In this her boldest, most intense collection yet, Oates probes the violence and passion that lie just behind conventional lives. Setting many of her stories in the New Jersey area where she lives, Joyce Carol Oates "does not waste a word".-St. Louis
*** [Billy was at the Meadowlands track one Saturday when the accident happened to Raven's Wing - a three-year-old silky black colt who was the favourite in the first race, and one of the crowd favourites generally this season - RAVEN'S WING) ***(Dutton Books, 29 September 1986, paperback, 305 pages, owned)
***
Stories:
- Raven's Wing
- The Seasons
- Nairobi
- Golden Gloves
- Harrow Street At Linden
- Happy
- Ancient Airs, Voices
- Double Solitaire
- Manslaughter
- Little Wife
- The Jesuit
- The Mother
- Testimony
- Nuclear Holocaust
- Surf City
- Little Blood-Button
- Baby
- April
***
***
JCO is my favourite writer. However, I've found that her earlier work is not on par with her later work. This collection of stories is one example. She has written some amazing short stories over the years. Unfortunately, none of them are to be found in Raven's Wing. I felt the stories are mostly flat and two-dimensional. I struggled to connect with any of the characters and couldn't care less what happened to them. The stories were just bland and didn't do anything for me. Such a disappointment. I didn't enjoy any of them.
