High Crime Area Audiobook By Joyce Carol Oates cover art

High Crime Area

Tales of Darkness and Dread

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High Crime Area

By: Joyce Carol Oates
Narrated by: Ray Chase, Donna Postel, Julia Whelan
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In the title story, a white aspiring professor is convinced she is being followed. No need to panic - she has a handgun stowed away in her purse, just in case. But when she turns to confront her black male shadow, the situation isn't what she expects. In "The Rescuer" a promising graduate student detours to inner-city Trenton, New Jersey, to save her brother from a downward spiral. But she soon finds out there may be more to his world than to hers. And in "The Last Man of Letters" the world-renowned author X embarks on a final grand tour of Europe. He has money, fame, but not a whole lot of manners. A little thing like etiquette couldn't bring a man like X down, could it?

In these and five other biting and beautiful pieces, Oates confronts, one by one, the demons within us, demonstrating that sometimes, it's not the human side that wins out.

Contents:

  • "The Home at Craigmillnar", read by Ray Chase
  • "High", read by Donna Postel
  • "Toad-Baby", read by Luci Christian
  • "Demon", read by Chris Patton
  • "Lorelei", read by Tamara Marston
  • "The Rescuer", read by Julia Whelan
  • "The Last Man of Letters", read by Ray Chase
  • "High Crime Area", read by Julia Whelan
©2014 Original material, The Ontario Review, Inc. Recorded by arrangement with John Hawkins and Associates, Inc. (P)2014 HighBridge Company Anthologies & Short Stories Thriller & Suspense Short Stories Suspense Anthologies Mystery Horror
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Some of the stories in this collection I enjoyed immensely.
I felt that they were the types of stories you may hear if you interviewed a large group of people one on one and asked the question "what is one of the worst situations you ever had to deal with either physically or emotionally?"
Some of the narrators slightly plotted on, but when they went faster I felt like I was getting a bit lost. So I guess there's a method to their madness.
This was my first Joyce Carol Oates and I can't wait to read more.

Dark, Disturbing, Thought provoking.

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I am a huge fan of Joyce Carol Oates. However. these stories are too much everyday sadness and dread. Nothing unusual or especially startling.
What is startling are the many racial stereotypes appearing all throughout the stories! And the narrator imitating various black voices is painful...

Everyday Dread

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These were short (although 1 took up most of the book) stories that were sad, depressing and just not interesting for me. Tales of darkness and dread certainly describes it well.

Sad and depressing stories

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I have such mixed feelings about JCO. Sometimes she is amazing, and sometimes as in this collection, she is just plain disturbing. The book left a bad taste in my brain, a shadow of dread in my heart.

What strikes me most about this collection is that I found not a single character likable -- and many were downright deplorable, people I disliked almost to loathing. It seems sometimes she is deliberately trying to craft a character so repellent, so pathetic, that the reader begins to feel that humanity is circling the drain and nothing will save us.

I am depressed now, and I think I need to go find a good suspenseful serial killer story to raise my spirits.

Disturbing, depressing, maddening

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I'm not sure why this is classified as Suspense? These stories are not mysterious or suspenseful. At best, I would classify them as Depressing and at worst, Disturbing. The characters are in situations where they go from bad to worse.
Trigger warning, as there are scenes of violent rape and personal assault.

Disturbing

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