These are tales of psyches pushed to their limits by the expectations of everyday life - from a woman who gets lost on her drive home to her plush suburban home and ends up breaking into a stranger's house, to a first-person account of a cloned 1940s magazine pinup girl being sold at auction and embodying America's ideals of beauty and womanhood.
Taken as a whole, the collection forms a poignant tapestry of regular people searching for their place in a social hierarchy, often with devastating and disastrous results. Rendered with stylish, fresh writing from an author who continues to push the envelope, the stories deftly weave in and out of a stream-of-consciousness to reflect the ways we process traumatic experiences and impart that uncertainty and uneasiness to the reader.
Originally appearing in publications as disparate as Harper's, Vice, and Conjunctions, the stories comprising Night, Neon showcase Oates' mastery of the suspense story - and her relentless use of the form to conduct unapologetically honest explorations of American identity.
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Too early for spring, you couldn't trust such blinding white sunshine in mid-March. DETOUR
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(@apollopublisher, 14 April 2022, 313 pages, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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JCO is one of my favourite writers so a new collection of her stories is always a treat. I really enjoyed this collection. The stories are dark, suspenseful thrillers. JCO has published several collection with stories that fit into this genre. This is as exceptional as the other's. I enjoyed all of the stories. They were different although they touched on similar ideas and themes. I partially enjoyed Detour, Vaping: A User's Manuel and the delightful title story. I'd recommend this.