Cardiff, by the Sea: Four Novellas by
Joyce Carol Oates
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
I’ve been holding onto this one to read in October for the spooky atmosphere and horror vibes. It doesn’t disappoint. There are four short stories that are different lengths. The first one is the Cardiff story and centers around an adult woman who had been adopted as a child at the slightly older age than usual adoptions, close to 3 years. She doesn’t have much memory of her family and doesn’t know the circumstances of her adoption but has been curious. One day she receives a phone call from an attorney who is acting as the executor in her birth-grandmother’s will and estate. At first she is not sure if she is interested in following her curiosity and seeing what the family is like but she decides to go to Cardiff and check it out. When she arrives, she is immediately thrust into the care of her aunts, who are a bit eccentric. She also has an uncle who comes into the house periodically. The mystery begins to unravel as to why she was adopted and what and why she is receiving an inheritance.
The overall themes throughout all the stories are some of the different yet similar ways that women can suffer at the whims of the men in their life. This theme unfolds differently in each story. In the second story about young Mia and her broken family life, present her with an opportunity to care for and develop a love for feral cats living near her home. Over the years, we follow her family and the changes that occur as well as the constants.
Story three centers around a bright young woman who is studying to become a poet. She meets a slightly older teaching assistant/tenure track teacher who challenges her academically but who she develops a relationship with leading to a difficult situation. She can’t seem to resolve the relationship or other issues and finds herself under the spotlight of attention from a highly respected visiting poet whom she can learn a great deal. She becomes attached to him as well.
The final story was my least favorite, although still good. It focuses on the surviving son of a murder/suicide and how his life unfolds following such harrowing experiences.
Each story has different strengths and I enjoyed them all with the first three grabbing me the most easily.
I adore Joyce Carol Oates and her writing style. She has great and difficult/dark central themes for each story that have an overall theme for the collection that is based on various ways women suffer at the hands of men. I think she does a terrific job of bringing in dark themes with family dramas and moving stories and a clear unifying theme.
Highly recommend.
#CardiffByTheSea #Netgalley #GroveAtlantic #MysteriousPress
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