The bonds of family are tested in the wake of a profound tragedy, providing a look at the darker side of our society by one of our most enduringly popular and important writers

Night Sleep Death The Stars is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: when a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all.

Stark and penetrating, Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel is a vivid exploration of race, psychological trauma, class warfare, grief, and eventual healing, as well as an intimate family novel in the tradition of the author’s bestselling We Were the Mulvaneys.

Unlike anything Joyce Carol Oates has written before, A Widow’s Story is the universally acclaimed author’s poignant, intimate memoir about the unexpected death of Raymond Smith, her husband of forty-six years, and its wrenching, surprising aftermath. A recent recipient of National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, Oates, whose novels (Blonde, The Gravedigger’s Daughter, Little Bird of Heaven, etc.) rank among the very finest in contemporary American fiction, offers an achingly personal story of love and loss. A Widow’s Story is a literary memoir on a par with The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion and Calvin Trillin’s About Alice.

Four brand-new novellas by the #1 New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-winning “grand mistress of ghoulishness” (Publishers Weekly).

An academic in Pennsylvania discovers a terrifying trauma from her past after inheriting a house in Cardiff, Maine from someone she has never heard of. A pubescent girl, overcome with loneliness, befriends a feral cat that becomes her protector from the increasingly aggressive males that surround her. A brilliant but shy college sophomore is distraught to discover that she’s pregnant, and the professor who takes her under his wing may not have innocent intentions. And a woman who marries into a family shattered by tragedy finds herself haunted by her predecessor’s voice, an inexplicably befouled well, and a compulsive attraction to a garage that took two lives.

“A painful truth of family life: the most tender emotions can change in an instant.  You think your parents love you but is it you they love, or the child who is theirs?”  --Joyce Carol Oates, My Life as a Rat

Which should prevail: loyalty to family or loyalty to the truth? Is telling the truth ever a mistake and is lying for one’s family ever justified?  Can one do the right thing, but bitterly regret it?  

My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age twelve, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African-American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement.

Arresting and poignant, My Life as a Rat traces a life of banishment from a family—banishment from parents, siblings, and the Church—that forces Violet to discover her own identity, to break the powerful spell of family, and to emerge from her long exile as a “rat” into a transformed life.

No other writer can match the impressive oeuvre of Joyce Carol Oates. High Lonesome: New and Selected Stories 1966-2006 gathers short fiction from the acclaimed author's seminal collections and includes eleven new tales that further demonstrate the breathtaking artistry and striking originality of an incomparable talent who "has imbued the American short story with an edgy vitality and raw social surfaces" (Chicago Tribune).

An astonishing collection of all-new tales by some of the most acclaimed writers at work today. Edited by Neil Gaiman (Sandman, The Graveyard Book, Anansi Boys, Coraline) and award-winning author Al Sarrantonio, Stories presents never before published short works from a veritable Who’s Who of contemporary literature—breathtaking inventions from the likes of Lawrence Block, Roddy Doyle, Joanne Harris, Joe Hill, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Stewart O’Nan, Chuck Palahniuk, Carolyn Parkhurst, Jodi Picoult, Peter Straub…and, of course, the inimitable Neil Gaiman himself.

"The joy of fiction is the joy of the imagination. . . ."

The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.

Joe Hill boldly aligns theme and form in his disturbing tale of a man's descent into evil in "Devil on the Staircase." In "Catch and Release," Lawrence Block tells of a seasoned fisherman with a talent for catching a bite of another sort. Carolyn Parkhurst adds a dark twist to sibling rivalry in "Unwell." Joanne Harris weaves a tale of ancient gods in modern New York in "Wildfire in Manhattan." Vengeance is the heart of Richard Adams's "The Knife." Jeffery Deaver introduces a dedicated psychologist whose mission in life is to save people in "The Therapist." A chilling punishment befitting an unspeakable crime is at the dark heart of Neil Gaiman's novelette "The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains."

As it transforms your view of the world, this brilliant and visionary volume—sure to become a classic—will ignite a new appreciation for the limitless realm of exceptional fiction.

Zombie is a classic novel of dark obsession from the extraordinary Joyce Carol Oates. A brilliant, unflinching journey into the mind of a serial killer, Zombie views the world through the eyes of Quentin P., newly paroled sex offender, as he chillingly evolves from rapist to mass murderer. Joyce Carol Oates—the prolific author of so many extraordinary bestsellers, including The Gravediggers Daughter, Blonde, and The Falls—demonstrates why she ranks among America’s most respected and accomplished literary artists with this provocative, breathtaking, and disturbing masterwork.

La última novela de la gran escritora americana de nuestros días.
Una historia vigorosa sobre la familia, sus expectativas y la ineludible necesidad de romper con ella.

«La violencia del mundo de Oates es excesiva porque se parece mucho a la nuestra.»
The New York Times

«Una adelantada a su tiempo y una suerte de baluarte moral contra la intolerancia y el miedo.»
Nuria Azancot, El Cultural

¿Qué debería prevalecer: la lealtad familiar o la lealtad a la verdad? ¿Alguna vez es un error decir la verdad, hay algún momento en que mentir a la familia esté justificado? ¿Se puede hacer lo correcto y que toda la vida nos lamentemos por ello?

Delatora está protagonizada por Violet Rue Kerrigan, una joven que recuerda su vida después deque, con doce años, ofreciera su testimonio sobre el asesinato racista de un niño afroamericano por parte de sus hermanos mayores y la apartasen de su familia. En una sucesión de episodios recordados de un modo casi palpable, Violet analiza las circunstancias de su vida como la menor de siete hermanos, una niña en su momento querida, que inadvertidamente «delata» a sus hermanos, dando pie a su arresto, su condena y a su propio distanciamiento.

Esta conmovedora novela dibuja una vida de destierro —destierro respecto a los padres, a los hermanos, a la Iglesia— que obliga a Violet a reconstruir su propia identidad, romper el poderoso embrujo de la familia. Un largo exilio como «delatora» para llegar a una vida transformada.

La crítica ha dicho...
«Oates es grande como escritora no solo por su calidad literaria, sino por la complejidad de los temas. Nadie como ella ha sabido ir tantas veces al pozo de la sociedad estadounidense, de donde se nutren sus historias, y extraer en cada ocasión un agua singular y distinta y siempre arraigada en el gran caleidoscopio que es el mundo americano.»
Francisco Recio, La Opinión de Málaga

«Entre los narradores contemporáneos estadounidenses [...], Oates es quien más claramente posee lo que Henry James llamaba “la imaginación para el desastre”, una facultad o fragilidad que confiere muy a menudo a sus personajes.»
Leo Robson, The New Yorker

«La escritura de Oates siempre ha parecido sencilla: urgente, temeraria, torrencial. Escribe como una mujer que se adentra en una región salvaje sin mirar atrás.»
The New York Times Book Review

«La prosa de Oates contiene una profunda crueldad que se cierne entre la esperanza, la desesperación y el amor.»
The Guardian

«Una maestra del diálogo afilado y de las descripciones vibrantes, Oates sigue siendo poderosamente fascinante.»
People

«Novelistas como John Updike, Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe y Norman Mailer han luchado a brazo partido por el título de Gran Novelista Americano. Pero quizás se equivocan.