 First edition | |
| Author | Joyce Carol Oates |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Vanguard Press |
Publication date | 1972 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 497 |
| ISBN | 978-0814907184 |
Marriages and Infidelities is a collection of 25 works of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates published by Vanguard Press in 1972. [1]
The volume is the fourth of Oates’s fourth collection of short stories. [2]
Journal and date of original publication provided after each title. [3] [4]
Literary critic William Abrahams, in Saturday Review , regards the collection as evidence placing Oates "among the most remarkable writers of her generation" and "a master" of the short story form. Abrahams praises the work for its "emotional effectiveness and intellectual credibility." [5]
Critic Michael Wood in The New York Times finds the stories in the collection "full of melodrama and yet curiously dull," evidence of a writer "racking her brains for action, wanting to write even in the absence of anything to write about." Wood reports that there are several good stories in the volume - with special mention for "Problems of Adjustment in Survivors of Natural/Unnatural Disasters" - and offers this caveat:
But the successes make the failures seem self-indulgent…Oates is groping, then, for themes and forms in far too much of this book. But even her groping is worth looking at, reveals returning preoccupations that will surely blossom into better work. [6]
“It is only through disruption and confusion that we grow, jarred out of ourselves by the collision of someone else’s private world with our own.—Joyce Carol Oates from “Fictions, Dreams, Revelations,” introduction to Scenes from American Life: Contemporary Short Fiction (1973). [7]
Joyce Carol Oates's fourth collection of short stories is remarkable because of two aspects. First, some stories have the same titles as short stories or novellas by earlier writers: "The Metamorphosis" hints at Franz Kafka's short story "Die Verwandlung", "The Lady with the Pet Dog" at Anton Chekhov's novella "Die Dame mit dem Hündchen," "The Turn of the Screw" at Henry James's novella of the same title, and "The Dead" at the last short story of James Joyce's Dubliners . [8] Oates has explained: "These stories are meant to be autonomous stories, yet they are also testaments of my love and extreme devotion to these other writers; I imagine a kind of spiritual 'marriage' between myself and them ...." [9]
Secondly, although the title suggests stories about marriages, about the traditional form of man-woman relationship and about its problems, Oates also uses the term "marriage" as a metaphor, as she has stated:
I believe we achieve our salvation, or our ruin, by the marriages we contract. I conceived of a book of marriages. Some are conventional marriages of men and women, others are marriages in another sense - with a phase of art, with something that transcends the limitations of the ego. But because people are mortal, most of the marriages they go into are mistakes of some kind, misreadings of themselves. I thought by putting together a sequence of marriages, one might see how this one succeeds and that one fails. And how this one leads to some meaning beyond the self. [10]
Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
By the North Gate is a collection of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates. It was the author's first book, first published by Vanguard Press in 1963.
The Wheel of Love is contains 20 works of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates published by Vanguard Press in 1970. The volume brought Oates "abundant national acclaim" including this assessment from librarian and critic John Alfred Avant: "Quite simply, one of the finest collections of short stories ever written by an American."
Upon the Sweeping Flood and Other Stories is a collection of short stories written by Joyce Carol Oates. It was published in 1966 by Vanguard Press.
The Goddess and Other Women is a collection comprising 25 works of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates and published by Vanguard Press in 1974.
Crossing the Border: Fifteen Tales is a collection of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates written while the author was residing in Canada. Published simultaneously by Vanguard Press in the United States and by Cage Publishing Company, Agincourt, Canada in 1976. The stories had appeared previously in different US and Canadian magazines, often in different versions. Seven of the stories, "Crossing the Border", "Hello Fine Day Isn’t It", "Natural Boundaries", "Customs", "The Scream", "An Incident in The Park", and "River Rising" depict conjugal life of an American couple, Reneé and Evan Maynard, in Canada. The characters in "The Transformation of Vincent Scoville" and "The Liberation of Jake Hanley" are instructors at the same Canadian college. The rest of the stories are not connected to each other.
Night-Side: Eighteen Tales is a collection of 18 works of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates published by Vanguard Press in 1977.
All the Good People I’ve Left Behind is a collection of short stories written by Joyce Carol Oates. It was published in 1979 by Black Sparrow Press.
The Poisoned Kiss and Other Stories from the Portuguese is a collection of short stories written by Joyce Carol Oates. It was published in 1975 by Vanguard Press.
The Hungry Ghosts: Seven Allusive Comedies is a collection of short stories written by Joyce Carol Oates. It was published in 1974 by Black Sparrow Press.
Museums and Women and Other Stories is a collection of 25 works of short fiction by John Updike, first appearing individually in literary journals. The stories were collected by Alfred A. Knopf in 1972.
Raven's Wing is a collection of short fiction 18 works by Joyce Carol Oates published by E. P. Dutton in 1986.
The Seduction and Other Stories is a collection containing 16 works of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates published by Black Sparrow Press in 1975.
A Sentimental Education is a collection of 5 short stories and a novella by Joyce Carol Oates published in 1980 by E. P. Dutton.
"The Metamorphosis" is a work of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates originally published in The New American Review, and first collected in Marriages and Infidelities (1972) by Vanguard Press.
“Nightmusic” is a work of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates originally published in Mundus Artium Journal and first collected in Marriages and Infidelities (1972) by Vanguard Press.
“The Lady with the Pet Dog” is a work of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates originally published in The Partisan Review and first collected in Marriages and Infidelities (1972) by Vanguard Press.
“The Dead” is a work of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates originally published in McCall’s, and first collected in Marriages and Infidelities (1972) by Vanguard Press. McCall’s re-titled the story “The Death of Dreams” in its periodical, but its original title of “The Dead” was restored in the collection at Oates’s requested.
“Where I Lived and What I Lived For” is a work of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates originally published in Virginia Quarterly Review and first collected in Marriages and Infidelities (1974) by Vanguard Press.
"The Voyage to Rosewood" is a work of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates originally published in Shenandoah and first collected in The Goddess and Other Women (1974) by Vanguard Press.