FAITHLESS, TALES OF TRANSGRESSION, by Joyce Carol Oates; The Ecco Press; 386 pages. $27.
Joyce Carol Oates understands the mind of a murderer. She understands obsession. She can explain the burden of caring too deeply — or the burden of being cared for too deeply.
In this, she is like Dostoevski, or like Poe. She knows that anyone could love a killer; anyone could raise one. Maybe you could even kill someone yourself. You could easily become a victim, an object of someone else's obsession.
Her new book of short stories, titled "Faithless," proves Oates' mastery. It proves her mastery of understanding, as well as her mastery of storytelling and suspense.
One of the stories, "Questions," begins like this, with a question: She was 31 years old, her lover was 20 years old, should that have worried her? She knew it was a mistake to get involved with him, but she couldn't have prevented it from happening. She hadn't known he was suicidal at the time.
There are certain reoccurring themes and symbols in this collection of stories. In several stories, an older woman finds herself in a position where she is supposed to be protecting a young man — but instead, she becomes attracted to him.
There are also several scarves in these stories. In two stories, the final scene is of a woman holding fast to a square of pretty silk. Perhaps scarves are meant to symbolize the ephemeral (or maybe they are merely the author's favorite fashion accessory).
Yet, not every story is told from a woman's point of view. Oates is equally adept at portraying the mind of a demented male. In fact, if you want a glimpse into the minds of the Columbine killers, or of the Mendez brothers — read Joyce Carol Oates. Nothing you read in the newspapers can bring you this close to understanding why a boy might kill.
And just as intriguing as Oates' understanding of the murderer's heart, is her understanding of the ways in which knowing about evil can, in itself, be harmful.
In the first story in the collection, "Au Sable," a man gets a telephone call from his elderly father-in-law. The father-in-law and mother-in-law are on their way to a remote cabin, in order to take an overdose of sleeping pills. The man tries to reason with his father-in-law, tries to talk him out of it. He fails.
The eerie part of the story comes at the end, when the man's wife comes home and he doesn't tell her, and the reader realizes that their relationship will never be the same. Evil begets another generation of evil.
At the end of the book, there are two stories about storytellers. Can the people who tell murder stories remain untouched? In telling evil, are they telling what is in their own hearts? Or do their hearts become forever changed by the telling?
More questions.
Oates raises many intriguing questions.
E-MAIL: susan@desnews.com