Joyce Carol Oates Books In Order
Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.Publication Order of Wonderland Quartet/Garden Of Earthly Delights Books
A Garden of Earthly Delights | (1967) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Expensive People | (1968) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Them | (1969) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Wonderland | (1971) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of The Gothic Saga Books
Bellefleur | (1980) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
My Heart Laid Bare | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Accursed | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories Books
L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Black DahliaWhite Rose | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
The Triumph of the Spider Monkey | (1976) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
I Lock My Door Upon Myself | (1990) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Rise of Life on Earth | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Black Water | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
First Love | (1996) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
In Shock | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Beasts | (2001) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Haunting | (2003) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Rape | (2003) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Fossil-Fiigures | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Spotted Hyenas | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Patricide | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Rescuer | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Mystery, Inc. | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Big Momma | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Gun Accident | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Crawl Space | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Sign of the Beast | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
33 Clues Into the Disappearance of My Sister | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
By the North Gate | (1963) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Goddess and Other Women | (1966) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Upon the Sweeping Flood, and Other Stories | (1966) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? | (1966) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Anonymous Sins and Other Poems | (1969) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Wheel of Love and Other Stories | (1970) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Cupid & Psyche | (1970) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Angel Fire: Poems | (1973) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Hungry Ghosts | (1974) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Love and Its Derangements and Other Poems | (1974) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Fabulous Beasts | (1975) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Seduction and Other Stories | (1975) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Poisoned Kiss and Other Stories from the Portuguese | (1975) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Crossing the Border | (1976) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Night-Side | (1977) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Women Whose Lives Are Food, Men Whose Lives Are Money | (1978) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Marriages and Infidelities | (1978) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
All the Good People I've Left Behind | (1979) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
A Sentimental Education | (1980) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Three Plays | (1980) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Perfectionist and Other Plays | (1981) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Invisible Woman | (1982) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Wild Saturday, and Other Stories | (1984) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Last Days | (1984) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Raven's Wing | (1986) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Assignation | (1988) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Time Traveler | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Heat and Other Stories | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Oates in Exile | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Twelve Plays | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Where is Here? | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Haunted | (1994) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Tenderness | (1996) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Demon and Other Tales | (1996) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Will You Always Love Me? and Other Stories | (1996) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Invisible Writer | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Collector of Hearts | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
New Plays | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Where I've Been, and Where I'm Going | (1999) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Faithless | (2001) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Small Avalanches and Other Stories | (2003) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
I Am No One You Know | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Female of the Species | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
High Lonesome | (2006) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Museum of Dr. Moses | (2007) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Wild Nights!: Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway | (2008) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Dear Husband | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Give Me Your Heart | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Sourland | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Evil Eye | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
High Crime Area | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Lovely, Dark, Deep | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Beautiful Days | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Night-Gaunts and Other Tales of Suspense | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Dis Mem Ber and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Cardiff, by the Sea | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The (Other) You: Stories | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
American Melancholy: Poems | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Night, Neon | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Extenuating Circumstances | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Zero Sum | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Plays
Miracle Play | (1974) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Key & Tone Clusters: Two Short Plays | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
I Stand Before You Naked | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Picture Books
Come Meet Muffin! | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Where is Little Reynard? | (2003) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Naughty Chérie! | (2008) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The New Kitten | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
The Edge Of Impossibility | (1972) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Hostile Sun | (1973) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
New Heaven New Earth | (1974) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Contraries | (1981) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
First Person Singular | (1984) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Profane Art | (1985) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
On Boxing | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Woman Writer | (1988) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Life of the Writer, the Life of the Career | (1995) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Muhammad Ali: Ringside | (1999) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
George Bellows: American Artist | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Faith of a Writer | (2003) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Uncensored | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
A Widow's Story | (2007) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
In Rough Country | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Gerald Slota: Story | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Lost Landscape | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Soul at the White Heat | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Joyce Carol Oates: Letters to a Biographer | (2024) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Akashic Drug Chronicles Books
The Cocaine Chronicles | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Marijuana Chronicles | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Nicotine Chronicles | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Bibliomysteries Books
Chronological Order of Bibliomysteries Books
Publication Order of Dark Corners Books
Hannah-Beast | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Sleep Tight Motel | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
There's a Giant Trapdoor Spider Under Your Bed | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Miao Dao | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Tangled Woods | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Remedy | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Oak Avenue | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Art of the Story Books
A Sportsman's Notebook | (1852) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The General Zapped an Angel | (1970) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
In the Garden of the North American Martyrs | (1981) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Essential Tales of Chekhov | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Garden Party and Other Stories | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Wild Nights!: Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway | (2008) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Continent | (2008) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Monstress | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Essential Tales Of Chekhov Deluxe Edition | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Mr. and Mrs. Baby Deluxe Edition | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Vanishing Princess | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
We Are Taking Only What We Need | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Catastrophe and Other Stories | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Hue and Cry | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Hurly Burly and Other Stories | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Loss of Memory Is Only Temporary | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Winnie the Pooh Books
Winnie the Pooh's Valentine | (1995) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Boo to You, Winnie the Pooh! | (1996) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Pooh's Mailbox | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Pooh's Wishing Star | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Family of Tiggers | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Disney's Winnie the Pooh Balloon Book | (2001) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
A Hundred-Acre-Wood Treasury | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Winnie the Pooh Surprise Tails by Disney Book Group [Disney Press,2011] | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Party in the Wood | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Sweet Dreams, Roo | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Pooh's Easter Basket | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Pooh's Honey Trouble | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Winnie the Pooh: A Gift for Pooh | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Winnie the Pooh: Out of Bounce | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Pooh's Halloween Pumpkin | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Winnie the Pooh The Little Things in Life | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Transgressions Books
Transgressions | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Transgressions, Vol. 2 | (2006) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of The Year's Finest Crime and Mystery Stories Books
The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories | (1994) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Anthologies
Points of View | (1956) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Short Stories 1964 | (1964) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Prize Stories 1970: The O. Henry Awards | (1970) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Anti-Story: An Anthology of Experimental Fiction | (1971) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Scenes From American Life: Contemporary Short Fiction | (1973) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Prize Stories 1973: The O. Henry Awards | (1973) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Fiction International, No.1, Fall 1973 | (1973) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Women and Fiction | (1975) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Banquet: Five Short Stories | (1978) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Granta 1: New American Writing | (1979) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Short Stories 1979 | (1979) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Night Walks | (1982) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Web She Weaves | (1983) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Witches' Brew | (1984) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Fiction International 15.1: Writing and Politics | (1984) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Dark Descent | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Fiction | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
First Annual Collection | (1988) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Demons & Dreams: The Best Fantasy and Horror 1 | (1988) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Third Annual Collection | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Women Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Among Sisters: Short Stories by Women Writers | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Colors of a New Day | (1990) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Picador Book of the New Gothic | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Cries of the Spirit: A Celebration of Women's Spirituality | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Fourth Annual Collection | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Fourth Annual Collection | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Architecture of Fear | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Short Stories 1991 | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Oxford Book of American Short Stories | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Short Story: 30 Masterpieces | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Sisters In Crime 5 | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Fiction International 22 | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Ploughshares Winter 1993-94 | (1993) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
God: An Anthology of Fiction | (1993) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine: November 1994 | (1994) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
First Fiction: An Anthology of the First Published Stories by Famous Writers | (1994) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Missouri Review: First Kisses First Wheels First Jobs (Volume XVII Number 2) | (1994) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Deadly Sins | (1994) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Obsession | (1995) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Bad Behavior | (1995) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women | (1995) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears | (1995) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Murder For Love | (1996) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Granta 58: Ambition | (1997) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Black Swan, White Raven | (1997) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Crimes of Passion | (1997) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
American Fiction | (1997) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Telling Stories | (1997) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Mystery Stories 1997 | (1997) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best of the Best | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Murder for Revenge | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Eleventh Annual Collection | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Sex, Drugs, Rock'n'Roll: Stories to End the Century | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Mystery Stories 1999 | (1999) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction | (1999) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Irreconcilable Differences | (1999) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Ovid Metamorphosed | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Good Parts | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Master's Choice: Mystery Stories by Today's Top Writers and the Masters Who Inspired Them | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Here to Stay: Five Plays from the Women's Project | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Black Heart, Ivory Bones | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Mr. Simonelli or the Fairy Widower | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Short Stories of the Century | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Essays of the Century | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 2 | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
40 Short Stories: A Portable Anthology | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Mystery Stories 2001 | (2001) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Writers on Writing | (2001) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Opening Shots, Vol. II | (2001) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Redshift | (2001) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 3 | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Dark: New Ghost Stories | (2003) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Mystery Stories 2003 | (2003) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
More Stories We Tell | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Future Dictionary of America | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 5 | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Vol. 15 | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Writers on Writers | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Dangerous Women | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Transgressions | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Becoming Myself: Reflections on Growing Up Female | (2006) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
TwentiethAnnual Collection | (2007) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Mystery Stories 2007 | (2007) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Detroit Noir | (2007) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The New Granta Book of the American Short Story | (2007) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Unforgettable Ghost Stories by Women Writers | (2008) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Twenty-First Annual Collection | (2008) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Freedom | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
FIRST WORDS: Earliest Writing from Favorite Contemporary Authors | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Half-Minute Horrors | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Mystery Stories 2009 | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
What's Your Exit?: A Literary Detour Through New Jersey | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Hint Fiction | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Kenyon Review Fall 2010 | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Mammoth Book of Angels and Demons | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
What You Wish For: A Book for Darfur | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
New Jersey Noir | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Better Than Fiction: True Travel Tales From Great Fiction Writers | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Boston Noir 2 | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Interrogator and Other Criminally Good Fiction | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
USA Noir | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
What My Mother Gave Me | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Buffalo Noir | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Ploughshares Spring 1988 | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Boulevard No. 87 | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Prison Noir | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Boulevard 88 | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Doll Collection | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Choose Wisely: 35 Women Up To No Good | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best Stories from Boulevard, 1985-2015 | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Taking Aim: Power and Pain, Teens and Guns | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Mystery Stories 2015 | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Sleights of Hand: The Deception Issue | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Unloaded | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
In Sunlight or In Shadow | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Boulevard Nos. 95 & 96 | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Tales of Two Americas | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best American Mystery Stories 2017 | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Shadows Over Main Street Volume 2 | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Alive in Shape and Color | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Simpsonistas, Vol. 1 | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Simpsonistas, Vol. 2 | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Drawing Lines | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Five Short Stories by Women | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
When Things Get Dark | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Best Horror of the Year Volume 13 | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Screams from the Dark | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
CVC10 Carter V Cooper Short Fiction Anthology: Book Ten | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2022 | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Simpsonistas Vol. 4: Tales from the New Literary Project | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September-October 2023 | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
A Darker Shade of Noir: New Stories of Body Horror by Women Writers | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Joyce Carol Oates is one of most prolific and versatile contemporary writer in the United States of America. She has produced so much work and on various subjects, but most of which focus majorly on intellectual, sexual and spiritual decline of modern America society.
Synopsis
Joyce Carol Oates, an acclaimed writer popularly known for novels such as ‘The Falls’, ‘A Garden of Earthly Delights’ and ‘them’ that won the National Book Award, was born on the 16th of June 1938, in Lockport, New York. Joyce dad, Fredrick James Oates was a tool designer, while her mum, Caroline was a homemaker or housewife of Hungarian descent. Currently aged 76 years, she is the oldest of Caroline and Frederic Oates’s three children.
Her family lived in a working-class family community on a farm in Millersport, New York owned by Caroline’s parents. She loved to read and read a lot for that matter. Even before she could learn to write, she’d started telling stories by drawing pictures. Though life was sometimes tough, her writing skills and love for literature slowly developed.
At age 15, in 1953, Joyce wrote her first and foremost novel, though the publishers rejected it on the basis that the subject matter that concerned the rehabilitation of a drug addict (restoring to a productive state) too depressing for the teenage audiences. Upon finishing her high school education, she won a scholarship to join the Syracuse University, where she further developed her writing skills.
She studied English at the university and prior to her senior year (at 19 years of age), she received an award for being a co-winner of a Mademoiselle Magazine sponsored fiction contest known as ‘college short story’. In 1960, she graduated from the university on top of her class, after which she enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, Madison where she received her M.A. It was here that she also met an English professor called Raymond Joseph Smith and got married in 1961.
Writing and Teaching
In 1961, after receiving her master’s degree and beginning her Ph.D. in English at Rice University, Joyce Oates came across one of her stories in Foley’s collection of Best American Short Stories. It was then that she decided to launch her writing career (become a full-time writer) and published her first book, a collection of short stories in 1963 known as By the North Gate.
Joyce Oates also lectured at the State University of Detroit from 1961 to 1967, after which she relocated to Canada with her husband to teach at Windsor University. In 1974, they established the Ontario Review publication. In 1977 after leaving Windsor University, she became a writer-in-residence and later on a professor as the Princeton University in New Jersey.
In 1964, Joyce Oates’s published her foremost novel, ‘With Shuddering Fall’, at the age of 26 that showed her interest in violence and evil in the romantic story between a 30 year old stock car driver and a teenage girl, which ends tragically with an accident that claims his life. Joyce’s best-recognized early novels form a three-volume work or trilogy in simple terms, exploring three different sections of the American society. The foremost, ‘A Garden of Earthly Delights’ published in 1967, narrates the story of a migrant worker daughter who marries a rich farmer so as to provide for her son born out of wedlock. The woman’s life is, however, destroyed when the child kills his step-father and then commits suicide.
Oates’s second novel ‘In Expensive People’ was published in 1967. It exposes the lives of people living in the outskirts whose concern on material comforts shows the vacuum of their lives. The last volume, ‘them’, a fiction book was published in 1969 and won the National Book Award. It describes the suffering and violence suffering endured by 3 generations of an urban-dwelling family located in Detroit, Michigan. Joyce’s experiences as a lecturer in Detroit in the early 1960s added to her understanding of the city and her social issues.
Joyce Oates’s 1970s novels explore characters involved in a number of American professional as well as cultural institutions whilst adding tragic features. ‘Wonderland’, published in 1971 narrates a story of a brilliant doctor who’s unable to establish a fulfilling home life. On the other hand, ‘Do With Me What You Will’ published in 1973 narrates a young attorney life honored by his friends for his dedication to social work. Oates’s The Assassins: A Book of Hours published in 1975 focuses on the impacts of the assassination of a prominent politician on his two brothers and more so, the wife. ‘Son of the Morning’, published in 1978 narrates the rise & fall of a minister whose faith is tested and strengthened by a number of happenings in his life. Lastly, ‘Unholy Loves’ published in 1979 focuses on the lives of some teachers at a small college in New York.
In the early 1980s, Joyce Oates published a number of novels based on publications by nineteenth-century authors. The foremost was ‘A Bloodsmoor Romance’ published in 1982. It’s a story of 5 maiden sisters who lived in Pennsylvania State in the late 1800s. The novel was influenced by Charlotte Bronte 1816 to 1855 writings and Emily Brontë 1818 to1848 writings. In ‘The Mysteries of Winterthur’ published in 1984, Joyce borrowed heavily from Edgar Allan Poe 1809 to 1849 works. While several critics dismissed these publications, others, citing Joyce Oates’s proficient description of evil, upheld that they were major achievements in literature.
Other publications
Throughout her writing career, Joyce has distributed her energies amongst various projects simultaneously. Her ‘On Boxing’, book-length essay published in 1987 resulted in more than one appearance mentioning on a televised boxing bout. Almost simultaneously, she submitted a mystery novel under a pseudonym to a publisher and had the delight of having it accepted. She published the work ‘Lives of the Twins’ under the title Rosamond Smith her reasons being she wanted a fresh reading and to escape from her own identity. Although she used the pseudonym repeatedly on numerous other books, she went back to using her original name on her ‘My Heart Laid Bare’ publication, wherein she explores morality during the 1920s.
Other forms of Oates’s works also address human’s darker sides. Most critics feel her short fiction, for which she’s received the O. Henry Special Award twice for Continuing Achievement, best show her main themes. Collections such as the 1974 publication ‘By the North Gate; Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?: Stories of Young America’; 1980 publication ‘The Lamb of Abyssalia)’; and the 1986 publication ‘Raven’s Wing’ has pieces that emphasis on abusive and violent relationships between men & women.
Later Publications
Some of Oates’s later publications include the 1990 ‘Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart’ where she returns to her familiar themes of violence and race, the 1992 ‘Black Water’, an narration of a catastrophic encounter between a young woman and a powerful U.S. senator at a party, and the 1993 ‘Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang’, which narrates the destructive doings of a gang of teenage girls, as well as several published and produced plays in the 1990s.
Oates published her twenty-ninth novel in 1999 called ‘Broke Heart Blues’. Her other publications included ‘Blonde’ (2000), based on Marilyn Monroe (an actress) life. It was a National Book Award finalist for fiction. Also published include ‘Getting to Know You’ (June 2000), and released a film based on her ‘Heat’ short story collection of 1992. In 2000, she published ‘Beast’ a novella and ‘Middle Age: A Romance’, a novel, which were her edited version of ‘The Best American Essays of the Century’ collection’.
Raymond Smith, Joyce Oates’s husband died in 2008 of pneumonia complications. She reflected on the time they spent together, his death as well as the aftermath in ‘A Widow’s Story’, her 2011 memoir.
Book Series In Order » Authors »
I read an excerpt from Ms. Oates latest book in the New Yorker magazine. It dealt with a mother and daughter. The daughter had an accident. Can you name the book for me.