Better late than never. I haven't read a suspense novel in a while, and this one did not disappoint. This is the first time I've read Joyce Oates.

This is a great collection of four novellas filled with darkness, and suspense - dark Gothic suspense, the way it should be written. The novella format is perfect because you cannot stop reading any one of these - the stories are that good.

I'll be looking for more from Ms. Oates.

Thank you to NetGalley for an e-arc of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.
3.5-4 stars which is my rating for each story.

I'm not sure I've ever read a full work by Oates, but I think I may be more inclined to pick up more by her. Her stories seem to have a very slow build that can times feel sloggy but the payoff always satisfies. Even with the story isn't the most intense the writing is beautiful and engaging.

The story or stories are dark and terrifying in their own way. The bleakness can take time to reveal itself, and the build leads to satisfying payoffs. There were similar recurring themes and plot devices that seem to be apparent in her work. That is misogyny, sexual harassment and assault, and power dynamics which feeds into the misogyny.

Despite the repetition of themes, the stories return a sense of uniqueness.

Overall honestly I'm leaving this with a very positive view. My inclination to give this between 3 1/2 to 4 stars has more to do with that slow build which means it's not always the most satisfying in every moment, but every time the stories cultivated a sense of dread and unease.

Ok! I loved this audio it had good spooky vibes but the only story I loved was the first one and was so sad it wasn’t continued I mean it had me hooked then boom! Another one and no ending!

There’s something about being stuck inside your house in isolation that really sets the perfect mood for escaping into mysteries and thrillers. For me, the more gothic vibes a book gives off, the deeper into it I fall. Joyce Carol Oates’ latest — a collection of four novellas — was no exception. Not only is Cardiff, by the Sea full of slow-burning suspense, there’s a distinct Northeastern Gothic element that calls into question who is more haunted: the characters or the setting?

Cardiff, By the Sea, while not the setting of any of the novellas but the first, does hint at the themes that weave each story together. Specifically, how intricately place and memory are tied together and what happens when our bodies remember things our brains don't want to. Claire, the main character in the titular novella, has to piece together a now-fractured narrative of her childhood based on the interviews of strangers. In Miao Dao, the experience of abandonment is explored through the eyes of a Mia, a pubescent girl whose only friends (and protectors) are a colony of feral cats. Whose fault was it? is a question that beats under the surface of not just these two stories, but the collection as a whole. The answer of my fault follows as an echo and omen in the wake of each female protagonist.

With Phantomwise: 1972, the true inspirations for Alice in Wonderland are discussed as young, brilliant (and pregnant) Alice begins working for a famous poet who is a visiting professor at the college she attends. None of this is known in the beginning, though; just that someone is trying to kill Alice. Finally, in The Younger Child, we return to the haunted home theme established in the first novella. Strong Rebecca vibes mix with references to Sylvia Plath (and her relationship with Hughes) in this final story, where Elizabeth must navigate life as a step-mother to the surviving child of a murder-suicide that happened in the house she now lives in. Stephan, the little boy, was found hiding in a closet but with the absence of a suicide note, no one knows why he was spared. Oates really explores nature versus nurture as she tries to answer the question: what drives a person to madness (to murder, to suicide)?

Cardiff, by the Sea, is a chilling collection of novellas that serve as a reminder that the monster is usually already inside the house, if not inside ourselves.

Cardiff, by the Sea is a new collection of four novellas by Joyce Carol Oates. These 4 tales all take a look at women living their lives when something dark or bizarre comes their way. The title story is about a young professional woman who receives a call from a lawyer telling her that her grandmother has died and left her property in the small town of Cardiff, ME. Our protagonist was adopted as a toddler and has no memory of her grandmother or birth parents. She slowly unwinds her birth family's troubled past.

The other 3 stories are all just as contemplative and twisty. There is sexual harassment, assault, bullying, suicide, murder. So you know, all those dark twisted corners of society that females may face. Oates' writing kept me enthralled despite the dark topics. And the ending of each story threw me for a bit of a loop so I had to page back and re-read a bit. Definitely left me thinking. Disturbing!!

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* ngl i didnt care for this book, i found most of the characters annoying, and uh what's up with all the nipple/boob/breastfeeeding weirdness throughout every story???? sounded weird out of place every time, forced myself to finish this. The stories were mostly boring but would have been 3 stars, just cant get over how weird it was.

This is the first title I have read by this esteemed author and I was not disappointed. The 4 stories unfolded in beautifully horrific fashion. While I was initially drawn to the first story I found myself liking the subsequent 3 stories with increasing awe. The effective prose easily put me in each woman's shoes, feeling their thoughts and pain. The last was reminiscent of Charlotte Perkins Gilman "The Yellow Wallpaper," not in regards to storyline but how you are taken into the mind of each tortured woman. A must read with the warning; the themes could be triggers for sensitive souls.

This is an anthology of four unsettling, disturbing, macabre and at times depressing novellas of loss. I was drawn to the first story the most. A young woman searching for answers of her unknown past was both heart wrenching and suspenseful. The narration brought the tales to life with an eerie sense of unease. Dread was expertly woven into each compelling episode. Thank you NetGalley, RB Media HighBridge Audio for the audiobook.

I always wanted to read a J.C.O book, this was my first by her. I liked the narrator, but when she did some voices she went too low for me to hear (my car speakers were on max). I like her writing style, but I wasn't a huge fan of the stories.

In these four novellas, we are introduced to a cast of interesting characters and told four distinct stories. Each story pulls the reader in immediately. What they all have in common is the sense that something isn't quite right, but we don't know what that is exactly. Sometimes the suspension lingers at the end of the story, not exactly leaving the reader hanging, but not wrapping everything up either.

There are some unexpected twists, some unreliable narrators, and perhaps a ghost here or there. The writing is perfection. It's not too detailed, but Oates gives enough that the characters are well developed, there is a sense of place, and the tension that exists among the characters is palpable, but not explicit. The stories include themes of identity, happiness, sexual harassment, relationships, and keeping secrets.

Thank you to NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for a free Audio of this fantastic book. Lauren Ezzo narrated these novellas very well which allowed me to listen while I was driving to and from work. There is no distinction between one novella and the others. There's no longer break or sound that signifies you are finishing one story and starting the other. That meant that even though the title is read, sometimes I wouldn't realize for a little bit that we had transitioned so I would have to go back to where the new novella started.

NOVELLA ONE:
Cardiff, by the Sea

The title novella is one of my favourites of the four. 30 year old Clare Seidel is the beneficiary of a grandmother she's never heard of. Clare was adopted at the age of 2 and she has been the perfect adopted daughter. She hasn't asked a lot of questions about her birth parents, but she carries the questions inside her. Her adopted parents, Hannah and Walter have been good parents, she is their only child.

Finding out about this grandmother causes her to be more curious and she asks her mother for more information about her birth parents. The answers are vague. Clare must go to Cardiff Maine, There, she stays with her two great aunts and her Uncle Girard. I loved how the aunts bantered and bickered back and forth.

Clare has inherited property and wants to learn about her family. Are her parents still alive? What happened to them? And why did they give her up for adoption at the age of two? Clare is hoping for these answers but they may not be answers she likes.


NOVELLA TWO:
Miao Dao

Twelve year old Mia's life is falling apart. Her father is leaving the family and Mia thinks it's her fault. Mia has two younger brothers and feels like she's almost an adult. The only thing that makes Mia happy are the feral cats that roam the neighbourhood. Mia has secretly been feeding them.

At school, boys tease and harass her. She's too embarrassed and ashamed to say anything and there is increased tension with her friends. She's lonely, but finds comfort in the feral cats and has one that she has taken in as her own.

Her mother has been dating a man online and they eventually marry. This man who has been kind to Mia's mother and her brothers, and even her, starts to change. What will that mean for Mia and her family?


NOVELLA THREE:
Phantomwise: 1972

19 year old Alyce Urquhart is pregnant and the father is her philosophy instructor. What is Alyce going to do now? She could have an abortion or commit suicide, but maybe there's another way?

Roland B, a distinguished poet and professor takes a liking to Alyce. Alyce is impressed by him too. He seems to have been connected to all of the great poets of the time. Roland invites Alyce to the Poet's House and asks her to be his assistant and archivist. This begins a beautiful relationship of mutual respect.

Alyce thinks that maybe Roland can help her and he is willing to, but then Roland becomes ill. Alyce cares for him and visits every day. When her philosophy instructor finally confronts her she knows that she has to tell the truth about the baby.


NOVELLA FOUR:
The Surviving Child

10 year old Stefan is the surviving child. His mother and sister died by carbon monoxide poisoning three years ago. His mother, a notorious poet, left no suicide note and Stefan was originally in the car too. Why had his mother changed his mind about him, leaving him in a closet to be found by his father?

Now, his father Alexander, is remarrying a woman named Elizabeth. Elizabeth tries to find ways to connect with her new step-son who is quiet, mysterious, and has odd behaviours. Elizabeth wants so badly to be liked, maybe even loved by Alexander.

Her new husband has a harshness that Elizabeth doesn't like. He becomes distant and is away a lot which leaves Elizabeth alone in the house. She knows the rules. She's not allowed in the garage, but she still explores other rooms. She notices that strange things are happening in the house and she is having strange thoughts? Is the house haunted? Will she find out the truth about what really happened here?

Bookworm Rating: 🐛🐛🐛🐛🌱

Now I have never read a Joyce Carol Oates story before and while We Were the Mulvaney's is her most know novel I liked getting an introduction to her via these four novellas. The first novella, Cardiff, by the Sea is about a woman who receives a call from Cardiff, Maine informing her that a grandmother she never heard of left her property. But is this new relative the only new thing she will learn. This is followed by Miao Dao in which a 12 year old girl, Mia, has her life turned upside down with a divorce, puberty, and a step-father. The third novella is Phan-tomwise: 1972 centers around Alice, a college student, who gets involved with the wrong man and now has to find a way forward. The last story is the Surviving Child about the son of a famous poet who killed herself and her daughter but the boy lived. Now Stefan has a new step-mother and weird things start to happen.

There is an element of violence, finding yourself, and mystery that runs through these stories. I really enjoyed them and will definitely look into some of her other stories.

This is my 3rd time reading this author. I honestly do not see what all the hype is about her. I rated most of these novellas in this collection as 3 stars each. Some I liked slightly more than others. But one of the things I noticed that kinda repeats from other books by her for instance the student/professor affair...what are you trying to tell us, Joyce? I also have to add the sheer juvenile feel of the teen/cat lady story...the repetition of boobs over and over again. The prose was great but I felt the stories lacked any oomph to keep me entertained. The end of all this was an average read for me.

As usual, Oates excels at creating atmosphere. She establishes verisimilitude and then dismantles it slowly and surely until neither you nor the character knows which way is up. It’s less “edge of your seat” than “frog in a boiling pot”.

First off thank you to Netgalley & RB media for the opportunity to listen to audiobook version of Cardiff by the Sea..

This book is composed of four novellas: Cardiff by the Sea, Miao Dow, Phantomwise, 1972 & The Surviving Child.

My favourite out of the four by far was Phantomwise, 1972. It follows a 19 year old undergraduate student who is targeted by two professors in very different ways. I had wished my drive the day this one came on was longer so I could finish it in one go!

Miao Dow made me upset thinking about feral cats. Especially since it said they looked nice from afar but mangey and sick up close. As a cat lover that made this one harder to listen to.

Cardiff by the Sea follows Claire who is a young woman who finds out she’s inherited a house from a relative she didn’t know. She slows learns about her family and the real reason she was adopted. As this one slowly unravels it keeps you guessing at who did what and if Claire is risking her life staying with her new found family.

The Surviving Child was a paranormal thriller. Stefan survives and his new stepmom is experiences things that can’t seem to be explained.

I enjoyed the narrator’s voice but think I would’ve enjoyed this more as a physical book over audiobook. Cardiff by the Sea was extremely long on audiobook (the whole book was ~11.5 hours and 5.5 hours was just Cardiff by the Sea.

A Scary Read (or Listen)

It has been a scary time this fall in the year 2020 with a pandemic as well as all kinds of election controversies. Not to mention Halloween, when I started Cardiff, by the Sea, a recent collection of four novellas by Joyce Carol Oates. Ms. Oates does not fail to put our nerves on edge as we anxiously turn the pages… or in my case, listen to the audio form of this book.

Lauren Ezzo is the narrator, and she does an admirable job with her pacing of the narrative as well as her inflection to distinguish between the characters, some of whom are naive, others are forbiddingly gloomy. I haven’t seen the actual book version, but I imagine that some of the story takes place inside the heads of our various first-person narrators. My only complaint was that it seemed a bit difficult to tell what was actually said and revealed to their companions versus what was an interior monologue.

The stories were a good escape from the current events available in the media. They all have young female protagonists undergoing fearsome circumstances; sometimes they are able to have some control over the situation and other times you want to scream at them to take a different tack. We are immersed in vividly depicted environments that make us wonder about the evil that lies ahead. Fortunately the stories are just “off” a bit so that you know they can’t possibly be plausible. Still, a heck of a good read (or listen) for scary times.

This was my first Joyce Carol Oates and it won't be my last.

Super atmospheric, almost lyrically written, spooky and...inevitable?

Cardiff, by the Sea: a young adopted academic learns she has an inheritance from a grandmother she didn't know existed and then she explores her own history.

Miao Dao: a little girl who has great compassion for feral cats near her house learns about autonomy.

Phan-tomwise, 1972: a young student in a caught between narcissists tries to protect herself.

The Surviving Child: a newly-married woman (much younger than her husband) discovers a legacy.

Every last one of these stories is about male violence; the different forms it takes, how normal and extreme it can be, how casually it is used to control women.

Absolutely stellar novellas.

The narrator for the audiobook was Lauren Ezzo and there's a matter-of-fact-ness about her that was very complimentary to the subject matter; she was not over-emotional but still communicated the horror of the stories beautifully. It had a really chilling effect.

I received a copy of this audiobook for free from NetGalley and RB Media in exchange for an honest, voluntary review.

I have read my share of Joyce Carol Oats. And from book to book, it can sometimes feel like you are engaging with a different facet of her as a writer. This is actually one of the strengths of this collection of novellas. Initially on jumping in, I was waiting for things to edge a bit more on the side of horror, which is somewhere that we never really went. And while some of these stories are quite suspenseful, I personally want to put these in the category of Female Body Gothic. Is that a genre? If not, it should be. Even with the main character of the final story “The Surviving Child” being male, the focus and suspense, like the other three stories is centered around the women and the threats to their bodies. Overt violence or gore isn’t the order of the day here, but the dread, the uncertainty, and the haunting landscapes that Oats creates is. I will say though, in the story “Miao Dao” I actually found myself rooting for a bit more killing and death. So no, I probably wouldn’t recommend this book as the super spooky Halloween read or anything, but I would recommend this book a lot.

Oats writing is, as always, beautiful, descriptive, and enthralling. Even in stories where I felt like I already knew where the story was going, I wanted to stick around to see how Oats got us there.


Thanks to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic/Mysterious Press for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Joyce Carol Oates has such a distinctive style, that the reader knows it’s her from the get-go. In the same way that it’s possible to identify some singers on any of their cuts from the first few bars, it’s possible to identify Oates from the cadence and tone of her writing from the first few sentences. She is at her best in short pieces, where the style doesn’t have time to feel repetitive, so this book of four novellas is a perfect showcase of her writing. Listening to this, at first I found the reader’s quick-paced staccato voice annoying, but it didn’t take long before I appreciated the way that it translates Oates’ writing.

All four of the stories deal with the sinister nature of a relationship between a younger, more innocent woman and at least one older, manipulative man. How that relationship plays out and whether and how the woman survives changes from story to story, but in all of them there is a dreamy, almost gauzy, atmosphere that often veers into nightmare. The listener could be forgiven for carrying over a bit of fear into the real world after being immersed in the worlds full of menacing men that Oates has created and

Novella 1: Cardiff by the Sea. About 40% of the book. Gothic tropes throughout: the decaying house, isolation, a confusion regarding reality and unreality, possible ghosts, dreams & nightmares, aristocracy, the afterlife, eroticism, disease. A youngish woman inherits a farmhouse in Maine from the birth family she did not know she had, all announced by a phone call from a lawyer. She heads up to Maine, the house, a creepy pair of aunts and an uncle, and discovers secrets from her past while falling prey to…what?

Novella 2: Mia Dao. About 20% of the book. An early adolescent girl who is victimized by older teenage boys misses her father. When her mother remarries, her stepfather shows an unhealthy interest in her. At the same time, she takes in a stray kitten who grows to be her protector…or possibly not. This is a story of a girl who loses herself at the same time that she learns to protect herself.

Novella 3: Phan-tomwise, 1972. About 20%. A young female college student, a predatory professor, an older visiting male poet. Alice, the young woman, never seems to stand a chance with these men, strengthened by societal norms, in her life. But she does gain in strength. Here the reader’s intonation becomes annoying again, as the poet sometimes sounds very much like the aunts in the first story. But since Oates’ wording is very similar, perhaps this is intended. Though the gender is different, both the aunts and the poet can be seen from two perspectives, as protectors and as threats, and both of a similar age.

Novella 4: The Surviving Child. About 20%. This most hopeful of the stories finishes the book, dispelling some of the dread the reader/listener will have built up over the course of the book. This is another gothic tale set in a decaying house and where insubstantial ghosts seem to have control. A young woman marries a man nearly twice her age and hopes to fill the mother role that his son so desperately needs. She learns of the mother’s suicide and filicide, from which the boy barely escaped, mainly through inuendo and vague ghostly influences that seems to be dragging her into her own destruction. But, as I said, it ends hopefully.

Each of the stories ends with a clear ending so, even in the audiobook version, it is not difficult for the listener to tell when the story switches. However, there is no real clue from the reader that a new novella is underway other than a quick reading of the title. With each novella being so compelling, it is somewhat jarring to suddenly jump from one fully formed world to another. Given that there is a consistent thematic thread through all the story lines, however, this makes intellectual sense. In the end, the book gives the listener much to think about.

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.

The narrator did an amazing job with theis collection of stories. I would happily listen to her again.
As for the book, a great bunch of stories. Really enjoyed the first one the most.