I know girls, I know, with so many Joyces out there, it gets confusing! But Joyce Carol Oates has been cranking them out, at a steady rate, since I was a wee thing. Which she still continues to do. She writes well, is respected within the literary community, but the problem, I find, is that she is a mixed bag. She can be brilliant, as in "Bellefieur," or "We Were The Mulvaneys," or she can fall flat, like "A Bloodsmoor Romance."
This is the first time I have read a story collection of hers, and she gets it half right. Not all the stories in "Black Dahlia, White Rose," are gems; in fact, only the title story is, and let me tell you, nothing else in the book matches it. Too bad it was not expanded into a novel!!!!!!!!!!!
The collection is an assortment of dysfunctional human relationships; in several tales, there is a supernatural component. "Roma" recalls Daphne Du Maurier's "Don't Look Now," while "Spotted Hyenas--A Romance" is as macabre as they come.
Still can't hold a candle to Shirley Jackson, whose collections I never want to end. I knew I would finish Joyce's, and, yet, I could not wait until I had! I think she paints better on a larger canvass, via her novels.
So, I am not going to give up on Joyce. In fact, I have to read what put her on the map, decades back, "Them!!!!!!!!" But read this one knowing the first story cannot be topped!!!!!!!!!!
As we all eagerly await the New York Times' Lists!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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