The short stories of Joyce Carol Oates are second only to her novels. Such tales as “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, “How I Contemplated My Life from the Detroit House of Corrections and Began My Life Over Again”, “Last Days”, and “The Sky Blue Ball” are small classics. Since 1963, Joyce Carol Oates has published thirty-two books of short stories. The most recent is Dear Husband, a collection that is as wide-ranging as her entire bibliography, as unique and memorable as her most intriguing books.

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“Special” is the second story in Dear Husband,. I find it one of the best stories Oates has ever written about disorder in family life. Two daughters, Aimee and Sallie Grace, suffer and cause their parents and each other to suffer. Sallie Grace has an undefined “learning problem”. “Special” begins with a coded depiction of the accident that makes Aimee begin to hate her sister:

“One December evening in 1971, when Aimee Zacharis was nine years old, she was the cause of a terrible accident in the kitchen of her parents’ home in Sparta, New York, and though neither of her parents accused her, or indicated that she deserved what had happened to her, staring at her reflection in a bathroom mirror when she’d been brought home from the hospital, seeing the ugliness there so bright-lit and exposed, Aimee knew that this was so.

[…]

“Boiling water, in a large pot on the stove, salted boiling water in which Aimee’s mother was cooking spaghetti, had been overturned onto Aimee when she’d stumbled into the stove. The boiling water had scalded her right arm, her right shoulder, her neck, the lower part of her right cheek and a considerable portion of her scalp. Like frenzied worms the spaghetti had slithered over her. She’d thought she was on fire! She fell to the floor, scalding water continued to spill out of the half-gallon aluminum pot. The accident had happened so quickly, it had seemed to be happening to someone else: her older sister Sallie Grace was making her agitated cry Nyah! nyah! nyah! and her mother was screaming No! no! Aimee no! and there was another high-pitched cry like a wounded cat that must have been Aimee herself, before the consciousness in the puddle of hot water and spaghetti on the floor beside the stove.”

The whole family plays the blame game. Aimee blames her Mamma, Dadda and Sallie Grace for her accident, Sallie Grace lashes out at the whole family, Dadda and Mamma fight often, blaming each other for the sorry state of affairs in their home.

Aimee regularly prays with her mother, praying that Sallie Grace will get better. At the same time that this is happening, Aimee is making a slow recovery from her burns, having painful flare-ups several years later. Aimee slowly distances herself from her mother and the rest of the family. She feels tossed aside because of Sallie Grace’s needs. When Aimee needs glasses the whole thing is planned around Sallie Grace. Aimee’s father, Ezra, takes care of Sallie Grace while Aimee gets her glasses:

“At the eyeglasses store Aimee wanted to select clear pink frames because her best friend Tamara’s sister in ninth grade had clear pink frames and Tamara’s sister was very pretty, but instead she selected clear blue frames, as she knew Momma would wish. For blue was Sallie Grace’s favorite color and reds or deep pinks sometimes made her agitated. “What a good choice, Button! What a smart girl.” A few days later when the new glasses were ready, and Momma took Aimee back to the mall, it wasn’t the same feeling, for Mamma had been scolded by Dadda for staying away so long the other time, today they had to return “straight home.” And Momma was in a nerved up mood as she called it, for Sallie Grace had been more difficult than usual lately, even with her new medication that was so expensive. […]

“Aimee stood staring at her sister as if she’d never seen her before and though her eyes behind the new glasses were opened wide there came Jesus to warn her Don’t say a word, Aimee! […]

“Except when Aimee turned to go upstairs, to begin her homework before supper, Sallie Grace tried to snatch her glasses off her face whining “Nyah! nyah! nyah!” as if in pain and Dadda said, “Aimee, take the glasses off for now. Till Sallie Grace gets used to them. You can wear them at school. You know your sister is upset by sudden changes.”

Sallie Grace goes from making progress in school and social life to regression. Small acts of rebellion and anger from her begin to build into more aggressive and violent acts until she erupts, attacking her mother with a pair of scissors. Aimee tries the best she can, though her own sense of morality, through religion, through the outside world—to attempt to break away from her family’s destructive patterns.

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The question of public lives as fiction has often puzzled me. In some cases, such as Gore Vidal’s historical novels (Lincoln, Burr, The Golden Age and Hollywood, especially), the fictionalized versions of reality make entertaining and enlightening reading. In some cases, such as Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives or September—which some insist (despite his arguments to the contrary) is based on the real-life murder of Lana Turner’s gangster boyfriend by her daughter—the story can go into the realm of the personal to a point of disturbance. I regret to say that Oates has been “guilty” of the latter instance before—her novella, Zombie, was based on the Jeffery Dahmer case; her most recent novel, My Sister My Love, is a blatant rewriting of the JonBenet Ramsey case.

“Dear Husband,” the final story, the title story, is one of the best tales Oates has ever written. It is a story of incredible magnitude. Oates has retold the story of Andrea Yates, a Christian fundamentalist housewife who drowned her children because she feared that she was an unfit mother, and that their souls were in peril because of her.

Presenting the story in the form of a letter written by the wife to her husband, Oates creates an astounding portrait of a woman who is pushed to the edge by her husband, her pastor, her children and herself. This story shows the incredible pressure placed upon those in a cultish religious sect. The mother in this story speaks with an amazing feeling of guilt, not about her children’s deaths—those she describes with an almost childlike attitude—but guilt about day-to-day mistakes—burning a casserole, breaking a glass, etc. The wife in this tale blames herself for what has happened in the last page or two of the letter, even though the husband had been told not to leave her alone with the children due to her fragile mental state and her history of previous breakdowns. The narrator’s “Dear Husband” has done nothing wrong. According to her, it is all her own fault. This view she gets from the religious viewpoint she hears at church, that woman is inherently evil, and that her children were damned because of her.

Oates masterfully employs all of these emotions so that we feel an almost uncomfortable sympathy for this woman who has lost control.

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“Landfill” is arguably the most disturbing tale in the whole book. To give you an example as to how intense and gory this story can get, I will use the example of Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club). A few years ago he wrote a short story entitled “Guts”, which he has since read aloud at author appearances. The story has caused, at most, sixty people to pass out in shock. I managed to stay conscious when I read the story, but that didn’t make it any less shocking or disgusting. Oates has written a story that could have come from Palahniuk’s pen. Again, based on a true-life case—only this time, the family of the victim criticized Oates’ use of the case as a basis (Oates later apologized)—Oates goes overboard in recreating the “frat-boy” college atmosphere, creating what can only be an over-written parody. However, her description of the crime, of the body itself, are the most graphic depictions she has ever offered.

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“Dear Joyce Carol”, is the most intriguing tale. Written from the perspective of a man serving a prison sentence, Oates imagines him to be writing to an author he’s become interested in—her.

“Oct 1 2006

Dear Joyce Carol,

If you knew me youd be amazed, that I would write a letter to a Stranger “out of the blue”—it is not my nature, Joyce Carol as one day you may learn.

The occasion is, your visit here to Boise last week. In the paper it is said that you are a Known writer, that must make you very proud Joyce Carol. I was not able to attend your Talk at the University but it has come to my attention in the library here, in the Boise Journal-Times there was a picture of you which picture I have very carefully ript out and am sending to you here, for you Autograph.

And now I have akcess to your books, there are four in this library and your Address at the publisher where I am sending this letter requesting that you will Autograph this picture of you and return it to me. Thank you Joyce Carol! Also it is my hope that you will wish to know my lifestory that it might be first a Novel then a Movie. It is QUITE A LIFE Joyce Carol, I promise you!

Except he is too old now Clint Eastwood would be the actor to play me. I wonder Joyce Carol, do you know him? I must go now, it is that time when Darkness will prevail. Here I am sending this picture, Joyce Carol and this letter hoping to here from you very soon.”

The story is reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino’s fantastical fictions. Oates plays with the idea of an (unintentionally) scorned fan, breathing new life into the idea of fan-turned-worst-nightmare.

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This collection is one of the most diverse and most original stories; yet I can not, upon reflection, call it the best work Oates has given her readers. A few stories, including “The Heart Sutra”, “Suicide by Fitness Center” and “The Blind Man’s Sighted Daughters” fall flat and seem to linger longer than the reader can tolerate. Of course, even the worst stories by Joyce Carol Oates are on par with the best stories of many other authors. Over the last fifty years of publication, her tales have not aged. They last. This collection will last. There is something that every reader will enjoy here.

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