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Raven's Wing

by Joyce Carol Oates

New York: Dutton, 1985

305 pages

Dust Jacket Blurb

This new collection of stories from "the unrivaled American master of short fiction" (Greg Johnson, Atlanta Journal & Constitution) is gathered from her work of the past two years. The eighteen stories in Raven's Wing—some of novella length, some short explosive bursts of revelation, all unmistakably Oatesian—maintain the extraordinary standard Joyce Carol Oates has set for herself throughout a quarter of a century.

She continues here to explore ever more deeply the mysteries and varieties of American experience. Ms. Oates's gift for entering the consciousness of her characters has never been more transcendent. She writes of them with an intensity of feeling and an authenticity of detail that compel a new recognition: their stories, so furiously theirs, blaze up out of their ordinary existence.

Perhaps the boldest of Oates's sorties into new territory is "Golden Gloves," the story of a would-be champion boxer whose career and marriage alike fall tragically short of expectations. But singling out any one Oates story does an injustice to the others that appear alongside it. Deeper, darker, richer, it is the totality of Raven's Wing that in the end is unforgettable.

Raven's Wing
The Seasons
Nairobi
Golden Gloves
Harrow Street at Linden
Happy
Ancient Airs, Voices
Double Solitaire
Manslaughter
Little Wife
The Jesuit
The Mother
Testimony
Nuclear Holocaust
Surf City
Little Blood-Button
Baby
April

Excerpt

From "Ancient Airs, Voices"

When Mikey's mother, Helen, was much younger than he is at the time of his death, when she was in fact a slightly precocious eleven or twelve, she played at scaring herself and her girlfriends with: What is the worst thing that can happen?

Whatever they said, whatever horror (usually personal and domestic) they came up with, Helen would say, But isn't there something worse?

Yes, okay, but isn't there something worse?

Yes, but—

But—

She saw that it was more powerful to be in control of questions, not answers. What is the worst thing that can happen?

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1986, p1055
Publisher's Weekly, July 18, 1986, p81
Booklist, September 1, 1986, p31
New York Times Book Review, October 5, 1986, p9
Library Journal, October 15, 1986, p111
Washington Post Book World, November 30, 1986, p3
Books, November, 1987, p29
Observer, November 1, 1987, p27
Kliatt Young Adult Paperback Guide, January 1988, p26
Times Literary Supplement, February 19, 1988, p186

Awards

New York Times Notable Books of the Year
Prize Stories: The O Henry Awards, 1987: "Ancient Airs, Voices"
Best American Short Stories, 1985: "Raven's Wing"
Prize Stories: The O Henry Awards, 1985: "The Seasons"
Best American Short Stories, 1984: "Nairobi"

Page address:
http://jco.usfca.edu/works/stories/raven.html


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