Dear Husband (short story collection)

Dear Husband is a collection of 14 fictional short stories written by Joyce Carol Oates. It was published in 2009.[1] [2]

First edition (publ. Ecco)

Description

The book is made up of a collection of 14 stories, all of which have been previously published.[3] The book is broken up into two parts.

Stories

Part 1
  • Panic - Originally published in Michigan Quarterly Review. A family deals with their reactions to a potentially deadly situation.
  • Special - Originally published in Boulevard. Details a girl growing up with an older autistic sister who has disfigured her.
  • The Blind Man's Sighted Daughters - Originally published in Fiction (magazine). A grown woman struggles to deal with her aged father and the knowledge that he is a murderer.
  • Magada Maria - Originally published in Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. A story of a woman's slow downward spiral over the years, told from her last boyfriend's point of view.
  • A Princeton Idyll - Originally published in The Yale Review. Story told in a series of letters between a woman and a housekeeper regarding the woman's grandfathers death and dissolution of the family.
  • Cutty Sark - Originally published in Salmagundi (magazine). A man deals with the pressure of having a famous incestuous mother.
  • Landfill - Originally published in The New Yorker. Murder mystery centered on a young man's death at a fraternity house.
  • Vigilante - Originally published in Boulevard. Home from college the protagonist struggles with drug addiction and an abusive father.
  • The Heart Sutra - Originally published in American Short Fiction. Two famous poets deal with separation from each other in vastly different fashion.

Part 2
  • Dear Joyce Carol - Originally published in Boulevard. A series of, fictional, letters written to the author by a stalker.
  • Suicide by Fitness Center - Originally published in Harper's Magazine. Depressed a woman attempts suicide at a fitness center.
  • The Glazers - Originally published in American Short Fiction. Meeting the family of her boyfriend a woman discovers a dark secret.
  • Mistrial - Originally published in Storie. Retired librarian is on a jury, but has a secret motive.
  • Dear Husband - Originally Published in Conjunctions. The titular story of the collection. A short final letter from a wife to her husband.

References
  1. Oates, Joyce Carol. Dear Husband. p. title page.
  2. NY Times review at The New York Times
  3. Oates, Joyce Carol. Dear Husband.


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