An eclectic anthology edited by Joyce Carol Oates. It features the work of 16 distinguished writers, including Bernice McFadden, Margaret Atwood, Valerie Martin, Steph Cha and Ms. Oates herself.
Playful, too, though fueled by a scathing satiric vision, Bernice L. McFadden's "OBF, Inc." portrays a society so thoroughly imbued with racism that an ingenious entrepreneur has commercialized it as public relations damage control. Here is an insidious political noir in which the targets of racism can profit from it if they are willing to sell their souls to be identified as the "one black friend" of racist clients.
“An eclectic anthology edited by Joyce Carol Oates. It features the work of 16 distinguished writers, including Margaret Atwood, Valerie Martin, Steph Cha and Ms. Oates herself. The theme is ‘female noir,’ with shades encompassing ‘sociological realism…Grand Guignol surrealism…erotic playfulness [and] dark fairy-tale determinism.’ Noir sensibility, male or female, Ms. Oates concludes, is ‘not so much pessimistic as starkly realist, free of romantic illusion, expecting the less benign, resigned to the worst.’ If not the ideal cup of holiday cheer, then, perhaps a perfect tonic for the New Year?”
—Wall Street Journal
“But of course, in the end, it isn’t the themes or the innovations on the format of the short story anthology that make the tales collected in Cutting Edge most ‘feel’ as if you were reading Joyce Carol Oates herself. It is the writing. The tight plots and fresh, flowing prose that go about their business until–snap!–the story’s well-oiled mousetrap does its job.”
—New York Journal of Books
“This collection of feminist crime tales edited by the one and only Joyce Carol Oates is marketed to ‘readers who are sick and tired of the status quo, or who just want to have a little bit of fun at the expense of a crumbling patriarchal society.’ Well, isn’t that everyone?”
—CrimeReads, included in the Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2019
Included in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s Holiday Gift Guide!
Included in More2Read‘s Best Books Published in 2019: Horror, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi!
“Oates’ stellar anthology of female noir…is an inclusive homage to the female/feminist perspective…Taken as a whole, the collection is a surreal yet satisfying journey into the darker side of the female consciousness, a book that, for all its murk and mayhem, celebrates feminine strength, cunning, and determination.”
—Booklist
Joyce Carol Oates, a queenpin of the noir genre, has brought her keen and discerning eye to the curation of an outstanding anthology of brand-new top-shelf short stories (and poems by Margaret Atwood!). While bad men are not always the victims in these tales, they get their due often enough to satisfy readers who are sick and tired of the gendered status quo, or who just want to have a little bit of fun at the expense of a crumbling patriarchal society. This stylistically diverse collection will make you squirm in your seat, stay up at night, laugh out loud, and inevitably wish for more.
Featuring brand-new stories by: Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood (poems), Valerie Martin, Aimee Bender, Edwidge Danticat, Sheila Kohler, S.A. Solomon, S.J. Rozan, Lucy Taylor, Cassandra Khaw, Bernice L. McFadden, Jennifer Morales, Elizabeth McCracken, Livia Llewellyn, Lisa Lim, and Steph Cha.
From the introduction by Joyce Carol Oates:
“The particular strength of the female noir vision isn’t a recognizable style but rather a defiantly female, indeed feminist, perspective. Cutting Edge brings together a considerable range of twenty-first-century female voices, from sociological realism (Cha) to Grand Guignol surrealism (Oates); from erotic playfulness (Bender) to dark fairy-tale determinism (Khaw). Here is a brilliantly deadpan graphic story by Lisa Lim, and here are brilliantly executed poems by Margaret Atwood. Artwork by Laurel Hausler is striking and original, sinister and triumphant; Noir Dame (on the front cover) is the perfect image of a mysterious beauty, far more than merely skin-deep, and essentially unknowable.”
