In this haunting collection of tales, a young boy becomes obsessed with dolls after his cousin dies from leukemia. A teenage girl’s job of housesitting turns into a time of terror. A wife is convinced that her husband wants to kill her. And little children are mysteriously disappearing.
“The Doll-Master”
When I first saw the title of this story, I thought it would be about someone who controlled dolls, someone who was their master. Robbie, a little boy, is obsessed with dolls, and this obsession began when a female cousin succumbed to leukemia, and he took her doll. He cuddled and slept with this doll each night until his father decided that enough was enough.
He does control the dolls he has—he calls them found dolls—and he can hear these dolls talk to him. “Friend” is the one who helps him find the dolls forbidden to him by his father.
The disappearance of little girls seems to coincide with the time his “Friend” leads him to these found dolls. Hmm.
A definite level of creepiness runs through this story, and the ending is more than just a little creepy. Great story.
“Soldier”
A black kid is shot and killed by a white man. The man claims it was self-defense. Is he telling the truth, or is there more to the story than he wants to admit?
“Gun Accident”
A young teenage girl is asked by her favorite teacher to house-sit for a short period of time. She is flattered and agrees to do so. She does everything just like her teacher has asked, but disaster strikes one evening while she is there.
“Equatorial”
The main characters are normally identified simply as “the wife” and “the husband,” but names are given. The wife seems certain that her husband has found a younger woman, that he is tired of being married to her and wants her to die. Is she right? Or is she being paranoid because she was once the “other woman?”
She insists on going with him on a trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. Will both of them return home?
“Big Momma”
Little kids are disappearing. Even though Violet is thirteen years old, her mom tells her to be careful. This makes Violet angry. Violet believes she is too old to be told such stuff. She hates her mom. She is still mad that they have moved, angry that she hasn’t made any friends yet.
One day as she is walking home from school, the van Rita Mae Clovis is in offers to give her a ride. This becomes a frequent thing, and Violet now has a friend in Rita. And Rita’s dad is really nice to her too. The life of the Clovis’s is so much different than her life with her mom.
The way Mr. Clovis was with his children reminds me of the wicked witch who tempted Hansel and Gretel with all of the sweet, sugary stuff. Unlike Violet’s mother who was always muttering about “nutrition”—“organic foods”—“omega fats—Mr. Clovis allowed the kids to eat anything they wanted, and as much of it as they wanted. For me, that was the first clue that something just wasn’t right about that family.
Violet has gotten herself into a situation that she has the chance to escape. Will her hatred of her mother cloud her judgement? Or will she wise up and see the truth? Oh, and who is Big Momma?
“Mystery, Inc.”
One bookstore owner covets the bookstore another one owns. He sets out to deceive and kill in order to obtain this store. Little does he know that the other is prepared for such a thing to happen, and the tables are turned on him. Which one comes out the winner?
It was hard to pick favorites out of this collection because all of the stories were good, but I finally narrowed it down to three stories: “The Doll-Master,” “Big Momma,” and “Mystery, Inc.”
I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. If you would like to purchase your own copy, I have provided an Amazon link below.
Amazon Link: The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror
Favorite Sentences:
These sentences were taken from an Advanced Reader’s Copy, so they may appear differently in the final version.
You can look into a doll’s eyes without fear of the doll seeing into your soul in a way hostile to you but you can’t be so careless looking at anyone else.
Her eyes were rolled back up into her head like the eyes of a doll that has been shaken hard and her bleeding mouth was open and slack with saliva but—she was alive.
Even if the reticulated python was desperate with hunger, she could probably not have broken the thick plate glass, scummy from its saliva and the oily ooze of its great coils.
At the present time, I move from place to place—like a hermit crab that occupies the empty shells of other sea creatures with no fixed home of its own.
New Words Learned:
abnegation – the act of renouncing or rejecting something
antic – grotesque or bizarre
bespeak – suggest; be evidence of
bourgeois – of or characteristic of the middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes
callow – inexperienced and immature
cantilever – a long projecting beam or girder fixed at only one end
collating – collecting and combining texts, information, or sets of figures in proper order
ennui – a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation
esoteric – intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest
exigency – an urgent need or demand
fecundity – fruitfulness or fertility, as of the earth
frisson – a sudden strong feeling of excitement or fear; a thrill
insidious – proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects
interregnum – an interval or pause
marmoreal – made of or likened to marble
sensate – being able to perceive with the senses; sensing
transmogrified – transformed, esp. in a surprising or magical manner
About the Author:
Joyce Carol Oates is the author of such national bestsellers as The Falls, Blonde, and We Were the Mulvaneys. Her other titles for the Mysterious Press include Jack of Spades, High Crime Area, and The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares, which won the 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Short Horror Fiction. She is the recipient of the National Book Award for them and the 2010 President’s Medal for the Humanities.
