Zero-Sum

'Oates's imagination is as unique, dystopian and vivid as Lewis Carroll's' ROSE TREMAIN'A master storyteller' THE TIMES'Electric' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Zero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in these arresting stories by one of AmericaaEURO (TM)s most acclaimed writers.

A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered; diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community; a woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover; a young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as aEUROoemother.aEURO In the collectionaEURO (TM)s longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with aEUROoedraftsaEURO of his own suicide.

In these powerfully wrought stories that hold a mirror up to our time, Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism, and ever-shifting identities. Provocative and stunning, Zero-Sum reinforces OatesaEURO (TM)s standing as a literary treasure and an artist of the mysterious interior life.

aEURO~Alluringly dark and spikyaEURO (TM) NEW STATESMAN

aEURO~Zero-Sum is brilliant aEURO" bloodied, breathless, weirdaEURO (TM) A. K. BLAKEMORE

aEURO~Dark, unsettling stories aEURO| ThereaEURO (TM)s a disquieting violence simmering aEURO| a shrill alarm of disquietaEURO (TM) DAILY MAIL

aEURO~Oates is an inspired writer, and a formidable psychologistaEURO (TM) INDEPENDENT