I haven't read a new Joyce Carol Oates in years, but her forthcoming (April 2008) looks interesting: Wild Nights! Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway. From Booklist's starred review: "Protean and intrepid Oates not only pays homage to five American writers by brilliantly emulating their styles, but also…plays fast and loose with biography to imagine their final days or, in the case of Emily Dickinson, resurrection. Oates is by turns mischieviously witty, superbly macabre, and exquisitely sensitive as she parlays bravado literary criticism into shivery stories that undermine iconic figures…Oates envisions [Poe] living on as a lighthouse keeper in the South Pacific…[she] is diabolical in her satirical portrait of…Mark Twain as a pedophile."
Resurrection! Pedophilia! Best of all: she didn't choose Plath.
1 comment:
Just stumbled upon your blog while researching Oates' new book and thought I'd intrude. I completely agree with your statement regarding a story on Plath, but I would've loved to read a speculative account on Bierce. There's a mystery that really can go any direction.
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