Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque

I have finally finished reading Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque by Joyce Carol Oates. I've been looking forward to reading something by Oates for a while now, so I was very excited when I picked up this collection of short stories one day while perusing my local library. Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prolific writers of our time. Though very literary, she incorporates many dark elements and horror. Though she's received many prestigious literary awards, most for literary fiction and not genre fiction, I am most impressed by her Bram Stoker lifetime achievement award (because winning that award is my life goal).

I am not used to reading and reviewing short story collections. I'm definitely more of a novel/novella fan because I want to be fully engaged and emerged in what I read, and most short stories just aren't long enough to really accomplish this feeling. However, I did enjoy several parts of this collection. Haunted is a collection of 16 short stories. The first four were my favorites, and then the rest seemed to go downhill. I absolutely loved the stories "The Doll," and "The White Cat," because they both dealt with a more supernatural theme. The tone of these two stories really engaged me and kept me on the edge of my seat.

However, after the first four stories were finished, the remaining twelve left me feeling uneasy. While I love psychological horror, some of these stories, though psychological, were incredibly abstract or did not seem to have a solid point. Some seemed graphic for the sake of being edgy and shocking rather than to express an artistic desire for darkness. Some stories just tended to be too melodramatic for my taste (and I'm usually a fan of melodramatic writing).

Overall, I would suggest this book to you if you are a fan of edgy literary fiction rather than just the horror genre. The prose is clearly meant for a literary audience. While I enjoyed the first four stories, the rest of the collection dragged and was not my cup of tea, but I did enjoy some of her style. I think that in the future I will pick up an actual novel by Oates before I develop a concrete opinion on whether or not I care for her writing.