- Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
- Publisher: Plume; Reprint edition (Aug 5 1992)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0452266467
- ISBN-13: 978-0452266469
- Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 435 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,199,457 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
Devoted fans and newcomers alike will find it hard to read just one of the 25 compelling stories in Oates's newest collection. In the title story, a chilling tale of repressed sexuality, Oates grips the reader with her masterful interplay of dread, dominance, and youth. The story begins after the bold, impetuous Kunkle twins are found behind the icehouse, raped and murdered. The iceman's son, Roger, can't explain the blood on his overalls because he doesn't remember a thing. The young narrator isn't exactly sure what happened to Rhea and Rhoda before they died, but the reader knows. Less is left to the imagination when adult voices tell tales of love, desire, and despair. Oates combines stories of voyeuristic clarity with those that obscure truth to reveal the emotional forces at war in the human heart. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/91.
- Janet Wilson Reit, Univ. of Vermont Lib., Burlington
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Janet Wilson Reit, Univ. of Vermont Lib., Burlington
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
A new collection of twenty-five short stories from one of America's preeminent literary figures once again reveals the darkness, the violence, and the raw emotion lurking below the surfaces of everyday life. Reprint. PW.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Oates is a master of the short story!,
This review is from: Heat And Other Stories (Mass Market Paperback)
I loved this book. It's been years since I read it, but several of the stories have stuck with me. My favorite is called "Why Don't You Come Live with Me It's Time," about a woman's recollections of her grandmother. It's an absolutely bizarre story, almost like an LSD trip, but the narration, the urgency of the words, many of them italicized, and the far-out imagery convey a poweful sense of aching for the loss of what may have been this woman's most significant relationship. To be frank, I'm not sure I understood it completely (I'd have to add this caveat to my impressions of most of Oates' works), but I know I felt it. A great, great story, as are many others in this collection.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A well builder book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Heat And Other Stories (Mass Market Paperback)
Heat was the first Oates book that I had been read. The diferents points of views was able to build an credible story. The instincts forces whose live inside a very conservative society, explodes with a twins murder; this last is one of the motifs from the book principal short story: Heat. The atmospher of Heat is sexual and almost innocent. When I read this short story, had think in the Garcia Marques story: Cronica de una Muerte Anunciada. In both cases we could know who the murderer is. In the Oates work, the instinct is the cause; in the Garcia Marques, the cause is inside a cultural point of view. Both, Oates and Garcia Marquez, show us a richness of technic. (please, be patient with my English
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews) 10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Oates is a master of the short story!,
By itskevin - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Heat And Other Stories (Mass Market Paperback)
I loved this book. It's been years since I read it, but several of the stories have stuck with me. My favorite is called "Why Don't You Come Live with Me It's Time," about a woman's recollections of her grandmother. It's an absolutely bizarre story, almost like an LSD trip, but the narration, the urgency of the words, many of them italicized, and the far-out imagery convey a poweful sense of aching for the loss of what may have been this woman's most significant relationship. To be frank, I'm not sure I understood it completely (I'd have to add this caveat to my impressions of most of Oates' works), but I know I felt it. A great, great story, as are many others in this collection.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Oates's best collection yet!,
By CoffeeGurl - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Heat And Other Stories (Mass Market Paperback)
I can't get enough of Joyce Carol Oates's clever short-story collections. Having read I Am No One You Know and The Assignation, I couldn't wait to read more of her short stories. Heat and Other Stories is the best Oates collection I've read thus far. Her writing is dark and disturbing, yet possesses a beautiful prose that makes her tales unforgettable. "Heat," "Why Don't You Come Live with Me It's Time," "Twins," "Passion," "Naked," and "The Boyfriend" enthralled me the most. Each story has a special brand of darkness, magic and quirkiness that make them irresistible. They're thought provoking and unforgettable. I agree with the reviewer that compared Oates's writing with the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. She's brilliant! I look forward to reading more of Oates. I shall give one of her novels a whirl next time.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Heat Is An Apt Title,
By Notnadia - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Heat And Other Stories (Mass Market Paperback)
In this 1991 collection of short stories, heat, both as a phenomenon of the weather and the metaphorical heat within the soul, is explored as a causative agent for human action. The title story has a woman, now old, telling of the brutal and inexplicable murder of her two best friends, red-headed eleven-year-old twin girls in the 1930's, on a blistering summer day, by a theretofore gentle retarded boy who worked at the local ice house. The twenty-four other tales in this collection prove equally gripping and contain an impact in ways longer prose, even epic novels, often do not. I read this anthology over the course of about a week, and spread the tales out so I was reading several in the course of each day. In my opinion this is not a good starting place for someone new to Oates' work, but it is beyond a doubt her best short story collection of the 1990's and one of her five best anthologies overall.
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