Joyce Carol Oates writes unforgettably disturbing stories and this collection is no exception.  The title story in particular demonstrates her ability to reveal the darkness inside us all.

Brilliant collection of newly published JCO short stories, I gasped in horror while inhaling Favoritism (only 4 swipes long on my Kindle!) and laughed non-stop through WELCOME TO FRIENDLY SKIES! I loved the symmetric pairing of Dis mem ber and Heartbreak being two different stories about a young girl enthralled with her older male cousin: Jill damaged by Rowan in the former, and then Hunt falling victim to Steff in the latter. Similarly, The Crawl Space and Great Blue Heron are both about widows, whose wholly authentic and overwhelming grief manifests itself in varied yet miraculous and diabolical ways. The Drowned Girl is about the psychological unravelling of a college student, consumed by obsession and paranoia. 

I have always marveled at Oates's ability to invoke such terror in her writing; she appears so calm in photos, she's from rural upstate New York, and lived many years in the midwest. So much of her subject matter seems ripped from tabloids, I hope the debilitating mourning she writes about so artfully here is more evidence of her mastery at research, than personal suffering.

These stories! 
I love Joyce Carol Oates. I think she's so like another of my faves, Stephen King, in that their short stories are the most remarkable works I've ever read.
I hadn't read any of these previously published works before, and really liked them all. Actually, "Heartbreak" is the best short I have read in years, and "The Drowned Girl" is one of the most haunting.
I have long admired Joyce Carol Oates, and these stories are wonderful reminders of why.