‘Oates’s imagination is as unique, dystopian and vivid as Lewis Carroll’s’ ROSE TREMAIN 'A master storyteller' THE TIMES 'Electric' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Zero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in these arresting stories by one of America’s most acclaimed writers. A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered; diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community; a woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover; a young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as “mother.” In the collection’s longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with “drafts” of his own suicide.In these powerfully wrought stories that hold a mirror up to our time, Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism, and ever-shifting identities. Provocative and stunning, Zero-Sum reinforces Oates’s standing as a literary treasure and an artist of the mysterious interior life. ‘Alluringly dark and spiky’ NEW STATESMAN ‘Zero-Sum is brilliant – bloodied, breathless, weird’ A. K. BLAKEMORE ‘Dark, unsettling stories … There’s a disquieting violence simmering … a shrill alarm of disquiet’ DAILY MAIL ‘Oates is an inspired writer, and a formidable psychologist’ INDEPENDENT In Zero-Sum, Joyce Carol Oates once again proves why she is one of the best writers of psychological horror. This latest collection of short fiction is a chilling exploration of the human psyche, each story a testament to Oates's unique, dystopian imagination.For fans of Bruce Mcallister (The Year's Best Science Fiction), Amor Towles (Table For Two), Stephen King (The Life of Chuck), Percival L. Everett (James), and Heidi Pitlor (The Best American Short Stories 2024).HarperCollins 2023
