 First edition | |
| Author | Joyce Carol Oates |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Mystery, Suspense |
| Publisher | The Mysterious Press |
Publication date | 2024 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 978-1613165577 |
Flint Kill Creek: Stories of Mystery and Suspense is a collection of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates published in 2024 by The Mysterious Press. The story "Mick & Minn" won the Pushcart Prize XLIX, 2025. [1] [2]
Periodical and date of original publication provided where available: [3]
Characterizing each tale as "a compact gem of unease," Publishers Weekly adds "Oates's prose is surgically precise, and her appetite for the grotesque falls on the right side of lurid. The author's admirers will be thrilled." [4] [5]
Kirkus Reviews reports that—the volume's genre designations notwithstanding—"none of these tales is a traditional mystery, and most are suspenseful only in the broad sense that all effective fiction is..." [6]
Novelist and poet Rod Miller, writing in The New York Review of Books , warns that Oates has condemned her fictional creations to cruel fates: "there are no happy endings for these people."
If the 12 stories have a common theme, it is the confusion, the bewilderment, of the characters she creates. They seem befuddled by relationships, by work, by life in general, even by themselves—unsure of what is happening around and to them, blown about by winds of uncertainty and unable, or unequipped, to cope." [7]