Pas fan absolu des nouvelles, la couv. m’a quand même bien branché et mes dernières lecture de Joyce Carol Oates (m’)ont achevé… de me convaincre.

Et je n’ai pas été déçu par ces femelles qui, par vengeance, sadisme, accident, démence ou opportunité passent à l’acte. Mais, comme pour toutes les nouvelles, il faut se contenter d’une brève accroche, d’un court développement et d’une fin rapide. En l’occurrence, souvent brutale…

A conseiller aux amateurs de cruauté amorale et aux fans d’histoires courtes qui n’ont pas peur de s’endormir au coté d’une femme ( )

My second Oates. This one is a collection of short stories, many of which originally appeared in genre magazines. I think I can safely say now that Oates doesn’t quite work for me. According to the blurb, in these stories “women are confronted by the evil around them and surprised by the evil they find within them”. I thought the most successful story was ‘Madison at Guignol’, in which a trophy wife polished to a lacquer-like gloss learns of a secret door at one of her favourite high-end boutiques and insists on admittance through it: Fifth Avenue meets Gothic horror. Another one I liked was ‘Hunger’, a much longer piece about a bored wife who, after a holiday affair with a younger man, is horrified when he turns up at her home. Even though she loves him – though it seems to be more of a passion – she’s not willing to jeopardise her marriage. Not all of the stories worked for me – the one about the nurse felt too much like reportage, in some of the others the prose seemed too focused on effect rather than the story. The reason for Oates’ stature is plain to see in this collection, but there are other writers I’d sooner read. ( )

Dark and unsettling, you can't put this collection of short stories down, although they shine an unsettling light on human nature, in particular American women, and often leave you hanging, speculating on what horror maybe about to happen. The least explicit stories are the best. ( )

I couldn't finish this one - I read most of the stories but found them bizarre and disturbing.

Elles s'appellent Poupée, Lucrétia ou encore Kristine. Toutes semblent inoffensives. Derrière leurs visages angéliques, un mal sournois se tapit, attendant le moment propice pour se manifester : ce sont des tueuses. Joyce Carol Oates saisit au vol cette fulgurance meurtrière et observe tranquillement le venin agir et le sang se répandre.