The Collector of Hearts: New Tales of the Grotesque

In these twenty-five gothic horror tales from the master of the short story, Joyce Carol Oates explores the waking nightmares of life with eyes wide-open, facing what the bravest of us fear the most. From the Kafka-esque "Scars" to a ballad like tale of erotic obsession in "The Crossing, " to the mother-daughter bond given a fatal twist in "Death Mother" the stories in The Collector of Hearts illuminate the mysteries of the human experience -- both intellectual and visceral. It is a stunning and richly diverse anthology of mood and menace -- haunting, elegiac, and compulsively readable.