Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0060933577, Paperback)
Penzler Pick, March 2001: I guess it's no secret that I regard Joyce Carol Oates as one of the great living American writers, both of mystery-crime-suspense fiction and of virtually every other form invented. I previously reviewed
Blonde, which went on to be nominated for a National Book Award, and it's my joy to be able to recommend
Faithless: Tales of Transgression, the stories within which are about as good as the short story gets. (Full disclosure here, with the admission that I might be a trifle prejudiced in favor of this volume. It is dedicated to Alice Turner, the former fiction editor of Playboy, and to me--largely, I reckon, because several of these stories were written especially for several anthologies of which I was the editor.)
There are 24 stories in this generous volume and while some inevitably linger longer in the memory than others, there is not a dull spot in its nearly 400 pages. The title story is a haunting tale of the disappearance of a woman as recalled by her two daughters, grown now. The ending is utterly expected but, nevertheless, comes as a shock. "The Vampire" is not at all a horror story, at least not in the sense that it involves in any way elements of the supernatural, but has a growing sense of pure terror as the reader comes to see the way in which one person can absorb all the life out of another.
In "The High School Sweetheart: A Mystery," a famous mystery writer reads a speech as he accepts the presidency of the most prestigious of all mystery organizations. The speech is delivered as a piece of fiction that appears to be a confession of a horrific crime committed during his teen years while besotted with a girl two years older than he. When the speech ends, the audience cannot imagine applauding because the story seems so true. Is it?
Once again, the incomparable Joyce Carol Oates has produced a compelling and important volume for the shelves of anyone who cares about distinguished suspense fiction. --Otto Penzler
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:59:56 -0500)
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Au Sable
Otto Behn calls his son-in-law Mitchell. Nothing strange about that except Otto usually never calls except after 11 p.m. when the rates are lower. Otto tells Mitchell that him and his wife are at the cabin in Au Sable. They have made a decision and they want everyone to respect that decision. Mitchell is left almost speechless and Otto hangs up. Poor Mitchell is left with deciding whether to try and stop Otto and to tell his wife about the phone call.... (