Will You Always Love Me?: And Other Stories

by Joyce Carol Oates Narrated by George Guidall, Barbara Caruso

Overview

Joyce Carol Oates paints a haunting tapestry of American life in 22 short stories that take the listener from tempestuous inner cities to isolated rural backwaters. Obsession with loss, fear of betrayal, and sudden violence plague Oates' characters as she examines the lives of the working poor and follies of the irresponsible rich with searing clarity. George Guidall's and Barbara Caruso's masterful performances make this rich collection of stories a must-listen.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The 22 intensely imagined, haunting stories in Oates's (American Appetites ) 19th anthology of reprinted short fiction mine her familiar territory-gothic, supernatural atmospheres, doppelgngers, icily estranged couples locked in mortal psychological combat. Oates's genius is to open with the seemingly mundane, then gradually escalate to a pitch of horrific revelation. Outstanding is ``American Abroad,'' in which an art historian is honored in a foreign city by a host whom terrorists have targeted, while she herself is bizarrely, psychologically targeted by the host's daughter. Some stories successfully cover entire lives: in ``The Passion of Rydcie Mather,'' schoolbus driver Rydcie (for Eurydice, who visited Hades) ragingly defies the God who ``forced'' her into heroic action to save a drowning girl; her revenge is appropriately apocalyptic. ``The Mark of Satan'' features an innocently voluptuous door-to-door evangelist and her small daughter preaching like toy dolls to a gritty ex-con who drugs them and plots their rape before accidentally causing his own bloody mutilation. Bodily disintegration is a menace to Oates characters, who variously endure tumors, palsies, strokes, a brain fissure, child abuse. Her baroque imagination, her ability to convey the depths of violence and evil lying just below a thin veneer of civilization, gives her stories a chilling dimension. (Feb.)

Library Journal

This marvelous collection examines the usually hidden but often destructive underside of relationships. In "The Revenge of the Foot, 1970," a young college student is hopelessly in love with her married professor lover. A lonely middle-aged woman will do anything to gain the love of her stepdaughter in "The Girl Who Was To Die." And "American Abroad" is the poignant tale of a dignified woman art historian on a lecture tour of Europe who is delighted by an enthusiastic young woman's offer to show her Amsterdam's museums, only to be mortified by the extent of her disappointment when the would-be guide doesn't keep the date. These tightly drawn, insightful, and compulsively readable stories by the enormously talented and prolific Oates (Zombie, LJ 8/95) belong in all fiction collections. Highly recommended.-Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L., Ohio

JAN 97 - AudioFile

One happy feature of a short story is that it can usually be read without interruptions. This feature produces a completeness and coherence very satisfying for the listener. However, whether one would choose to listen to several of these stories in a row is doubtful as one’s nerves need a rest from the contemplation of ordinary people (ourselves?) heroically swimming against the currents of time and isolation to reach a vanishing shore called love. In this struggle Oates allows us the reader’s thrill of seeing more of the characters than they can ever see of themselves. Caruso narrates those with a female focus while Guidall handles those with a male focus. Both are superb. They give realistic texture to the American idiomatic speech so important to Oates’s modern characterizations. They also understand that these charged stories need quiet, sympathetic voices held well in control as a counter to the emotional chaos emanating from the page. Their sensitive, interpreting voices are welcome company. One wouldn’t want to make the journey through these stories alone. P.W. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171282677
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	10/22/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos