woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover; a young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as ''mother.'' In the collection''s longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with ''drafts'' of his own suicide.
In these powerfully wrought stories that hold a mirror up to our time, Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism, and ever-shifting identities. Provocative and stunning, Zero-Sum reinforces Oates''s standing as a literary treasure and an artist of the mysterious interior life.

''This writer is a phenomenon'' Daily Mail Lire la suite Fermer

a salthill-on-hudson, on cultive les orchidées et on roule en voiture de luxe.
on est beau, on est riche et on vit comme suspendu hors du temps. mais quand adam berendt, le sculpteur aimé de la commune, trouve la mort dans un accident de bateau, c'est tout ce petit monde idyllique qui est précipité dans le chaos. la disparition de cet homme charismatique délie les langues et déchaîne les passions. une même question obsédante taraude la ville entière : qui était vraiment adam berendt ? dès lors, un manège de personnages et de destins se met à tourner à folle allure, entraînant le lecteur au coeur des pensées les plus intimes des protagonistes.
bâti comme une enquête à plusieurs voix, ce roman, sous prétexte de reconstruire l'histoire d'un homme insaisissable, révèle les désirs et les fantasmes d'individus rongés par le désoeuvrement. avec hudson river, joyce carol oates réussit une farce sociale brillamment composée, une comédie noire doublée d'une ronde sociale vertigineuse, une variation magistrale sur le thème de l'apparence et de la vérité.

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When a beautiful woman mysteriously vanishes from her small town home, her sister must uncover the truth behind the mystery. Sculptor Marguerite has disappeared from her small town in upstate New York. But was foul play involved? Did she merely get away for some fun? Or did she finally decide to leave behind her claustrophobic life of limited opportunities? Younger sister Gigi wonders if the clues left in Marguerite's wake - the flimsy silk Dior dress, so casually abandoned, the footprints made by her Ferragamo boots, which end abruptly close to home - are really clues at all. Bit by bit, revelations about both women are uncovered, together with Gigi's true feelings about the much-loved Marguerite. The fate of the missing beauty slowly and subtly comes to light In this suspenseful story about the complex relationship between two sisters. 48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister is an exquisitely suspenseful tale from Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of Blonde and We Were the Mulvaneys. 'This elegant, captivating tale is un-put-downable.' Publishers Weekly 'Perfect for all the Daisy Jones & the Six fans out there.' Katie Couric Media 'Another masterpiece of storytelling.' Booklist 'Not just a ripping good mystery, but a meticulous character study.' Los Angeles Magazine Lire la suite Fermer

Joyce Carol Oates is a novelist, critic, playwright, poet and author of short stories and one of America''s most respected literary figures. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde . She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University and a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction.

Gus Vorhees is a pioneer in the advancement of women''s reproductive rights and a controversial abortion provider in the American Midwest. One morning as he arrives at his clinic, he is ambushed by a hardline Christian, Luther Dunphy, and shot dead. This action leaves in its wake two fatherless families: the Vorhees, who are affluent, highly educated, secular and pro-choice, and the Dunphys, their opposite on all counts. When the daughters of the two families, Naomi Vorhees and Dawn Dunphy, glimpse each other at the trial of Luther Dunphy, their initial response is mutual hatred. But their lives are tangled together forever by what has happened, and throughout the years to come and the events that follow - including the eventual execution of Luther Dunphy after years on Death Row - neither can quite forget the other. A heart-rending reckoning with some of the complex issues that divide America in our troubled times - religious extremism; a woman''s rights over her body; gun violence; capital punishment - this is a novel Joyce Carol Oates was born to write. To read it is to encounter the full spectrum of humanity - its ugliness, misery, beauty and hope.
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From one of America's most renowned storytellers comes a novel about love and deceit, and lust and redemption, against a backdrop of shocking murders in the affluent suburbs of Detroit.

In the waning days of the turbulent 1970s, in the wake of unsolved child-killings that have shocked Detroit, the lives of several residents are drawn together with tragic consequences.

There is Hannah, wife of a prominent local businessman, who has begun an affair with a darkly charismatic stranger whose identity remains elusive; Mikey, a canny street hustler who finds himself on a chilling mission to rectify injustice; and the serial killer known as Babysitter, an enigmatic and terrifying figure at the periphery of elite Detroit. As Babysitter continues his rampage of abductions and killings, these individuals intersect with one another in startling and unexpected ways.

Suspenseful, brilliantly orchestrated, and engrossing, Lire la suite Fermer

From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of Blonde, now a major motion picture, an eerie, psychologically complex thriller about a woman haunted by her traumatic past.



As a child, Abby had the same nightmare night after night, in which she wandered through a field ridden with human bones. Now an adult, Abby thinks she's outgrown her demons, until, the evening before her wedding, the terrible dream returns and forces her to confront the dark secrets she is keeping from her new husband, Willem.



The following day, less than 24 hours after exchanging vows, Abby steps out into traffic. As his wife lies in her hospital bed, Willem tries to determine whether this was an absentminded accident or a premeditated plunge.



Slowly, Abby begins to open up to her husband, revealing to him what she has never shared with anyone before: the story of a terrified mother; a jealous, drug addled father; and a daughter's terrifying captivity.



With a suspenseful, alternating narrative that travels between the present and Abby's tortured childhood, Pursuit is a meticulously crafted, deeply disquieting tale that showcases Oates's masterful storytelling.



Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates:



'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian

'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express

'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review

'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times

'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist Lire la suite Fermer

Finally returned to print in a beautiful new trade paperback edition, comes Joyce Carol Oates' lost classic: a satirical, often surreal, and beautifully plotted Gothic Romance that follows the exploits of the audacious Zinn sisters, whose 19th century pursuit of adventurous lives turns a lens on contemporary American culture. Set in a nineteenth century similar to our own, A Bloodsmoor Romance follows the beautiful Zinn sisters, five young women who refuse-for the most part-”the obligations of Christian marriage.” Full of Oates's mordant wit and breathlessly told in the Victorian style by an unnamed narrator shocked by the Zinn sisters' sexuality, impulsivity, and rude rejection of the mores of their time, A Bloodsmoor Romance is a delicious filigree of literary conventions, “a novel of manners” in the tradition of Austen, Dickens, and Alcott which Oates turns on its head. Oates's dark romp interweaves murder and mayhem, ghosts, and abductions, substance abuse and gender identity, women's suffrage, the American spiritualist movement, and sexual aberration, as the Zinn sisters come into contact with some of the 19th century's greatest characters, from Mark Twain to Oscar Wilde. A biting assessment of the American landscape and a virtuosic transformation of a literary genre, A Bloodsmoor Romance is a compelling, hilarious, and magical anti-romance-Little Women by way of Stephen King. Lire la suite Fermer

The 20th anniversary edition of the National Book Award finalist and national bestseller exploring the life and legend of Marilyn Monroe In one of her most ambitious works, Joyce Carol Oates boldly reimagines the inner, poetic, and spiritual life of Norma Jeane Baker--the child, the woman, the fated celebrity, and idolized blonde the world came to know as Marilyn Monroe. In a voice startlingly intimate and rich, Norma Jeane tells her own story of an emblematic American artist--intensely conflicted and driven--who had lost her way. A powerful portrait of Hollywood's myth and an extraordinary woman's heartbreaking reality, Blonde is a sweeping epic that pays tribute to the elusive magic and devastation behind the creation of the great 20th-century American star. Lire la suite Fermer

Written with the raw honesty and poignant insight that were the hallmarks of her acclaimed bestseller A Widow's Story, an affecting and observant memoir of growing up from one of our finest and most beloved literary masters.The Lost Landscape is Joyce Carol Oates' vivid chronicle of her hardscrabble childhood in rural western New York State. From memories of her relatives, to those of a charming bond with a special red hen on her family farm; from her first friendships to her earliest experiences with death, The Lost Landscape is a powerful evocation of the romance of childhood, and its indelible influence on the woman and the writer she would become.In this exceptionally candid, moving, and richly reflective account, Oates explores the world through the eyes of her younger self, an imaginative girl eager to tell stories about the world and the people she meets. While reading Alice in Wonderland changed a young Joyce forever and inspired her to view life as a series of endless adventures, growing up on a farm taught her harsh lessons about sacrifice, hard work, and loss. With searing detail and an acutely perceptive eye, Oates renders her memories and emotions with exquisite precision, transporting us to a forgotten place and time--the lost landscape of her youth, reminding us of the forgotten landscapes of our own earliest lives. Lire la suite Fermer

This taut collection stands at the crossroads of sex, violence, and longing - and asks us to interrogate the intersection of these impulses within ourselves. These six feverishly unsettling works showcase some of the best suspense from prolific author, Joyce Carol Oates.

From bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates, a taut and fascinating novel that examines the mysteries of human memory and personality In 1965, a young research scientist named Margot Sharpe meets Elihu Hoopes, the subject of her study, a handsome amnesiac who cannot remember anything beyond the last seventy seconds. Over the course of thirty years, the two embark on mirroring journeys of self-discovery. Margot, enthralled by her charming, mysterious, and deeply lonely patient, as well as her officious supervisor, attempts to unlock Eli''s shuttered memories of a childhood trauma without losing her own sense of identity in the process. And Eli, haunted by memories of an unknown girl''s body underneath the surface of a lake, pushes to finally know himself once again, despite potentially devastating consequences. As Margot and Eli meet over and over again, Joyce Carol Oates'' tightly written, nearly clinical prose propels the lives of these two characters forwards, both suspended in a dream-like, shadowy present, and seemingly balanced on the thinnest, sharpest of lines between past and future. Made vivid by Oates'' eye for detail and searing insight into the human psyche, The Man Without a Shadow is an eerie, ambitious, and structurally complex novel, as poignant as it is thrilling.
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Une adolescente retrace le cauchemar de sa vie. Depuis son enfance, hantée par la figure d'un père toujours absent, qui était aviateur au Vietnam et que l'on devine bientôt trafiquant et assassin, jusqu'à sa rencontre avec un gourou satanique qui fait d'elle son esclave consentante et avilie... Mais, dans un sursaut de volonté, à deux doigts de la mort, elle va tenter de retrouver la force d'« exister » et d'espérer. Elle a tout juste 21 ans.

Pour une fois chez Joyce Carol Oates, percevrait-on comme l'espoir d'une lumière au fond de la nuitoe Cette nuit, bien sûr, nous renvoie à sa vision de l'Amérique. Mais aussi à ses peurs et à ses angoisses qu'elle n'a cessé d'explorer dans son oeuvre, une trentaine de romans et presque autant de recueils de nouvelles, de poésies, de pièces de théâtre et même de romans policiers sous le pseudonyme de Rosamond Smith.

Joyce Carol Oates, née en 1938, est sans aucun doute l'un des plus grands écrivains américains contemporains. Et, en toute justice, l'un des plus célèbres.


Texte intégral.
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Princeton, New Jersey, at the turn of the twentieth century: a genteel town for genteel souls. But something dark and dangerous lurks at its edges, corrupting and infecting its residents. Vampires and ghosts haunt the dreams of the innocent and a powerful curse besets the families of the elite-their daughters begin disappearing. And in the Pine Barrens that border the town, a lush and terrifying underworld opens up. When a shape-shifting, vaguely European prince, who might just be the devil, abducts a young bride on the verge of the altar, her brother sets out against all odds to find her. His path will cross those of Princeton's most formidable people, including Grover Cleveland, fresh out of his second term in the White House, soon-to-be commander in chief Woodrow Wilson, a complex individual obsessed to the point of madness with his need to retain power, the young idealist Upton Sinclair and his charismatic comrade Jack London, and the most famous writer of the era, Mark Twain-all of whom are plagued by "accursed" visions. Lire la suite Fermer

A deeply intimate psychological portrait of a young woman's tragic childhood, her reinvention as a successful young artist in the literary circles of 1950s New York City, and her struggle to understand and overcome the trauma of her past. Growing up in the confines of Innisfail, a bleak town in upstate New York, bright and curious Marya endures abandonment, betrayal, and loneliness. A college scholarship offers escape, taking her to New York City, where she makes a name for herself in academic and literary circles. But success cannot overcome the damage of her childhood, pain that haunts Marya's personal, professional, and romantic relationships, and has left her unmoored. Psychologically nuanced, rich in insight and emotional complexity, told with the unsettling power of Joyce Carol Oates's gothic novels, Marya: A Lif e is an intense look into the psyche of a young woman and an illuminating exploration of how the past reverberates throughout our lives. Lire la suite Fermer