Where Is Here?
Where Is Here? is a collection containing 34 works of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates originally published in paperback by Harper & Row in 1989 and in hardback by Ecco Press in 1992.[1][2]
Stories
- “Lethal”
- “Area Man Found Crucified”
- “Imperial Presidency”
- “Bare Legs”
- “Turquoise”
- “Biopsy”
- “The Date”
- “Angry”
- “The Ice Pick”
- “The Mother”
- “Sweet!”
- “Forgive Me!”
- “Transfigured Night”
- “Actress”
- “From The Life of...”
- “The Heir”
- “Shot”
- “Letter, Lover”
- “My Madman”
- “Cuckold”
- “The Escape”
- “Murder”
- “Insomnia”
- “Love, Forever”
- “Old Dog”
- “The Artist”
- “The Wig”
- “The Maker of Parables”
- “Embrace”
- “Beauty Salon”
- “Abandoned”
- “Running”
- “Pain”
- “Where Is Here?”
Reception
Randall Kenan in The New York Times describes Where Is Here as “a dazzling assortment of fictional hors d'oeuvres.” emphasizing their “miniature” scale which provides the reader with “a catalog of America's ills at the end of the 20th century: paranoia, political deception, homelessness, adultery, venereal disease, child abuse.” Kenan adds that Joyce augments her impressive oeuvre in crafting “these tiny—mostly exquisite—gems.”[3]
Publishers Weekly praises the “brief vignettes” that comprise the volume for their “inventiveness and boundless stylistic variety.”[4]
Critical analysis
Literary critic Gretchen Elizabeth Schultz characterizes these works as “short, short stories” and provides this passage from Oates’s Afterword in her collection The Assignation (1989) to explain the nature of these “miniature narratives”:
...They are “narratives” of a particular purity as a steep ski slope is a “hill” of a particular purity— they engender movement so rapid, so blurred, so impersonal, the human personality is swallowed up in narrative; in motion, we are narrative.[5]
Schultz cautions that reading these works may be “a dangerous experience, an assault on individual sensibilities” and as such, require a rereading and an objective assessment of the narratives which will “restore our obliterated selves—though they may be selves considerably different than what they were before.”[6]
References
Sources
- Johnson, Greg (1994). Joyce Carol Oates: a study of the short fiction. Twayne's studies in short fiction. New York: Twayne publ. ISBN 978-0-8057-0857-8.
- Kenan, Randall (1992-11-01). "Broken Hearts and Other Anatomical Disasters". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-11-11.
- Schultz, Gretchen Elizabeth (1994). "The Assignation and Where Is Here?: What's Happening in the Miniature Narratives of Joyce Carol Oates". In Johnson, Greg (ed.). Joyce Carol Oates: a study of the short fiction. Twayne's studies in short fiction. New York: Twayne publ. pp. 202–212. ISBN 978-0-8057-0857-8.
- Oates, Joyce Carol (1992). Where is here? stories. Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press. ISBN 978-0-88001-283-6.
- Publishers Weekly. 1989. “Where Is Here” September, 1989. https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780880012836 Retrieved November 10, 2023.
- v
- t
- e
- A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967)
- Expensive People (1968)
- Them (1969)
- Wonderland (1971)
- Bellefleur (1980)
- A Bloodsmoor Romance (1982)
- Mysteries of Winterthurn (1984)
- My Heart Laid Bare (1998)
- The Accursed (2013)
- With Shuddering Fall (1964)
- Do with Me What You Will (1973)
- The Assassins: A Book of Hours (1975)
- Childwold (1976)
- Son of the Morning (1978)
- Cybele (1979)
- Unholy Loves (1979)
- Angel of Light (1981)
- Solstice (1985)
- Marya: A Life (1986)
- You Must Remember This (1987)
- American Appetites (1989)
- Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart (1990)
- Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang (1993)
- What I Lived For (1994)
- Zombie (1995)
- We Were the Mulvaneys (1996)
- Man Crazy (1997)
- Broke Heart Blues (1999)
- Blonde (2000)
- Middle Age: A Romance (2001)
- I'll Take You There (2002)
- The Tattooed Girl (2003)
- The Falls (2004)
- Missing Mom (2005)
- Black Girl / White Girl (2006)
- The Gravedigger's Daughter (2007)
- My Sister, My Love (2008)
- Little Bird of Heaven (2009)
- Mudwoman (2012)
- The Sacrifice (2015)
- Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. (2020)
- Black Water (1992)
- First Love: A Gothic Tale (1996)
- Beasts (2001)
- The Corn Maiden: A Love Story (2005)
- A Fair Maiden (2010)
- By the North Gate (1963)
- Upon the Sweeping Flood and Other Stories (1966)
- The Wheel of Love and Other Stories (1970)
- Marriages and Infidelities (1972)
- The Goddess and Other Women (1974)
- The Poisoned Kiss and Other Stories from the Portuguese (1975)
- Crossing the Border (1976)
- Night-Side (1977)
- All the Good People I've Left Behind (1979)
- The Assignation (1988)
- Demon and Other Tales (1996)
- I Am No One You Know: Stories (2004)
- High Lonesome: New & Selected Stories, 1966–2006 (2006)
- The Museum of Dr. Moses: Tales of Mystery and Suspense (2007)
- Wild Nights! (2008)
- Dear Husband (2009)
- The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares (2011)
- The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror (2016)
- "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (1963)
- "Stalking" (1972)
- "The Temple" (1996)
- Big Mouth & Ugly Girl (2002)
- Small Avalanches and Other Stories (2003)
- Freaky Green Eyes (2003)
- Sexy (2005)
- After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (2006)