Publisher's Synopsis
A beautiful young woman locked into an obsessive love affair seeks her revenge in a bizarre, violent manner. Two adult sisters recall their mother's disappearance when they were children. A bitterly angry young woman defines herself as "ugly" as a way of making herself invulnerable to hurt, and in so doing hurts others. In this gathering of 24 stories, the mysterious private lives of individuals are explored with vivid, unsparing precision and sympathy, and provide startling and unexpected insights into the contemporary American psyche and the literary pleasures admirers of Oates's short fiction have come to expect.
