Extenuating Circumstances: Stories of Crime and Suspense

Extenuating Circumstances: Stories of Crime and Suspense

First edition
Author	Joyce Carol Oates
Language	English
Publisher	The Mysterious Press
Publication date	2022
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (hardback)
Pages	615
ISBN	978-1638084051

Extenuating Circumstances: Stories of Crime and Suspense is a collection of previously collected and uncollected short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates published in 2022 by The Mysterious Press . ^[1]

“By the River” was anthologized in Best American Short Stories, 1969.

“Yarrow” was among the 1988 prize stories for the O. Henry Awards, as was “Why Don’t You Come Live With Me, It’s Time” in 1992.

“The Undesirable Table” won the Pushcart Prize XX, Best of the Small Presses (1996). ^[2]

Stories

Selected periodical or book of original publication are indicated. ^[3]

• ”The Death of Mrs. Sheer”
• ”In the Warehouse” ( The Transatlantic Review , Summer 1967)
• ”By the River” ( December , December 1968)
• ”Queen of the Night” (John Lord Press 1979)
• ”The Revenge of the Foot, 1970” ( Salmagundi , No. 108, Fall 1985)
• ”The Doll” ( Epoch , 1980)
• ”Little Wife” ( Kenyon Review , Spring 1986)
• ”Yarrow” ( TriQuarterly , No. 78, Spring 1990)
• ”Haunted”
• ”Death Valley” ( Esquire , July 1 1988)
• ”Craps” ( Boulevard )
• ”Family” ( Omni , November 1993)
• ”Ladies and Gentlemen:” ( Harper’s Magazine , December 1990)
• ”Why Don’t You Come Live With Me, It’s Time” in Tikkun )
• ”The Buck” ( Story )
• ”The Model” ( Ellery Queen )
• ”Extenuating Circumstances” (Sisters in Crime 5, Berkley Books 1992)
• ”The Girl Who Was to Die” ( The Gettysburg Review , 1993)
• ”Poor Bibi” Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque “Poor Thing” in Tikkun)
• ”The Undesirable Table” ( Raritan , 1994)
• ”The Hand-Puppet” (Tales of the Impossible, Harper Prism, 1995)
• ”Valentine” ( Michigan Quarterly Review , Vol. 36, No. 1 1996)
• ”The Collector of Hearts” ( Seventeen , 1998)
• ”The Sons of Angus MacElster” ( Conjunctions , No. 30 1998)

Reception

Describing the collection as “a real treat,” reviewer Ray Palen at Bookreporter.com writes:

These stories have a little of everything and do such a fine job representing her style of writing, which can be best described as surprising, unsettling, disturbing, unique and never predictable. ^[4]

New York Review of Books critic Richard Cytowic, characterizing the Oates’s tales as “unsettling” and “disquieting” writes:

She explores the forbidden corners of human experience. Joyce Carol Oates’ tales are unsettling, disquieting, some endings left hanging, leaving readers not answers but questions that implicate more horror yet to come to the normal-seeming characters who inhabit them. ^[5]

Footnotes

1. Cytowic, 2022: “This collection of 24 stories spans the first 30 years of Joyce Carol Oates’s prolific career,,,Long out of print, these tales have not until now appeared in any form this past century.
2. "Extenuating Circumstances: Stories of Crime and Suspense". Celestial Timepiece: A Joyce Carol Oates Patchwork. Celestial Timepiece.
3. Oates, 2022: Acknowledgments
4. Palen, 2022
5. Cytowic, 2022

Sources

• Cytowic, Richard. 2022. “Extenuating Circumstances.” New York Review of Books. https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/extenuating-circumstances Accessed 19 March, 2025.
• Oates, Joyce Carol. 2012. Extenuating Circumstances. The Mysterious Press , New York. ISBN   978-1638084051
• Palen, Ray. 2022. “Extenuating Circumstances: Stories of Crime and Suspense.” Bookreporter.com, July 22, 2022. https://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/extenuating-circumstances-stories-of-crime-and-suspense Accessed 21 March, 2025.