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Zombie

3.38 of 5 stars 3.38 · rating details · 3,031 ratings · 480 reviews

Meet Quentin P., the most believably terrifying sexual psychopath and killer ever brought to life in fiction. The author deftly puts you inside the mind of a serial killer--succeeding not in writing about madness, but in writing with the logic of madness.

Paperback, 181 pages

Published September 1st 1996 by Plume (first published January 1st 1995)

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May 27, 2013 Paul rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Jeffrey Dahmer fans

Shelves: verysleazyfun, novels

This fairly wretched novel is JCO shooting dead boys in a barrel. I dunno, it seems like taking the easy option to me - you takes your Jeffrey Dahmer (you remember him, he was a lonely boy who wanted a gay sex pet to do his every bidding, and he read a book on brain surgery and he thought that if you drilled the right hole in a man's head it would stop him from realising you were a dangerous psycho and leaving, so he practised on a few guys who unfortunately like died which was not Jeffrey's int...more

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Jul 29, 2008 Iyanna rated it 5 of 5 stars

I HATED this book! It was excellently written and it did what it was supposed to do...it scared the crap out of me. This is a character study of a social deviant. I don't want to spoil this for anyone who reads it, so I won't give away the ending, but definitely not something you read while lying on the beach catching your tan. No escapism here. You come face to face with the evil and cunning of the sociopathic and psychotic mind. Be prepared to bathe in Dettol and then curl up in bed under the...more

40 likes · like · see review

Mar 10, 2013 Jim Elkins rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american

This is not terrifying or "monstrous," and it is not a shocking revelation. It does not take us "into the mind of a serial killer." It is not "harrowing," and it's not "disturbing."

It is a strained and earnest attempt to imagine the kind of life that would decisively overturn bourgeois values. But it doesn't do that, because the imagining of the Other is already part of middle-class American life. Even the most surprising lines pale as soon as they're read, because it becomes clear that they ar...more

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Apr 27, 2011 Heidi Ward rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror, death, psychological, very-disturbing, 20th-century, madness-and-mental-health, serial-killers, library, american-lit-contemporary

I generally like Oates's dark fiction (her short stories are particularly good), but I chose not to finish this one. I'd meant to read "Zombie" for a long time, and was disappointed to find it utterly repulsive when I finally got around to it . . . but not in the way you might imagine.

I thought I knew what I was getting into when I picked up a book told from the POV of a sexually depraved serial killer dabbling in icepick lobotomies. (Browse my library and you'll see it takes a lot more than tha...more

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Jun 11, 2010 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Joyce Carol Oates snared my attention in her old short story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? In her novel, Zombie, (1995), she writes in a first person narrative of a psychopath who has a crush on various youthful men, and uses devilish means to capture them and use them as sex slaves. In turns, quizzically funny and nasty, the writings are merely scribbles and with various doodles in the borders that take on sinister meanings as you read the story. As a reader I am a little put off...more

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Jan 24, 2009 Jacobi rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-09

This book made me angry. I understand that Joyce Carol Oates writes books that make you feel like you need a shower, and I was cool with that. I expected it even. What I didn't expect was for this to be written like drivel.

An excerpt.

"Twelve years old & in seventh grade & now I was wearing glasses & long-armed & skinny & hair sprouting under my arms & at my groin & their eyes sliding onto me & even the teachers & in gym class I refused to go through the showe...more This book made me angry. I understand that Joyce Carol Oates writes books that make you feel like you need a shower, and I was cool with that. I expected it even. What I didn't expect was for this to be written like drivel.

An excerpt.

"Twelve years old & in seventh grade & now I was wearing glasses & long-armed & skinny & hair sprouting under my arms & at my groin & their eyes sliding onto me & even the teachers & in gym class I refused to go through the shower refused to go naked moving through them & their cocks glistening & scratching their chests, bellies & some of them so muscular, so good-loking & laughing like apes not guessing except if seeing me & my eyes I couldn't keep still darting & swimming among them like minnows if seeing me they knew & their faces would harden with disgust QUEER QUEER QUENTIN'S QUEER & that time Dad charged upstairs to get me where I was doing homework in my room & yanked me by the arm & downstairs & into the garage & showed me the Body Builder magazines & the naked Ken-doll from the playground I'd brought back hidden behind stacks of old newspapers & he'd found his face splotched & furious & at that time Dad did wear a goateee like Dr. M_ K_'s & this too livid with outrage."

This was on page 38. This is when I said fuck this book. This is where it took everything I had not to throw this things across the break-room to get it away from me.

I understand that Oates is writing from the perspective of a sociopath, but this writing style is super clunky. I've heard it said that writers should rarely use exclamation points to get across excitement in their writing, but should instead let their writing get across the emotion they're going for. I think the same thing should apply here. Instead of using this short hand to show dude is crazy, Oates should have been able to get that across through regular writing. But that's just me, as this book is lauded (it won a Bram Stoker award and everything). I just think it's shit.

The other Oates book I've read was really well put together, so I don't think she's a bad writer by any stretch. It's just this experiment of a book failed for me. I couldn't get past the writing style to see if the content was worth anything, though from what I did gleam, I don't think this book would have been for me. (less)

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Nov 06, 2007 Mahrya rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fictionschmiction

This is an example of the Joyce Carol Oates I'm not too crazy about. Compared to Them or The Childwold, Zombie seems to lack a sense of time and place, and even character. You feel nothing for any of them, which Easton Ellis pulls off well, but not Oates. This book is loosely based on Jeffrey Dahmer's homemade zombie quest, and there's plenty of gruesomeness involving neighborhood boys, icepicks and duct tape. She gets well inside the mind of a serial killer, but to sensational effect. I was mai...more

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Feb 10, 2013 Leah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: serial-killers

Rating: 3.5 of 5

Sad, disgusting, horrific: exactly what one would imagine the mind of a serial killer to be. I didn't realize beforehand that Zombie was inspired by Jeffrey Dahmer, but I figured it out after Quentin P. shared his fantasy about the creation of a living zombie. The narrative was entirely stream of consciousness from Quentin's perspective, which was super creepy, and it definitely felt like I was reading a real journal. Oates fully immersed herself in the mindset of a killer, so mu...more

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Mar 30, 2009 Bren rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites

Going beyond the psyche of "the monster," Joyce Carol Oates invites herself into the mind of a murderer, thus making him downright human again. A wholly disturbed and unpleasant human, but unmistakably vulnerably sentient nonetheless.

Quentin P. is like any one of us in that sense, at least.

Zombie is a diary of sorts. The owner/writer of this diary is Quentin P. (who frequently refers to himself by initials alone, and to others solely by initials or - in special cases - cutesy nicknames). Those n...more Going beyond the psyche of "the monster," Joyce Carol Oates invites herself into the mind of a murderer, thus making him downright human again. A wholly disturbed and unpleasant human, but unmistakably vulnerably sentient nonetheless.

Quentin P. is like any one of us in that sense, at least.

Zombie is a diary of sorts. The owner/writer of this diary is Quentin P. (who frequently refers to himself by initials alone, and to others solely by initials or - in special cases - cutesy nicknames). Those not aware of the entries therein (i.e. every other living person mentioned within the pages) know Quentin as an agreeable guy, or Q_ P_ CARETAKER of theunofficial collegiate rooming house inhabited solely by students of foreign extraction. Fewer still recognize him as a "recovering" alcoholic, or as He Who Molested A Teenaged Boy.

None but Q_ P_ himself - and, briefly, his narrow focus of victims - knew anything else. In short, Q_ P_ wants to have his own sexual "zombie" and goes through the motions of everyday life as much as he dilligently researches the methodology of creating such an entity. A mindless drone to worship him, to willingly grant whatever he requests, all without seeing him from behind their dull, unthinking eyes.

Clearly based on the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer, this anti-heroic tale presents the sickeningly obsessive impulses of the modern serial killer in a way so few other works of fiction have: as seen from the absolute inside. To call it "unsettling" does not adequately portray the horrors awaiting the reader within this slim tome. Ms. Oates takes the time not only to basely illustrate the text in several places (a quick freehand diagram of the rear of Quentin's "All-American" van, for instance, or the fractional sketch of the burning of a young Q_ P_'s porngraphic magazines), but also to select the most appropriate typeface with which to "reprint" the diary.

Zombie is a non-stop flight into horror with a madman as the pilot.

And with you, the reader, serving as unwitting co-pilot.
(less)

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Feb 04, 2011 Cassie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, serial-killer, disturbing

This book is disturbing. It is the third book by Joyce Carol Oates I have read and it did not let me down. Q__ P__ (as he refers to himself) lives his life with one desire, to create a human zombie. He plots and plans, describes meaningless daily activities, and considers the past. This is written in a very stream-of-consciousness style. He works towards his goal in earnest and the results are grotesque.

It is hard to say that I enjoyed reading this book, but I'm not sure something like this is...more

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Feb 28, 2009 Delilah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This was a real page-turner for me, a single afternoon read. It's written in a diary style from the point of view of a very believable childlike predator. I read a lot of true-crime and consider myself well-versed in criminal psychology, and I thought that the restraint practiced by the author in terms of only recording things from the sophomoric emotional state of a stunted and sad murderer was remarkable. Well-executed work that I will enjoy using as a basis for the author's other creations.

Fa...more

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Nov 04, 2012 Lori rated it 4 of 5 stars

Zombie rattled my cage. Oates, whom I greatly admire despite a few misfires in her prolific career, has managed to create in Quentin a believable psychopath. He is forever aware of how people are viewing him, watchful, without conscience. He offhandedly considers murdering his grandmother and her friend but decides against it for strictly practical reasons. He can muster tears, change his appearance and his voice. He is, in every sense of the word, a predator. Even his family, his big sister, fo...more

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May 13, 2012 C.J. Listro rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed, biography, serial-killers, literary

Read more (http://cjlistro.blogspot.com/2012/05/...)

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a bit of an obsession with serial killers. So after a conversation about Jeffrey Dahmer the other day (yes, the glamorous life of a psych grad student), I recalled a former lit professor having mentioned this evilly wonderful novel by Joyce Carol Oates, one of the underappreciated literary greats. The novel’s protagonist happens to be based heavily on Dahmer, who had similar zombie-making inclinations...more

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Apr 26, 2012 Charles Dee Mitchell rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-lit, horror

When did taking the reader deep inside the mind of a psychopath become one of the holy grails of genre writing? And no matter who is conducting the trip, don't we all have a pretty good idea of what we are going to find there.

That said, Oates is an excellent guide. Quentin P. is one sick piece of work, but he never becomes a ghoulish cartoon. Allowed to tell his own story, he is capable of astounding levels of self-pity and self-justification. He has the psychopath's absolute disregard for othe...more

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Nov 07, 2011 Brian rated it 2 of 5 stars

* On the cover of my trade paperback, Booklist calls this a "horrifying, revelatory work." Perhaps the explanation for this remark can be found in what Library Journal has to say about it, that "what gives this novel its awesome power is Oates's ability to convince us that Quentin might be anyone." Only problem is, this is a "revelation" only to those who know nothing about serial killers, who, after all, aren't able to ply their twisted craft by running around looking like psychotic monsters.

*...more * On the cover of my trade paperback, Booklist calls this a "horrifying, revelatory work." Perhaps the explanation for this remark can be found in what Library Journal has to say about it, that "what gives this novel its awesome power is Oates's ability to convince us that Quentin might be anyone." Only problem is, this is a "revelation" only to those who know nothing about serial killers, who, after all, aren't able to ply their twisted craft by running around looking like psychotic monsters.

* The book, based on the life of Jeffrey Dahmer, invites the reverse snobbism of horror and true crime fans who may well find it amusing that anyone is seriously disturbed by anything Oates describes here. It isn't that Oates gets it wrong. Quentin, her would-be Dahmer, presents a reasonable facsimile of the psychology of a certain type of serial killer: the disassociation, the lack of empathy, the sexual psychosis that finds its most satisfying release in domination and murder. But for many of us, who have seen all this before, it's easy to see how shallow it is. I didn't come away from this book with anything more than I had going in.

* Well, there was one thing. Having never read much about Dahmer, I didn't know (or had forgotten) that one of his passions was the desire to create his own personal zombie sex slave. This idea becomes Quentin's overriding obsession. He even seems to take a slightly more realistic approach to it than did Dahmer himself. But that's Oates' only concession to the horror/thriller genre. How it plays out (to use Quentin's words) is how it has to play out--in a book that is about fantasy rather than being a fantasy book. Still, it's just enough to subtly sabotage the work. By "improving" Dahmer's technique, what Oates accomplishes is the exact opposite of what was needed: instead of pushing us back so that we can experience the true horror of his actions, she pulls us in, wondering if Quentin can possibly succeed.

* Give it an extra star if you typically avoid this subject matter.(less)

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Oct 29, 2012 Becky rated it 3 of 5 stars

Disclaimer right up front - this book is VERY disturbing, and not one I would recommend simply because it is so disturbing. I've read a lot of books and while the author did an amazing job of portraying a psychopath, even I had a hard time reading some of this book.

First of all there is a lot of obscenities and quite a lot of sexual content, including masturbation and rape. Oates wrote from the first person narration of Quentin P______. Quentin is gay and also a psychopath, intent on creating a...more

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Nov 02, 2012 wally rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: oates

i think this is the 1st from oates for me...yep...just added an "oates" shelf...i've got To the Lighthouse on this here kindle...(oops, that's virginia woolf!)...and could be i read a short story from her...more than likely...and that reminds me of a book or two that i've probably failed to list here...later.

this one begins:

my name is q___ p___ & i am thirty-one years old, three months.

height five feet ten, weight one hundred forty-seven pounds.

eyes brown, hair brown. medium build. light sca...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Lucinda K rated it 4 of 5 stars

Any disappointment this book left me with may have come, I admit, from my own unrealistic expectations. Oates is my favorite contemporary American author, and fellow fans had described the book as "brilliant," even as "her best." I wouldn't go that far, but I would call it a major achievement, especially in its avoidance of thought and plot cliches about depraved literary characters. Quentin P__________'s voice is strong, consistent, and, at times, chilling. Prepare for a few "weak stomach momen...more

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Oct 14, 2012 Tommy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I don't think "like" really applies to this novel, but it was engrossing and extremely well done. NOT for the squeamish, though, if a complete lack of morals and humanity bothers you. This short novel is told entirely from the viewpoint of a serial killer who prefers to identify himself in the 3rd person, as "Q_____ P_____." It is only when he quotes conversations with others that we learn his first name is Quentin. He is obsessed with the idea of finding a young man he can turn into the perfect...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Paul Gleason rated it 2 of 5 stars

Oates, who's one of the best novelists of her generation, occasionally attempts to write genre fiction. I read Zombie as both a "horror" story and as an attempt to - and a rather cynical one at that, coming from such an esteemed writer - capitalize on the, at the times (the book was published in 1995), current interest in serial killers.

Indeed, if you choose to pick up Oates's text, you'll be reminded of American Psycho and A Silence of the Lambs.

You'll also remember the Jeffrey Dahmer murders.

B...more Oates, who's one of the best novelists of her generation, occasionally attempts to write genre fiction. I read Zombie as both a "horror" story and as an attempt to - and a rather cynical one at that, coming from such an esteemed writer - capitalize on the, at the times (the book was published in 1995), current interest in serial killers.

Indeed, if you choose to pick up Oates's text, you'll be reminded of American Psycho and A Silence of the Lambs.

You'll also remember the Jeffrey Dahmer murders.

Before reading Zombie, I never questioned Oates's originality as a writer. Her A Widow's Story is a beautiful and harrowing memoir of the death of her husband that does deal with same subject matter as Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, but its intimacy and rawness, to my mind at least, contrast sharply with Didion's clinical detachment.

Zombie, on the other hand, seems ripped off.

I think that Oates wants to pay homage to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I won't write about the exact nature (that is, the plot points) of this homage because you might want to pick up Zombie yourself. But let me say here that the parallels are striking and obvious.

Oates seems to forget, however, that Frankenstein is a critique of the Romantic temperament - and, as such, almost an answer to Percy Shelley's vision of the Romantic artist as the "Modern Prometheus." Frankenstein is interesting - and not just a "horror" story - because it's so heavily invested in critiquing the intellectual currents of Europe in the early nineteenth century, especially humanity's attempt to control nature through science and the megalomaniacal temperament of the heroic genius. Mary Shelley really offers one of the first critiques of the fascist and authoritarian temperament in Frankenstein - and the target of its critique flows through Carlyle's book on heroes, Wagner's operas, and Nietzsche at his worst.

Zombie, in contrast to Frankenstein, is a very insular text. Oates does try to tie it in to such social concerns as the medical health industry, sexual abuse, etc. But the book, in my opinion, never gets at the motivation behind the killer's actions. It, therefore, cannot be about anything outside of itself, any real social issues, and, therefore, becomes a simple exercise in writing genre fiction and, perhaps, paying homage to Mary Shelley.

All of this means that I have to accuse Oates of something I've never had to accuse her of before - the literary sin of being boring.

But Oates is one of the greatest living American novelists - and I strongly recommend that you pick up one of her long narratives instead of Zombie. Blonde is one of the greatest of all recent novels, and The Falls, A Widow's Story, We Were the Mulvaneys, and The Gravedigger's Daughter are almost equally as excellent. In these books, Oates retains her attraction to the American Gothic - she loves Poe, Faulkner, O'Connor, etc. - but writes original, violent, and intricate fiction, the experimental Naturalism (she's a better Naturalist than Dreiser, for example) of which always connects her words to a strong and meaningful social commentary.
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Nov 08, 2012 Jack rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned

If you are easily offended, you will not like this book. If being disturbed by what you are reading is too much for you, go read something else.

Joyce Carol Oates is great at writing the disturbing, which is probably why she has such a big following of horror genre fans without officially being a genre writer. Make no mistake, Zombie is a horror book. However, if you are going into this thinking you are going to find the standard zombie creature horror, you are sadly and sorely mistaken.

This is a...more

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Apr 26, 2011 Dana * rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror, zombies, 2011, biographical

Very disturbing look inside the mind of a serial killer. What is more disturbing, the narrators lack of human empathy, mental confusion, disassociation, or clear attraction to deviant behavior?

This is a quick read, I could not put it down, and I was fairly sick most of the time, but still fascinated. Sometimes the car wreck you cannot take your eyes off of is a person, and wondering what the heck is going on in that mind?

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Apr 18, 2013 Pj rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, fiction, literary

This is a scary little book and I think I liked it more for Oates' ablity to transform her writing to fit the narrator. It is one of those books where - in the end - I don't think we like the main character. We wish differently for him, perhaps. Oates wrote the book first person and we are thus not treated to a third person distance from the horrifying deeds we wacth unfold. Also, while I think we get hints of sympathy for him earlier in the novel (they're basically gone by the novel's second ha...more

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May 11, 2012 Lennie rated it 3 of 5 stars

For the most part, Quentin P. comes across as just a regular guy, your average Joe. He attends Dale County Tech College part-time and lives in Mt. Vernon where he is a caretaker for a rooming house that houses college students who attend the big state university campus where his father is a well-known and respected professor. He is currently on probation for two years because he pleaded guilty to molesting a 12-year-old boy in an alley and received a sexual misdemeanor committed against a minor....more

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Feb 10, 2009 Lori Anderson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: serial killer fans

This book was creepy, disturbing, and often disgusting. But I loved it. It was cleverly written, and it proves a point -- who knows who the monster is amongst us?

Lori Anderson

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Feb 16, 2013 Miamikel SS rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book is like a train-wreck .... Although it's horrifying and you should turn away, you still peek under the cover page and read.

If you are looking for a truly scary book, this book is not it. What it is, however, is the attempted peek at the mind of a sociopath serial killer with deviant ideas to control another person. He tries several times with his idea to create his own personal Zombie for his own pleasure and ability to control - he wants to be the master. He does this by a series of...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Victor Drax rated it 5 of 5 stars

Si hay algo que nunca dejaré de admirar de Joyce es su versatilidad; la envidio. Esto no se parece a esa prosa clásica post-modernista suya: son las confesiones de Quentin P, agresor sexual bajo fianza, y su búsqueda del perfecto compañero sexual, un "zombi", alguien que nunca le diga que no, que acepte siempre sus palabras, que le diga "sí, amo; lo que tú quieras, amo". La forma que tiene Quentin de relatar su historia es aterradora no sólo por lo que dice (el método elegido por el disfuncional...more Si hay algo que nunca dejaré de admirar de Joyce es su versatilidad; la envidio. Esto no se parece a esa prosa clásica post-modernista suya: son las confesiones de Quentin P, agresor sexual bajo fianza, y su búsqueda del perfecto compañero sexual, un "zombi", alguien que nunca le diga que no, que acepte siempre sus palabras, que le diga "sí, amo; lo que tú quieras, amo". La forma que tiene Quentin de relatar su historia es aterradora no sólo por lo que dice (el método elegido por el disfuncional protagonsita es la lobotomía de sus víctimas), sino por cómo lo cuenta. Si alguna vez haz leído cualquier texto extenso redactado por la mano de un asesino serial, es exactamente como en este libro. Una personalidad fragmentada en exhibición; le cuesta ver a los demás de un modo que no sea como objetos o herramientas, hay un absoluto desapego hacia los demás, el pensamiento no es estructurado sino inestable.

Uno de los asesinos en serie más populares de la literatura es Patrick Bateman, el protagonista de American Psycho: un tipo que es tan mordaz en sus críticas sociales, tan inhumano en su forma de vincularse con su entorno impersonal que da risa, es cínico, involuntariamente sarcástico (créeme), un tipo con el que te puedes identificar si te has sentido alienado en un entorno de beautiful people (que es el tema de fondo). Quentin P, sin embargo, es un tipo con el que no hay modo de identificarse. No es que sea inhumano, es que su manera de ver las cosas es tan espectacularmente perturbado que no hay muchas experiencias en la historia personal que puedas usar para entender las cosas por las que él pasa (o eso espero). Y si te parece que es un caso demasiado extravagante, te cuento que Joyce se basó en la historia real de Jeffrey Dahmer, asesino serial destacado entre lo más fucking maniático que ha parido la raza humana.

Brillante Joyce en su capacidad para entrar en un personaje absolutamente diferente a todo lo que ha escrito hasta este punto. Aterrador, perturbador, habrá momentos en los que pararás de leer, levantarás la cara y murmurarás "esto está maaaal".

As always, Joyce, you are wonderful in this novel.(less)

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May 17, 2013 Gary rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't know what Joyce Carol Oates is made of. I mean, how did she write such a convincing character??

The Story:

Meet Quentin P. He is a problem for his professor father and his loving mother, though of course they do not believe the charge of sexual molestation of a minor that got him in that bit of trouble.He is a challenge for his court-appointed psychiatrist, who nonetheless is encouraged by the increasingly affirmative quality of his dreams and his openness in discussing them.

He is a thorou...more

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Nov 13, 2012 David Edmonds rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, fiction, own, ebook, read-2012, thriller

So very, very disturbing.

I'll be straight forward, Zombie is a highly disturbing book to read. Not only is the subject matter disturbing (this isn't about your typical zombie, but that's all I'm saying about that. Spoilers!), but Oates' writing from the view point of the main character is equally disturbing. You see, her main character is a serial killer sexual deviant psychopath, and there is nothing in the book that is even remotely uplifting. We are witness to his thoughts and his actions, w...more

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Apr 08, 2012 Jill rated it 5 of 5 stars

Excellent book. It very bluntly goes into the mind and actions of a sexual predator a sociopath. Very well written.

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Anyone else find this book very disturbing?	4	15	Apr 18, 2013 09:46am
This edition is 181 pages, dear. Not 192.	1	19	Apr 05, 2012 04:32am

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About Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She is also the recipient of the 2005 Prix Femina for The Falls. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and she has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. Pseudonyms ... Rosamond Smith and Laure ...more

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