![]() ![]() In a single phrase she reveals the secret weakness of a seemingly happy marriage when, in "The Handclasp," she describes a husband and wife as "a couple who shared all things save those things unspeakable and unshareable." In "Life After High School," two old acquaintances, meeting after 20 years, struggle to reconcile their middle-age present with their teenage past: "Their ghost selves were there-not aged, or not aged merely, but transformed, as the genes of a previous generation are transformed by the next."Īnd in the title story, when a man tries to recall a significant moment from the evening he first met his lover, he finds he cannot: "Human memory is notoriously unreliable, like film fading in amnesiac patches." Yet such a memory might help him understand his relationship with a woman who is obsessed with her sister's convicted murderer.Īs the collection progresses, Oates' mastery of the short story form is revealed through the many inventive ways that chance encounters or coincidences lead to moments of revelation or the fashioning of significance in the lives of her characters. At the same time Oates' prose often displays an aphoristic elegance. ![]() ![]() A breathless, edgy rhythm unites these stories, as if Oates' desire to bear witness can barely be contained. ![]()
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