Lovely, Dark, Deep

Lovely, Dark, Deep, Joyce Carol Oates's latest collection of stories, is Oates at her best - dark, eerie and unflinching. In "Mastiff, " a woman and a man discover themselves in an erotic bond forged out of terror and gratitude, in "Sex with Camel, " a 16 - year - old boy accompanying his grandmother to a hospital for tests realizes how deeply he loves her and how vulnerable such love makes him, in"The Disappearing, "a woman fears that her husband is "disappearing" from their life together and becomes obsessed with observing him, in "A Book of Martyrs, " the end of a pregnancy by abortion brings with it the end of a relationship, in "Roadside Shrine, Forked River, NJ" the spirit of a teenaged boy who'd died in a car crash ruminates upon his life and abrupt death, And in the title story, "Lovely, Dark & Deep, " the elderly Robert Frost is visited by an unsettling young woman interviewer who seems to know a good deal more about his life than she should.