Sometimes you read something and know it'll be with you for years to come. That's how Oates' work has been for me since my first exposure to her short stories in high school. Cardiff, By the Sea is just another monumental addition to my amazing experience with her prose. What I love about these stories is they are uncomfortable. Oates' is never one to shy from the painful and each of these stories deal heavily with trauma. The rawness of her words, the anguish of the characters, the starkness of the settings, all of these combine to create stories that are haunting, heavy, and full of impact.

Each of the four novellas in this collection bring something different to the table. "Cardiff, by the Sea" is horrific and nightmarish with a look at how we forget in order to move on in life. "Miao Dao" deals with loneliness, isolation, and the pain of being left behind but also finding your own strength and hope to move forward. "Phan-tomwise: 1972" challenges the idea of what love is and how we define it for ourselves. And the last, "The Surviving Child", looks at consequences and ripple effect our decisions can have even after death.

The wonderful thing to me is that I can take those things from these stories and others can see something totally different. That's what the work of the masters does! I cannot pick a favorite either as I feel that each has left a distinct mark on me as both a reader and writer. I wholeheartedly recommend this collection to any reader.

Note: I received a free electronic edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank them, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to do so.

Cardiff, By the Sea is a collection of four new Joyce Carol Oates novellas. While classified as suspense on the cover, there is absolutely an element of horror to these as well, a discomforting creeping sense of dread in each story.

Oates once again expertly explores the complicated and complex realities of life as a woman, whether it is a young woman's fear of her changing body and the effect it has on the men around her, or the authority a male professor can wield over a female student. Oates also plays with the effect of the past on the present, especially how the past still has the power to haunt and hurt.

I love Oates' writing, but I wasn't as in love with this collection as I had hoped I would be. Every story was strong and gripping, but then the endings left me feeling unsatisfied or confused. The story "Miao Dao" is the only one that was full of twists and turns and still managed to leave me feeling like I understood. This uncertainity may very well be the point of the collection, or I may just be the only one who was left confused, but I definitely prefer other Oates' stories I have read. This is absolutely an incredibly well written read, just not my favorite.

I am a new reader to Joyce Carol Oakes. Although I have been aware of her huge following for years, I just recently read her latest novel, Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.: A Novel. That book left me underwhelmed at the ending. I felt that she abandoned her characters with lame closures—those same characters that she had spent 800 pages developing. For this reason, I wanted to read Cardiff, By the Sea to see if I had unfairly judged her.
Cardiff, By the Sea is a collection of four novellas, all featuring troubled female characters in life-changing circumstances. Oakes strong suit is her character development. Each of the protagonists in these stories vibrate with tension and anxieties. All are lonely, apprehensive, and naïve. The males are predatory, self-centered, manipulative, and creepy. The four stories have a certain ghoulishness to them, although some of the themes are reminiscent of other works. The two spinster Aunts in “Cardiff, By the Sea”, the title story, are particularly familiar and in a macabre way, comic. The premise behind the third story, “Phantomwise: 1972”, is the college student/professor power play gone bad. My favorite was “The Surviving Child” which to me was the most suspenseful.
This was a good read for October, when we should all have a little suspense to get us in the mood for Halloween. My thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for an Advance Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Four horror novellas in one beautifully narrated audiobook. The first two novellas didn’t grab my attention as much as the second two however they were all well written with a solid plot line and intertwined with each other. I did not find them more scary as more so more gory but I do recommend. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I absolutely adore Joyce Carol Oates and her way of making real life tragedies terrifying. Her stories, especially her short stories, are so magnificent to read or listen to. While they tend to have just a pinch of supernatural, the truly creepy aspects of her writing bring to life things that happen to so many people, on a daily basis. She is one of the few writers who can make every day things scary, but in such a beautifully written way.

When I saw this book on NetGalley, I was SO glad, I immediately requested it ... and was so excited when I got an ARC! Joyce Carol Oates is one of my favorite authors; my favorite books of hers are Bellefleur and The Accursed, but I also loved A Bloodsmoor Romance or Blond!

In Cardiff, by the Sea, the reader gets back to Oates' writing-style: dense but great, immersive. It won't be read in a day or two: you have to soak in it and it gets to you. You start, you think you won't get in easily, and then, there you are and you're trapped in the story: you want to know!

Before writing about each story individually, I have to say each one is clever and each ending is striking. That's also what I really like in Oates' stories, and what I look for in short stories: I want to remember it and to be left gaping at the end of it!
The subjects broached are often hard, and imply violence of some sort. Each one focuses on a woman: something happens to her and the story unfolds from there. That's also what I love about Oates - but I guess you understood I practically love everything about her books!
Finally, every story in this book is unsettling: what is real? what is imagination? is the narrator reliable? is it really happening? what is really happening? I loved that, because it helped provide these surprising endings!

- "Cardiff, by the Sea"
This story deals with family and adoption. I think I never read a book/story about this topic in particular. It was both striking and ... deeply sad. The narrator, Ellen, can't help but think she wasn't wanted by her biological parents, and that her adoptive parents kind of think they "bought" her: she has to be grateful and can't go against the grain, she has to be just as her parents want her to be. So, she has no anchor and doesn't feel like she belongs anywhere. Until something happens: her biological grandmother dies and Ellen is in the will. From there, she'll have to decide if she wants to connect with her biological family or if she'd rather not.
As I said before, the reader can't be sure if the narrator is reliable - we're in a third person narrative, but the point of view is internal - and so he tries to guess what's truth and what's just speculations. I loved this treasure hunt! I had multiple theories, and nothing says which one is the best... or which one is the right one! Because, yes, there is something to discover there for Ellen and the reader, a shameful family secret nobody told her.
Of course, this story deals with bonds, family and what it means, trauma - I thought the way of showing how Ellen was traumatised was great because it was subtle -, adoption and how the child involves can live the situation. Really gripping at some point!

- "Miao Dao"
This one gets a little "fantastique", a little paranormal, if the reader wants to tread this path.
As her parents divorce, a little girl is drawn to cats. I don't want to say too much but this story deals with the relationship of this girl with her father and with men in her mother's life. She wanted her mother to be happy.
This story also deals with violence, but I can't say too much about it without spoiling it. It's not physical violence, but psychological. Nearly harrassment at some point. Because it also deals with growing-up, puberty, how the body and the eyes on it change, mostly on the female body. How the girl feels shame because of these changes, how she feels unloved and dirty because of it... mostly because of others, what they might think, how they speak of this body or look at it.
The ending was great!! I really didn't expect it!!

- "Phantomwise 1972"
This one follows a young woman, Alyce, in university. In the opening scene, the reader gets to understand that she is a brilliant student and that she has an affair with one of her professors. She encounters an old poet and her life changes.
I particularly loved this story, even if it was as unsettling as the other ones. It deals with heavy topics and with the relationship that grows between two people from different generations.
The ending completely got me by surprise, I wasn't expecting this AT ALL!

- "The Surviving Child"
This last story felt, to me, like a mix between The Turn of the Screw and Rebecca!
Elisabeth gets to meet the surviving child of her fiancé: Stefan, whose mother killed herself and her daughter while sparing his life for no apparent reason. Elisabeth wants to get accepted by this child while being slowly interested in his mother's life, the great poet N.K.
I loved that this story played even more on the paranormal/fantastique vibe! The reader can choose to believe that there is something paranormal in all that, or that it is just normal stuff.
Once more, the author deals with violence here: the act of the mother, of course, but also something else I can't write because it is a spoiler! It also deals with female writers and the way they are portrayed, mental health and how it is "glamourized" sometimes when it is really such a pain to live through.
I won't say I guessed the ending but I was on the right track!


So, I really loved this book! Took me a while, but I got immersed and I should definitely read Oates at least once a year! She's clearly one of the greatest!

Cardiff, by the Sea by Joyce Carol Oates is an anthology of four novellas.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Grove Atlantic (Mysterious Press), and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.


My Synopsis and Opinions:   

I will break my thoughts down into the four novellas.

Cardiff By the Sea - Clare was adopted when she was a toddler, and was never interested in anyone but her adoptive parents.  But a phone call from a lawyer in Cardiff Maine, changes all that.  Her "grandmother" has passed away, and she is the beneficiary of a house and some land.  She has aunts who want to get to know her.  Clare decides she wants to know them as well, but what she discovers about her past may not be what she had in mind.   I admit to struggling with the length and prose of this story, although the premise was sound.  It was a little boring. (2 stars)

Miao Dao - Mia  is a rather lonely  young girl who is adjusting to her parents divorce and her mother's dating.  She adopts a feral cat who becomes rather protective.  This was a rather dark story, but I did enjoy the ending. (3 stars)

Phantomwise 1972 -  Alyce, a shy college student, gets pregnant but is unsure she should even tell the father, who is suddenly ignoring her.  An older professor thinks he has a solution to her problem.  Another rather dark tale with a rather surprising ending.  It was okay. (3 stars)

The Surviving Child - Elisabeth is almost 20 years younger than Alexander, but thrilled when the wealthy aristocrat asks her to marry him.  His first wife, a renowned poet, killed herself and her daughter 3 years ago.  Stefan, their son, was spared, and he is now 10. Elisabeth is living in the dead poet's shadow, and struggling to understand both the boy and her husband, not to mention the woman who came before her.  This one I really enjoyed. (5 stars)


Overall, I enjoyed the plots of  all of these stories.  All of them feature a woman protagonist, and most have a dominant/abusive male figure.   They are all dark, depressing tales.  Although her prose is good, it took me a while to get into her writing style.  I will probably be in the minority as I know this author is very popular, and I know her literary prose is supposedly one of the best.  Perhaps I picked the wrong book to be introduced to her work.  I think I might try a full-length novel next time.

I've never read Joyce Carol Oates before, though I certainly was familiar with her name. I was really excited to read these short stories and wow, what an experience! The way they were written is unlike anything else I have read. In each story I was sucked in, completely engrossed, and then taken aback abruptly by the ending. This happened four times in a row! I'm so glad I had the opportunity to dive into the twisted worlds she creates.

“Cardiff, by the Sea” is my very first read by the celebrated contemporary American author Joyce Carol Oates. And it’s the perfect time of year to dig into this collection of four, suspenseful novellas. (Publishers Weekly even calls Oates the “grand mistress of ghoulishness.")

Each story features a teen or young woman at the center who must battle with threats (mostly of the opposite sex). There’s bullying, sexual abuse, exploitation and murder (oh my). And each ending leaves me wanting to talk another reader to determine if I think happened really happened. These psychological thriller essays are perfect book for a book club!

I recommend these spooky stories whether or not you’re an avid reader of Oates or not. She’s an award-winning author for a reason.

Joyce Carol Oates returns to the literary scene with a collection of four novellas, including the titular story Cardiff, by the Sea.

Each story from this prolific and critically acclaimed author has similar thematic elements, primarily the damage men inflict on women.

In the first novella, Cardiff, by the Sea, Oates creates a dreamlike experience for the reader.

A young adopted woman answers her phone one day to discover her unknown biological grandmother has died and left her a family home in Maine.

Knowing nothing about her biological family, Clare sets out to investigate two great-aunts and an uncle—the only relatives she has left—and perhaps answer the question of why she was given away as a three-year-old, not as an infant as one might expect.

She arrives in Cardiff, Maine, to find herself in a nightmare.

The aunts are chaotic and cruel to each other. Trading insults, they dominate the scene. Clare, unused to anyone fussing over her, isn’t sure she’s made the right choice to stay with these strangers. “Both great-aunts are staring at her avidly. Hungrily.”

Things go from bad to worse when her uncle appears the next morning at the breakfast table. “He is surly-mouthed, ungenerous.” His presence does nothing to improve the situation.

“Clare has the idea that the elderly great-aunts are deliberately testing their nephew’s patience with their banter, under the guise of being friendly and protective.”

Clare’s experiences become more and more surreal and dangerous. Is she being poisoned? Is she devolving psychologically? Or is this a classic horror story that Clare cannot survive?

And what really happened the night her parents and siblings died? The resolution may leave some readers frustrated, but others will embrace the ambiguity.

The second novella, Miao Dao, opens with 12-year-old Mia facing her mother’s depression after her father moves out of their home. “Her father (who’d been away for twelve days, traveling on business, she’d been told) was moving permanently out of the house, moving out of the family. But why?”

Desperate for companionship, Mia turns to the abandoned cats that live in an undeveloped plot of land nearby. “Mia could not remember when she’d first learned of the ‘wild kitties’ in the vacant lot beside their house.”

Unable to build connections with school friends and bullied by the boys, “[i]t had become Mia’s secret, stopping to visit the feral cats on her way home from school.”

Mia turns more and more to the cats for succor as her mother starts dating again, bringing the brutish Pharis Locke into her daughter’s life and home.

Mia adopts a kitten to fill the empty places left behind by an absent father and a self-absorbed mother.

But, as with all good horror stories, reality begins to shift. A murder. Rumors of a violent creature attacking unruly boys. Shadowed figures in alleyways.

Mia’s world becomes dark, such as the moment when she wakes and finds in “the air about the bed, a smell of wet earth, rotted leaves and grass, something dark and viscous, like blood.”

Entangled throughout it all is the behavior of the new stepfather toward his adolescent stepdaughter. Oates explores the ability of some men to hide their true natures for finite periods of time. Pharis Locke finally shows who he really is only after cementing his place in the family.

The ending is less ambiguous than that of Cardiff, but it still retains a sense of the dreamlike quality established in the opening novella.

In Phantomwise: 1972, Oates investigates a variety of ways that men can damage women: manipulation, deceit, power differentials.

Alyce is a student at university when she starts up a relationship with a young instructor. He uses his position to control her, and Alyce soon finds herself in an untenable position. “Though her body tensed against him, unmistakably. Stiffening in sheer physical panic, dread. Another man, a truer lover, would have relented, drawn away.”

Unable to break the affair off, but dreading its continuation, Alyce feels trapped by her gender, age, and circumstances.

“And then Roland B___ interceded in her life.” And an unlikely “friendship” with a visiting poet offers her an out.

But do Roland’s feelings for Alyce only create another prison?

Oates continues to investigate the physical side of male power over women, their bodies, their ability to reproduce, and their strength for inflicting violence.

The final novella, The Surviving Child, returns us to the more surreal, horror story style established with Cardiff, by the Sea.

Elisabeth marries a man whose previous wife killed herself and the couple’s young daughter. This in turn, makes Elisabeth the stepmother to the surviving child, Stefan.

He is a strange and reclusive boy, and Elisabeth does what she can to bridge the gap between her and her young stepson, a child she sees as deeply damaged. “Those wary, watchful eyes. How like a fledgling bird in its nest Stefan is, prepared to cringe at a gliding shadow—a parent bird, or a predator that will tear him to pieces?”

She feels compelled to protect him. “As sharp as a sliver of glass piercing her heart comes the thought—I will love him. I will save him. I am the one.”

As Elisabeth becomes entrenched in her new family, she discovers that her husband may not be the man she thought he was.

In this final novella, Oates returns us once more to the idea that a man can hide his true self for short periods of time when it suits his purpose, but not forever.

Oates weaves fantasy, horror, and the macabre throughout each of the stories, providing an investigation into the many ways that women are terrorized simply for their gender.

Using her remarkable, literary voice to investigate the psychological experiences of victims, Oates requires that we willingly suspend our disbelief and reject realism as a means to identify societal truths.

A collection of four stories - all mystery, suspense genre and all very emotional, a couple of very tense stories.

Ranging from an unexpected inheritance and with it an unexpected turbulent past, covered with intrigue and twittering aunts who cover a good deal of information under misinformation and seemingly mindless blabber.
A student who falls pregnant for her Professor and then a young boy who survives his mothers suicide and murder of a sister and a friendless girl only befriended by a cat hounded by a step father whose interest isn't healthy and a mother whose loyalties are torn.

They were not calming stories to read right now, and right now I need something less somber.

They were good stories very well told, not their fault that my mood is awry.

I don't think you could go wrong reading anything by Joyce Carol Oats. The very feel of the stories; somehow you always know something isn't right. My favorite story was the longest and the first. A young woman finds out that her birth grandmother, whom she has no memory of meeting, has left her land in her will. She has to return to learn about the past she has blocked out of her mind. I think my favorite part would be the hectic, Alice in Wonderland style dialogue of her new found aunts. They talk over and through each other in a head-sinning way, but give away more than she may think.

The second story, was my second favorite. A lonely, abused child and a feral, protective cat. What could happen? The third story breaks the pattern. It's not my third favorite. The ending redeemed it, but I slogged through the hard to look at story of a woman and her professors. Strangely, the last story was one I liked when I read it but it doesn't stay with me. Overall, I liked the gothic feel of the first story the most, but they all had a strong voice and a definite theme running through them. Has it ever been safe to be young and female?

This is my first Joyce Carol Oates - I thought it about time to jump on the bandwagon and these short novellas seemed a good way to start. First I have to say her writing is beautiful. Regardless of the subject matter there is a soft musical quality in the words. It's a quietness that pulls you in closer to the words, making you feel them just a bit more. Personally I'm not sure that I agree with other readers that shelve this as horror, and even suspenseful I'm not sure about. Or maybe suspenseful fits because they are slow burning stories, but the emotion I felt most strongly was uncomfortable. The beautiful writing made me uncomfortable because I knew it was juxtaposed to the story content. I should have been relishing those beautiful words but I couldn't quite relax enough because I was leery of where the plot was going. Same thing with the pacing. Did I want it to go faster or slower? I was never really sure. Did I want to race to get to something disturbing or did I want to read slowly and maybe never reach that point. It was such an uncomfortable feeling. A bit haunting. And isn't this really the best fiction out there? The reads that make us question everything and keep us off kilter and out of our comfort zones? I think so.

Spooky and sinister, this was the perfect October/fall read and a great introduction to Joyce Carol Oates. Each novella was just the right length, and each story had a great mix of mystery and menace — sometimes at the hands of physical people (namely toxic men) and sometimes, maybe, perhaps something supernatural. These books have great atmospheres and settings — creaky New England houses, windswept landscapes, abandoned woody lots, musty college buildings. The collection is not so much scary as deeply unsettling and because of that the chill of these stories lingers.

it could be better, but okay

As a short-lived fan of Joyce Carol Oates, I was very happy to be able to read this book through Natgalley. There are four suspense / mystery novels that I liked, but I didn't think they were super good, which was a little disappointing because I was loving everything I read of this woman.

The first story, Cardiff, by the Sea, occupies almost half of the book (some 40%), and we accompany Clare, who gets a call from a lawyer saying that she inherited her biological grandmother's properties . As Clare did not know her birth parents and was adopted very early, she decides to go and see the inheritance to find out more about her fathers. Then she meets two aunts (a strange and less witchlike version of Hilda and Zelda Spellman) and an uncle who is also strange and some other strange people, in addition to finding out what happened to her family and why she hid in a cupboard under the sink when she was small.

In the second, Miao Dao, we see Mia, a girl who plays with the wild kittens and befriends one of them. And then strange things are going to happen.

In the third, Phantomwise, Alyce gets involved with two professors from her university and strange things happen.

And in the last, The Surviving Child, we have Elisabeth, the new wife of Alexander, Stefan's father, the surviving child of his mother, a famous poet who killed his daughter and then committed suicide. And then you know: strange things will happen.

The best novels are the first two. I really liked the feeling of strangeness of the first, and I loved the ending, which leaves a huge doubt of what happened; and the second is very good overall. The third started well, in the middle it was very boring and dragged (it could be a little smaller, some things condensed), but the ending was very good. And the fourth was cool, but not amazing.

Not my favortie Oates' book, but I'm happy to read.

This creepy and fascinating collection of short stories is Oates at her finest. every one is thrilling and chilling-Highly recommended.

Cardiff, by the Sea was so good for my Haunting of Hill House, Ratched, Ruth Ware, B.A. Paris, The Conjuring love soul, I kept trying to slow myself down while I was reading it so that I could really savor the book. The book is a collection of novellas that are compulsively readable and definitely worth taking the time to really enjoy.

In the first book, the spotlight novella, we meet a disconnected young academic. She’s adopted and kind of a loner. Really, she just seems to lack verve for life. But, when she comes into an unexpected inheritance, she starts to learn for the first time in her life where she came from, and why she has such a hard time forming human connections.

The last three stories are just long enough to keep the ready thinking while the stories unfold in unlikely ways. Oates’ writing style is impeccable, even poetic at times. And while formal, still, someone very approachable.

If you love a good, dark, spooky tale. If you love a mystery that kind of still somewhat remains a mystery after the last page, this collection is for. Not every mystery can be quickly tied up with a bow. And sometimes, figuring out the mystery, leads to a much bigger one.

Special thanks to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for an advanced e-galley in exchange for my review. This one is out now! Perfect for curling up with under a blanket on a dark and stormy night.

What a great collection.. four novellas, suspenseful with a sense of dread, nothing bloody or gory just eerie!
Great time of year to read this!

Previously this year I also read the author’s Night.Sleep.Death.the Stars, and loved it!
I will be looking for some additional works of hers to read!

Thank you to Netgalley and and Grove Atlantic for the ARC!

This is a short story collection and also the first book I read by Joyce Carol Oates. I cannot say I disliked it, but I am not moved by this either. The writing style is impressive, the literary quality of Oates’ world is obvious and outstanding. However, I will have second thoughts on whether to read any of her books in the future and here is why: The first story in this collection is “Cardiff By the Sea” is about a young woman who finds out that she inherited the fortune of her biological grandmother and that her biological parents died in an unusual way. The suspense is very strong and keeps you reading and reading. The portrayal of the two aunts are fantastic and the atmosphere creeped me out. However, the story ended in such a rushed, vague way that it left me so dissatisfied. 2-stars!
The second story Mia Dao is about Mia who adopts a wild cat and tries to adapt into her new life as her father leaves and there is a new stepfather in the house. Again, there are vagueness in the story and I did not feel particularly connected with Mia. 3-stars!
The third story Phantomwise is the strongest one in this collection, following Alyce who gets involved with her lecturer and another old professor, only to be abused by one. The violence against women is portrayed strongly here, underlining both psychological and physical abuse. 4-stars!
The last one is The Surviving Child. The story follows a woman marrying a man whose famous poet wife committed suicide whilst killing her own daughter, too. So the guy has a surviving son and the new wife lives in the same house where the first wife killed herself. The surviving child is disturbing in a way that you feel the quality and presence of Oates. 4-stars!
All in all, Oates is a great author for sure and plays an important role in the literature world. However, I just need more from a story, more satisfaction in terms of endings.
Thanks to NetGalley and the Mysterious Press for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I have been a huge Joyce Carol Oates fan for years, and I eagerly look forward to every single one of her new releases. Cardiff, By the Sea did not disappoint. I particularly loved the suspense in Phantomwise: 1972.