Surprisingly this is my first book by Oates I've read. And reading short stories is even more out of my comfort zone.
Each of these stories has just the right amount of suspense to make you want to curl up with blanket and hot tea during a thunderstorm with this book.

Thanks NetgGalley!

A collection of four suspense novellas by Joyce Carol Oates is the perfect way to get ready for the horror of October 2020. In the eponymous first novella, adopted academic Clare finally meets members of her biological family when her grandmother dies, leaving her property in Cardiff, Maine. As she learns more about her parents and the circumstances of her adoption, she wishes she'd remained ignorant.

Young Mia adjusts to her parents' divorce, but cannot accept her mother's new husband, an increasing threat to her safety. Her attachment to a feral cat saves her. In another story, a young undergrad, reeling from the effects of an ill-advised relationship with a TA, plunges into a bizarre relationship with a famous poet old enough to be her father. 

And in the final story, another academic gets involved with a widower, whose poet wife had gassed herself and her young daughter, leaving a scarred son that Elisabeth eventually forms an attachment to. 

These haunting stories have a dreamlike quality to them, heightening the sense of unreality. Joyce Carol Oates proves again that she is one of the greatest writers alive today. #CardiffByTheSea #NetGalley

Whenever I read a  Joyce Carol Oates book, I get a sense of something hidden just around the edges, waiting to jump out at me, but it's often more my fear of that happening than it actually happening.  Cardiff, by the Sea, is no exception.  Four stories are told in a set of atmospheric novellas tied together with several themes; literary figures (authors and poets), mold, mildew and decay, disreputable men,  father figures, upstairs or attic rooms that have mysterious connotations, and mostly, abandonment, or fear of abandonment.  

For Clare, in Cardiff, it's the thought that she has been abandoned by her birth parents. What she discovers when she inherits a house and property is far worse. She invents stories in her head, backing them up with research, the whole time forgetting what she has left behind. 

For Mia, in Miao Dao, it's not just her father who abandons her, but her fear that the feral cat she has befriended will leave and not come back.  But she finds a loyalty as fierce as her own.

Alyce, in Phantomwise, is afraid to reveal her pregnancy, for fear her (non)lover will abandon her. But her of need to be taken care of causes her to enter a relationship that she knows is wrong, and would be considered odd if revealed. But she is in more danger than she knows.

In The Surviving Child, Elisabeth marries a man whose wife commits suicide, killing her daughter in the process, while her son survives. The path to her suicide is revealed in the verse of her poems, almost like a foreshadowing. 

While JCO's books are very literary, her style is quite unique and does not make for light reading. I found these stories hard to get through because of all of the (asides), poetic interludes, and meanderings. But I will always treasure Oates for the places she allows us to go in our minds...

Cardiff, By The Sea, is suspenseful and spooky.  It details four short stories dealing with women and their decisions in life.  Thank you to Netgalley for this free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭-𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐩𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬. 𝐅𝐚𝐭, 𝐝𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐰𝐞𝐛 𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐲.

The atmosphere is always as alive as Joyce Carol Oates’s characters and it is much the same in 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧, 𝘉𝘺 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘢. The aunts- ‘fat, dimpled spiders lurking’ sent chills up and down my spine because there is always the suggestion of a threat in the sentences, by deftly describing the people. In the title story, when an ‘academic in Pennsylvania’ (Claire) discovers she, an adoptee, has inherited a house in Cardiff, Maine it sets off fireworks of emotions. Someone cared enough about her, she who was discarded and unwanted by her unknown, biological parents, to put her in a will. The shock of it, the possibility… but she cannot imagine the nightmare that awaits her, the horror of the past, nor the peculiar, eccentric family hungry for her arrival. Do they long to welcome her into their warm arms or do they have something far more sinister planned? I could smell the house as I read the story and feel her struggle between passivity and resistance. Clare is a capable, intelligent woman who has had little thought of her origins or ancestry but suddenly feels content to slip into the ‘childish comfort in sleepiness’ despite her fears, the alarms beneath her skin once she is within the walls of her family home. What will she discover? What bones, family skeletons await?

𝘔𝘪𝘢 𝘋𝘢𝘰: The ground shifts beneath twelve-year-old Mia’s feet when her father leaves the family. Warmth, comfort and love is found with ‘wild kitties’ , a feral colony of cats living on a vacant lot next to her family home. Through them she learns the art of ‘hiding in plain sight’, a necessary strategy for surviving school and the tortuous realities of the body’s physical maturity. Secrets bloom inside of her, secrets from her mother who concerns herself more with her little brothers and their pain over father’s abandonment. Aching with loneliness, hurt by her father’s departure, she craves connection. A new man enters Mia’s mother’s heart, lifting the cloud of bitterness and misery, but for Mia it is a’ stricken kitten’ that claws its way into hers. The furry creature shields her from every threat, particularly the violence of the male species, sleeping beside her every night so Mia never feels alone. Miao Dao (the kitty) and the new man are not friends… not all animals, nor people, can be domesticated. Resentment mounts, but will it all end in blood?

𝘗𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘦: 1972 That ‘he’ noticed her leaves nineteen-year-old Alyce exhilarated. Through a slow, smooth seduction, her life will finally begin and her lover is not Philosophy 101, as all the other students could attest too. It is charming Simon. How easy love, desire can slip into shame. She didn’t know love would be like this, not as tender as she had imagined. Impregnated and terrified of what to do next, salvation arrives in the form of a true gentleman, visiting professor and acclaimed poet- as she begs, “God help me. Even if You don’t love me”, he throws her a lifeline. But is the old bachelor too late? A tale of haunted hearts and brutality.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 is lucky to have slipped out of the hands of death, a delicately boned, beautiful boy of ten. Though he is wounded and disturbed by his mother’s suicide and murder of his little sister, Elisabeth (his father’s fiancé) longs to warm the boy’s cold hands and fill his broken, empty heart upon their first meeting. Not a trace of her fiancé’s dead wife (N.K.-the famous poet) remains, unless you account for the boy. Surely this should give her comfort moving into the home of Alexander Hendrick, ‘distinguished man and director of a wealthy arts foundation”. Older, formidable, the exact type of man she has been longing for since her youth, ‘who could intimidate her and yet make her laugh.’ Now she is his wife, being there, in this house where N.K. wrote ‘her most savage poems’ unsettles her. Soon, the garage, the scene of untold horror and brutality carried out by N.K.’s very own hands lures Elisabeth. In truth lies the darkness of one’s heart and the dead wife is alive in the mysteries.

I came to the end wanting to read more stories. My experience reading this book of four novellas is akin to hiding in a closet while bad things happen. The main characters are always the one’s caught suspended in web’s spun by those with darker souls. Their desires, dreams, and naiveté always cost them a pond of flesh because despite one’s goodness the world is full of sharp teeth, even for kind, sweet people who deserve better. Deserve, what a loaded word. I’m a huge fan of Oates’s work, no one writes like her! No matter how serene the surroundings may be, she is aware of the freshly disturbed earth… Read it, yes!

Publication Date: October 6, 2020

Grove Atlantic

Genre: Suspense
Publisher: Grove Atlantic/Mysterious Press
Publication Date: October 6, 2020

How does a reviewer review anything written by the living legend, Joyce Carol Oates?  Is there any new critique one can possibly add? It is fair to say that Oates is one of the great writers of our time. For decades, she has written in a variety of styles and genres. Particularly effective are her portrayals of violence and evil in modern society. She is a master storyteller in all genres: “We Were the Mulvaneys,” is the family saga that explores its breakdown, “Blonde,” is the ultimate study of Marilyn Monroe written as a bio-fiction, or in “The Accursed” she is at her gothic best.  “Cardiff, by the Sea” consists of four previously unpublished novellas. (I am interested in learning when the author wrote these stories). In these four, we get a good understanding as to why she has been dubbed the “grand mistress of ghoulishness.”  Or her more personal nickname of, “Princeton’s Dark Lady of Fiction.”  
Oates’ protagonists are usually feminine as they are in this book. The title novella, “Cardiff, by the Sea,” which is my favorite in the collection, reads like a fever dream. A young woman in academia, who was adopted at the age of two, receives a phone call from a lawyer concerning her birth family. She inherited a house in Cardiff, Maine from her biological grandmother whom she has never heard of before. She travels to Maine and for the first time and meets her great-aunts and their nephew who is her uncle.  Let the terror begin. The aunts in this short reminded me of the eccentric aunts in the black and white Cary Grant movie, “Arsenic and Old Lace.” The aunts in the film are portrayed as sweet loving old ladies who just happen to poison lonely men to put them out of their misery. Also, the psychopath uncle from the old movie reminds me of the uncle here in Oates’ imagination. In “Cardiff” the aunts speak so rapidly, without a breath in between words, that the young woman as well as the reader can get a headache. I believe that this is a trick by the author to confuse us. No one is poisoned in the novella but this is best that I can do to get my point across without spoilers. However, I can share, while the young woman stays with her biological family she remembers her traumatic early childhood. These memories are written in a manner that reads as if they are outbursts from the young woman’s unconscious.  She, nor the reader, is ever sure if they are real or fake memories. Either way, they are blood curdling scary. 

My least favorite and the most bizarre in the collection is “Miao Dao.” The story centers on a young teenage girl who’s one of the first in her class to reach puberty. Bad things have been happening to her as she has begun to mature. Unfortunately, her new breasts make her a target for boys who like to bully by “accidentally” bumping into her while making lewd remarks.  Simultaneously her parents divorce and she now lives with a lecherous stepfather.  She shuts down from all in her life and becomes almost a hermit.  Her only friends are a pack of feral cats living in her neighborhood. Oates does such a good job of making us feel the girl’s loneliness, and how these cats become her lifeline.  She has taken to sneaking out at night and sleeping with them. And, here is where things get weird. Her new friends become her fierce protectors. One of them grows large and turns into a ferocious cat that may or may not have killed one of the boys who tormented her.  In this novella, the famous author reminds me of a modern day Kafka. In his novella, “The Metamorphosis,” did the salesman really turn into a bug, or was his transformation a psychological interpretation of his feelings towards his family and his life. In a way, the same could be said here. Did the cat magically grow strong enough to become able to kill a human or is Oates using its transformation as an analysis of her character?  On the other hand, is her character the actual killer and there is nothing mystical at all going on?  Damn, Oates is good. The reason I was a bit disappointed in “Miao” is that the teen is written more like a girl obsessed with feral cats than a girl expressing her feelings through them. Still, the author gets her point across.

The other two stories revolve around plotlines that Oates has looked at before. One is about a female student who is obsessed with her older professor including all the crap that goes into such a relationship. The other explores motherhood when a female poet has a fatal attraction to a man whom she marries. They are both top quality reads and as always between the horrors, Oates makes you think about aggression against women by the hands of men. “Cardiff” carefully goes back and forth from psychological suspense and supernatural events, but the tales are always creepy.  I do not believe that I have ever not recommended a book by my favorite author.  This one is no different. As usual, when reading, “Princeton’s Dark Lady of  Fiction” you will probably end up having nightmares.

Beautifully written suspense like only Joyce Carol Oates can. 4 novellas in this book that will send shivers up your spine. A quick read that is hard to put down. Put this one on your Halloween list and make sure you turn down the lights.

I really wanted to like this. But I just couldn't connect with the writing style. I feel like this is more of a personal thing, rather than a book thing.

Joyce Carol Oates' new book contains four novellas of suspense with young female protagonists. 

In Cardiff, By the Sea, a young academic who was adopted as a child learns she has inherited property on the rugged coast of Maine from a paternal grandmother she never knew she had. Hasn't she always wondered about her biological parents/family and why she was put up for adoption at nearly three-years-of-age? Be careful what you wish for! 

In Miao Dao, a twelve-year-old girl struggles with her changing body, school bullies and her dysfunctional family life. Her only friends seem to be a pack of feral cats living in a densely-overgrown cul-de-sac in her neighborhood--particularly one pure white cat she names Miao Dao who becomes quite devoted to the girl. But can feral cats ever be tamed?

In Phantomwise: 1972, a college student begins an affair with one of her professors that leads her into danger.

In The Surviving Child, a young woman marries a wealthy older man whose first wife, a renowned poet, committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, killing their daughter but sparing their son. The family home on Cape Cod seems to be haunted by a malevolent presence that is affecting the new wife's happiness. Or is she imagining it all? 

These four novellas were all very effectively written with just the right amount of scary atmosphere. The characters were well drawn and in the span of each story, I came to care about each young woman and the situations they were facing. 

I received an arc of this new book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Many thanks!

Utterly creepy , with such a sense of foreboding; always a joy to return to a story by Joyce Carol Oates. These stories all deal with predatory males, so just be warned if that’s a trigger for you. But wow. As you read the stories, there’s such a sense of unease; I constantly wanted to tell the characters “STOP! Don’t do it!”

Each of these four novellas is suspenseful and gripping. I was eager to return to reading them every night.

These four short stories are the first works I've read of Joyce Carol Oates.  I like reading short stories because I can usually finish a story in one sitting, which is satisfying to know the end of the story right away. I also like the way Joyce Carol Oates writes.  I'm not sure how to describe it.  Choppy sentences.  Dialog without the "he said," or "she answered," included.  The writing definitely appealed to me because it is so different from most authors.  I recommend this volume for book clubs who don't normally read short stories and/or enjoy Joyce Carol Oates or want to be introduced to her.

Thematically, the four stories collected here all deal with different types of predatory men, and the ways in which they corrupt or control women. I've discovered Oates, an exceptionally prolific writer, this year, but after two massive novels, these were my first exposure to her short(er) form writing, and I'm glad to see that she apparently excels here, too. I just love the crisp yet hauntingly raw and often uncomfortably intense way she writes about feminist issues. These novellas didn't only go well together thematically, but they also had a very uncanny atmosphere in common, without it ever feeling recycled—each story managed to evoke its own special kind of oppressive, quiet dread. A rounded up 3.5 stars!

Cardiff, By The Sea · ★★★
An art historian who'd been adopted when she was barely three years old receives a call saying that her biological grandmother has left her a bequest. She travels to Cardiff, Maine, to sort things out, but the past and layers of hidden trauma she dredges up in the process make her wish she'd never answered the phone. This titular story makes up almost half of the collection, and while I loved the beginning, it sort of lost me the further we went along. It is reasonably suspenseful and gave me some strong Shirley Jackson vibes in that there is a vague but strong sense of distress permeating the narrative, but the bickering great-aunts irritated the hell out of me and drained the story of all enjoyment whenever they were in a scene. Despite being someone who enjoys open endings, the utter lack of resolution left me dissatisfied; maybe it went over my head.

Miao Dao · ★★★★½
Mia, a lonely pubescent girl dealing with her parents' divorce, her mother's new marriage, and school boys bullying her for her changing body, finds some comfort in visiting and putting out food for a colony of feral cats in her neighborhood. When the colony gets eradicated by the department of public health, she rescues a kitten, which becomes her protector from the increasing predatory male aggression she faces. I read this story in one sitting with my own two kittens purring on me, and I just wanted to kiss them all over, and felt the silly need to tell them that I'd protect them from all harm; I love the way Oates writes about kitties, she's a cat lady after my own heart! There were parts in this story—which is essentially about the power and control men enact upon women and other living beings—that were hard to read, but the ending was chillingly satisfying while also remaining utterly ambiguous in a way that I loved.

Phantomwise: 1972 · ★★★★
A smart but shy college student has an affair with a professor, and gets pregnant. Distraught at her lack of options, she decides to confront the state she finds herself in with denial, and welcomes it when a distinguished older professor takes her under her wing as his archivist, even though he clearly has more in mind. Yet another tale about the type of control men in powerful positions can exert over women that still resonates today, even though life on a college campus in the early 70's was quite different, as was the state of women's reproductive rights. Considering this, I felt more sympathy for the somewhat helpless protagonist than I would've felt if this tale had been set in contemporary times. The line between reality and nightmare is thin here, and the ending was eerie and heartbreaking.

The Surviving Child · ★★★½
A famous feminist poet killed herself and her daughter, leaving no suicide note, and evidently decided to spare her eldest son from the same fate. A couple years later, the surviving child's father remarries and moves the young wife into the house where the tragedy happened. She desperately wants to connect with the shy, elusive child, but finds herself haunted by his dead mother's poetry. This story had something almost archetypal about it—Bluebeard comes to mind. I found it predictable (or maybe inevitable is the better word), which however doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy the story's unfolding. Out of the four included, it's the one with the most obvious supernatural influence.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers and the author for this GEM! Oh wow, this book had me on edge from the beginning of each Novella. There are 4 short stories in this book, and I never would’ve thought that I would love all 4 of these short stories. I have never read a book by this author and I am not disappointed.

Each and every single short story is very different, it feels like if there are 4 very different authors in this, but its not, its all one person, she is a genius. The first Cadiff by the sea, is about this young woman named Clare, who is adopted, and out of nowhere her grandmother’s attorney reaches out to her to let her know that her other family is looking for her and she has inherited something, and the things she uncovers, about her family, and why she was set up to be adopted had my jaw on the floor.

Miao Dao, this one is about Mia, a young girl, going through divorce, and feeling very unsafe in her new world, then she discovers there is an alley way with these feral cats, she starts to feed them, but then something happens, one of the cats becomes very close to her, and it protects her, in ways that it took all the way towards the end of this novella, to realize that there is more going on here than the cat protecting her, I was SHOOK.

Phantomwise, this title was a little confusing for me, but at the end I realized what it meant, and this novella really made me very sad. This 19 year old girl names Alyce, is in college, she falls in love with a professor, whose DOUCHE, and I won’t give too much away, but lets say she gets into a little bit of trouble with this first professor, and then she meets the second one whose very much like her, but he is a lot older, he’s a poet, just like her, and he is willing to solve all of her problems for her, but towards the end things change and drastically, I didn’t expect that ending at all.

Finally, The Surviving Child, Stefan is the surviving child, which is a strong title for Elisabeth to even take in, who’s his new stepmother. Stefan was almost killed by his own mother who is a famous poet, but the mystery is “why kill one kid and save the other?” Stefans mother has been battling a lot of issues, and being married to his dad was not easy, this book was so trippy and crazy, it was very short, but was that house haunted?? I sure think it was, lol, you must read this book.

All of these short novels are so atmospheric, feel so true to human nature, yet are so perfect at building psychological terror that I was aware of my increased heart rate when nearing the end of each of them. Great reading experience thanks to an exceptional author.

Thanks to NetGalley and Mysterious Press for the ARC to read and review.

What’s real, what’s supernatural? Oates latest book will make it hard for the reader to discern between the two. In these four unpublished novellas, Oates demonstrates her mastery at getting into the heads of her characters. I think actual chill went up my spine as I read the stories about women facing danger. This was especially true of “Miao Dao” in which a lonely young girl befriends a feral cat.

What can I say that will do these stories justice?  This is a book of 4 novellas/short stories as only JCO is able to do.  Each story is better than the rest!

My thanks to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for this advanced readers copy.  This book is due to release on October 6, 2020.

4 stars / This review will be posted at BookwormishMe.com on 24 October 2020. 


Joyce Carol Oates has given us another collection of short stories, or novellas. Each has its own elements of suspense, some frightening, some not so much. I truly enjoy the short story format, as it’s nearly possible to finish an entire “book” in an evening. Of the four, I must say that Miao Dao was my favorite. Perhaps it’s because I currently am trying to befriend my own feral cats. 

The title of the book refers to the first novella. In it, a young woman receives a phone call that leads her to find her biological family, but not in the best way. In the town Cardiff, By the Sea, she has inherited the family home. When she makes the trip from her home in Pennsylvania to Maine, she finds that Cardiff can be a little unsettling, as is the story of her biological family. Because she is a researcher, she feels the need to get to the bottom of her history. But sometimes, some things are better left unlearned.

Miao Dao finds a young girl named Mia in the midst of puberty and family upheaval. When she finds a feral kitten in the vacant lot next to her home, she sneaks the kitten into the house. Raising the kitten, which she names Miao Dao, she feels one with it, and feels it is the closest thing to family that she has, in spite of living with her mother. Things start to go awry when her mother has a new boyfriend. Plus, the boys at school become obsessed with girls and torment Mia. Will Miao Dao be her savior?

A young female literature student befriends a visiting professor, becoming his archive assistant. Another professor seduces the student but then quickly acts as though nothing has happened. When things go horribly wrong in the student’s life, the visiting professor professes his true feelings to make the student his companion. She finds a book of his poetry in the archives and wonders if perhaps the best thing would be to take the elderly visiting professor up on his offer. Suddenly the other professor reappears to try to make things right with the student. His behavior is quite unexpected, but thrilling to the student. She has a choice to make.

Lastly, a young boy named Stefan loses his mother and sister in a horrible tragedy. His father finds a lovely new woman to marry and bring into their sad, ancestral home. However, this home seems to have a mind of its own - with a toxic well and a garage with secrets. Stefan simply wants to be loved and taken care of. Secrets abound, and it’s up to this woman to figure out if her imagination has gone wild, or if the house is truly evil.

After reading this collection, I am compelled to read my other Joyce Carol Oates collection of short stories. All of these stories will give you a bit of a chill. Put on another cup of tea.

Cardiff by the Sea by Joyce Carol Oates

These four unrelated novellas carry similar themes. Female protagonists of varying ages are all highly intimidated by male figures. At some point, they all gain a degree of strength and growth. 

Knives, suicide, death, hiding or running away, physically or figuratively, play a role in each story. All leading characters are tiny in size or make themselves small to not be seen. There is an element of magical realism or escapism as well. 

I highly recommend this book for readers who like something quite different from what they usually read. I found it very thought provoking, and Oates has a knack for story telling that just flows. A solid four stars from this reviewer. 

My thanks to #TheMysteriousPress and #NetGalley for an ARC for my review.

Cardiff, by the Sea is a collection that tells the stories of women who find themselves in violent situations. Oates is a master of plot, but her writing style is unengaging and distracting.