Mysterious Press
September 2023
On Sale: August 22, 2023
528 pages ISBN: 1613164254 EAN: 9781613164259 Kindle: B09M1BKB2Y Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List
Twenty-two disturbing tales of crime and suspense from
"America's preeminent fiction writer" (New Yorker)
Two hitmen in a depressed rust belt town struggle with a
job gone wrong. A girl witnesses a horrifying accident and
carries it with her for the rest of her life. Medical
students bring a severed foot to a college party. Five-time
Pulitzer Prize finalist Joyce Carol Oates has made a career
of exploring the forbidden corners of human experience, and
the stories collected here, spanning her first three decades
as a writer, are among her most unsettling and unforgettable
works to date.
Originally published in long out-of-print volumes, these
tales have not appeared in any form this century—until
now; formally fresh and endlessly experimental, they show a
writer boldly engaging with disturbing truths and terrifying
possibilities, and deconstructing the tropes and
expectations of traditional prose writing as she does so.
But beyond their stylistic ingenuity, these are creepy,
suspenseful stories that cut straight to the bone; their
darkness will linger long after the final page is turned.
A must-read for long-time fans of Joyce Carol Oates and
an excellent introduction for the uninitiated, the twenty-
two tales included in Extenuating
Circumstances exemplify the author’s
idiosyncratic spookiness, “visceral, psychologically
involving, and socially astute" (Booklist).
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