Joyce Carol Oates continues a late-career hot streak with a collection of subversive suspense stories
Oates's pervading theme across her entire career involves an investigation into the nature of consciousness and the mysteries of personality.
“The language drives the story”: Caroline Adderson on process, Chekhov’s influence, and the importance of laughter in short fiction
"The problem in this country is that people seem to feel that if it's funny it's not serious."
Latin American shivers: Mariana Enriquez’s latest collection locates the uncanny in the lives of women and marginalized Argentinians
The twelve stories in A Sunny Place for Shady People, ably translated by veteran collaborator Megan McDowell, hold their social subtexts more or less on their metaphorical sleeve.
Naben Ruthnum, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Camilla Grudova are included in an anthology perfect for shorter days with chillier temperatures
The most blazingly unforgettable tale in the anthology has to be EC Dorgan's "Prairie Teeth."
Literary nightmares: Nineteen writers contribute to an anthology about the spooky side of literature
The books in these stories are dangerous not just for the ideas they contain, but the wounds that they inflict.
World enough and time: A new collection of speculative fiction from Palestinian writers addresses real-world issues
The writers are for the most part clear-eyed about the realities of the world and adept at placing them in the context of speculative fiction.
The harsh realities of rural Newfoundland provide the backdrop for Susie Taylor’s debut story collection
The Newfoundland of Vigil is an unforgiving place, and Taylor treats it, along with her cast of characters, without an ounce of sentimentality.
Brief encounters: “A Scandalous Woman” by Edna O’Brien
O'Brien, who died on July 27 at the age of ninety-three, caused much uproar among conservative Irish Catholics for her frank and unsparing examinations of female sexuality.
Brief encounters: “Growing Things” by Paul Tremblay
Tremblay's entire fiction is built on contingency and ambiguity.
Alice Munro’s debut collection, newly reissued, demonstrates an artist fully formed from the start
The stories in Dance of the Happy Shades establish many of the characteristics that would come to be associated with Munro's oeuvre.