'Oates's imagination is as unique, dystopian and vivid as Lewis Carroll's' ROSE TREMAIN
'A master storyteller'THE TIMES
'Electric'NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
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.
'Alluringly dark and spiky'NEW STATESMAN
'Zero-Sum is brilliant bloodied, breathless, weird' A. K. BLAKEMORE
'Dark, unsettling stories There's a disquieting violence simmering a shrill alarm of disquiet'DAILY MAIL
'Oates is an inspired writer, and a formidable psychologist'INDEPENDENT
In Zero-Sum, Joyce Carol Oates once again proves why she is one of the best writers of psychological horror. This latest collection of short fiction is a chilling exploration of the human psyche, each story a testament to Oates's unique, dystopian imagination.
For fans of Ian Mcewan (Lessons), Hernan Diaz (Trust), Maggie O'Farrell (Hamnet), Elizabeth Strout (Lucy by the Sea), and Barbara Kingsolver (Demon Copperhead).