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Dear Husband,: Stories
Replete with the emotional intensity and pathos for which Joyce Carol Oates is lauded, these fourteen stories explore the intimate lives of contemporary American families: the tangled relationship between generations, the desperation of loving more than one is loved in return. In "Cutty Sark" and "Landfill," the bond between adolescent son and mother reverberates with the...more
Paperback, 327 pages
Published
April 6th 2010
by ECCO
(first published 2009)
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This is a great collection of stories which really hits on the core meaning of family and its special operation. These regular families show us a little bit about our lives at home and the different relationships between generation. she touches on the ups and downs of being happy and being happy as a family and how they are two very different ideas and feelings.
There is also the hard truth that we all know of loving someone more then they love you and the emotional hardship brought with that....more
There is also the hard truth that we all know of loving someone more then they love you and the emotional hardship brought with that....more
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Finished the first story. She is a masterful short story writer. I read one, then put it down to think on it. Yummy. Dark. Reminds me of Chesil Beach and all the ways married people disappoint and surprise each other unknowingly/knowingly.
I started reading this collection of Joyce Carol Oates’ short stories Dear Husband on Mother’s Day. Maybe not the best day considering the first story is a letter based on the Andrea Yates case. You remember, Yates killed her five young children by drowning them in the bathtub. The stories are melancholy and grim. One reviewer suggests they are “best read by the emotionally stable, as Oates spirals into the realities of death and the sadness of life.” The stories are uniformly well written, but...more
Joyce Carol Oates is considered a classic contemporary writer. And she boasts it too. She says she's a "serious" writer. And she obviously makes efforts to invoke an American timelessness in her work, as if naming specific cities might win her a prize or two, and perhaps it has.
However, perhaps Oates is just another name hyped up by publishers and this collection of short stories proves that she is. I guess I expected more from the author, but the stories were a mixture of sensationalism matched...more
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This writer certainly has a dark side! She's great at character development, and creating a "slice of life" in a few pages. Are people really this dark as she makes her characters to be? Maybe. (copied review) A gripping and moving new collection of stories by Joyce Carol Oates, which reimagines the meaning of family—by unexpected, often startling means
With the unflinching candor and sympathy for which Joyce Carol Oates is celebrated, these fourteen stories examine the intimate lives of contem...more
With the unflinching candor and sympathy for which Joyce Carol Oates is celebrated, these fourteen stories examine the intimate lives of contem...more
Nov 10, 2009
Dawn
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
short-story-collections
This collection proves once again why JCO is a master of the short story genre. I didn't find this collection to be overly depressing, as others on Goodreads have proclaimed it. For example, in the first story, Panic, a husband seeks consolation from his wife after she abandons him to protect their child during a potentially life-threatening moment. I thought this story was particularly poignant and shows how men are expected to be fearless in a violent world. More synopses:
Mistrial - A virginal...more
Mistrial - A virginal...more
This was an uneven collection of short stories about contemporary families. The title story, Dear Husband, a fictional letter from Andrea Yates to her husband shortly after she killed their children left me totally cold as did a similar story, the Heart Sutra about a woman whose famous poet lover had just left her. While this whole story collection seems to have a dark side running through it, some were riveting such as Landfill about a college student who was found dead in a garbage dump after...more
The most prolific writer ever, Joyce Carol Oates summons up yet again a solid collection of stories about unrequited love: a mother chasing her son, a woman chasing her husband, a husband chasing his wife. In each, Oates renders her characters with power and precision, her language so sharp it cuts. My favorite lines by far:
* "The river was swollen from recent rains, ochre-colored, debris-laden, with a look of something live and sinuous and obscenely jocular like a great translucent sea worm."
*...more
* "The river was swollen from recent rains, ochre-colored, debris-laden, with a look of something live and sinuous and obscenely jocular like a great translucent sea worm."
*...more
God damn. Joyce Carol Oates is a great writer, but she's just comically overwrought. These stories involve suicides, violent deaths or else murders, children who hate their parents, vehemently, or else parents who hate their children. The collection's title story concerns a woman drowning her children in a bathtub and swallowing seventeen oxycontin pills (a true story). There's one piece that kind of picks up where DFWallace's "Incarnations of Burned Children" leaves off, in that it involves a y...more
Wow. This is not a book to read if you are feeling even slightly glum. And if you are feeling good, it is a major buzz kill. Well written but so cynical and sad you need anti-depressants to make it through. It made "Catcher on the Rye" feel like a light-hearted romp. If you're into dysfunctional families, alcoholics, narcissism, drug abuse, cruelty and hopelessness (and it amazes me how many readers are), this is the book for you. My book club was divided. Some loved it, some couldn't handle the...more
I couldn’t remember reading Joyce Carol Oates in school, which struck me as odd because, of course, everyone who studies literature and writing reads Joyce Carol Oates in school.
I remembered reading about how Jonathan Safran Foer took a writing workshop she offered and how she encouraged him on his way, but I couldn’t remember reading her. And having now finished a collection of her short stories, I can’t find anything remarkable or definitive about her writing style to set her apart from others...more
I remembered reading about how Jonathan Safran Foer took a writing workshop she offered and how she encouraged him on his way, but I couldn’t remember reading her. And having now finished a collection of her short stories, I can’t find anything remarkable or definitive about her writing style to set her apart from others...more
Joyce Carol Oates is at her best with short stories. Each story takes you into the mind of people who cope with tragedy in the worst way ... if there is such a thing as making the best of a bad situation. The emotions are so raw. The thinking so flawed, yet she makes even monsters seem more human and weak than we would expect. Even if you are not a fan of Oates epic novels or her literary critiques, I think you will find her short stories and short novels fascinating.
Sep 10, 2011
Sunflower
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction-read-2011,
usa
"Brutal and horrific fairy tales" these are indeed. Not just a look behind the scenes at American families, this collection is somewhat sinister examination of the darker side of human relationships. There are some things that seem to recur in several of them: men with a wrestler's build, bright shiny sharp knives with an irrestistable pull, husbands who are disappointed with their wives. It seems there is violence and fear lurking everywhere, and always the most everyday-seeming people are thos...more
I picture Joyce Carol Oates laughing to herself with a sinister grin, and thinking “Wait till they get a load of these.” Fourteen stories, some are dark, some darker. Three stories rate five stars, some of the rest rate two. If you have just started this collection, and aren’t yet interested, just keep going. The first three stories didn’t ring my bell. By the end, I can see the most ordinary looking people, and know that they are capable of almost anything.
The most powerful collection of stories I've read in ages. You could go to school on Oates's writing in this book. Each of the stories is unique -- characteristically for Oates dark, but oddly not depressing. Her strength is twofold in my opinion: (1) the voice in each story is clear and unique; you feel her intimate knowledge of her characters and (2) this is raw writing from the heart. Oates is amazing and her talents are fully on display in this collection.
This was a collection of short stories, and it was OK. It is really hard to rate this as one general GOOD or BAD because some of the stories I liked and some, I just really didn't. So to rate it good or bad overall is not fair. Joyce Carol Oates, she has one amazing imagination I have to say, her writings have always been a bit bizzare, and to have a collection of stories here, proves to be no different. She takes a lot of familiar news stories and writes from peoples roles in these stories. The...more
Savage, poetic and ruthless. Oates deals with characters and themes she has often covered before -- violent men, desperate women, lives scarred by alcohol and poverty -- but her touch has never been surer, her insights never more piercing. At least one of these stories ("Landfill") can break your heart, and several of the others, astonishingly, are among the best things she's ever done. From the WASHINGTON POST, July 8, 2009.
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Short story collections are like a box of chocolates (sorry Forrest!). You bite into one and discover it's one of your favorites, the next one is only o.k., and some are downright yucky. This collection by Joyce Carol Oates is just like that. Some of the stories I thought were fantastic (Mistrial was my favorite). Some were just o.k. and a few (Magda Maria) I did not care for. Overall though a very satisfying collection.
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These stories are beautifully crafted - as close to 'perfect' as a short story can get. The tone throughout the collection is definitely grosteque, but yet her themes ring so true. This is my first time reading JCO, and I found her strikingly similiar to Flannery O'Connor. Instead of the South, JCO's regional focus is the Midwest & Mid-Atlantic.
Read selected stories, not the whole book. Most difficult and intriguing for me was the story about a young family with a disabled child. Told from the point of view of the sibling, I at once empathized and sympathized with the burden. I am so glad we have so many more options to help our kids these days. Other stories were also well done. Oates is an excellent writer.
I've always wondered if I would be a J.C.O. fan, and after reading this short-story collection, I would unfortunately have to say no. It mostly bored/annoyed the living crap out of me. That said, however, I would give her another shot, so if anyone has any recommendations for a good Joyce Carol Oates book, let me know.
I found this collection of short stories dark, disturbing, unsettling and all the usual adjectives applied to JCO. There's no denying she's a masterful storyteller and sometimes we need to read the masters and be reminded of the mystery, depth, beauty of language. Not for the faint of heart nor the weak of stomach.
Mesmerizing collection of very dark short stories-sad and a few with a sense of macabre humor-all about people yearning for love and acceptance but there is always something not quite right...in those perfect addresses lurks a deadly secret. I couldn't decide between 4 and 5 stars, but it's not for everyone.
stayed up late at night to read these, mostly disturbing short stories, with some hard-to-fathom or like, characters. The title story, is especially sad; a fictional letter written by Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her 5 children. pshew. now I need something a little more uplifting.
May 29, 2009
Candy
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
those who like the dark side of people
Recommended to Candy by:
random library pick
Short stories- so far I really liked The Blind Man's Sighted Daughters, because of the insight into the role of caretaker, and A Princeton Idyll because of the letter-writing format and the interesting takes 2 people had on an historical event.
Having finished the book, I would say overall that I really didn't like it. The stories are dark and depressing. They show people first are just normal, and then delve into how they are angry or jealous or wanting revenge.
I don't like to think of people li...more
Having finished the book, I would say overall that I really didn't like it. The stories are dark and depressing. They show people first are just normal, and then delve into how they are angry or jealous or wanting revenge.
I don't like to think of people li...more
I enjoy Joyce Carol Oates books but did not find these shorts stories as interesting as others. In particular, her full length novels. I also had some difficulty with one of the narrators (the audio-book had about 3, in total). That may have clouded my interpretation of this book.
A wonderful, fresh collection of short stories, that in my opinion, really showcase the author's witty sense of humor.It was hard to pick a favorite story, but if asked, I would choose "Suicide at the Health Club". With JCO's there is always a mystery, depth, and beauty of language.
Joyce Carol Oates is a prolific and brilliant writer known for her dark works of art. She does not disappointment with this set of stories about ordinary people and families who never get the love they are looking for and respond in incredibly disturbing ways.
This short story collection takes all the pain in a Joyce Carol Oates book and condenses it, allowing room for little more.
Sure, they're well written. But they're painful, depressing and just no damn fun to read.
(The second- and third-to-last stories are the only ones I'd ever recommend to anyone.)
Sure, they're well written. But they're painful, depressing and just no damn fun to read.
(The second- and third-to-last stories are the only ones I'd ever recommend to anyone.)
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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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“The gym cat appears to those who will die. He is our totem." This thought came to me a few weeks ago. I shared it with no one of course.”
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