Art and arson,the poetry of D. H. Lawrence and pulp pornography, hero-worship and sexual debasement, totems, and taboos - out of narrative elements like these National Book Award-winner Joyce Carol Oates, oneof the most adroit voices in contemporary American fiction, contrives a startling, suspenseful tale that turns a sunny idyll of New England college campus life into a lurid nightmare. A …
In Salthill, on Hudson, half an hour outside New York, the inhabitant are beautiful, rich, and though they look younger than they really are, middle-aged. When the enigmatic sculptor Adam Berendt dies suddenly, his death sends shock waves through the town. Middle age, ordinarily not a time for passion romance, is transformed by his loss as his close friends evaluate their lives and set out …