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    Wild Nights!: New Stories
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    Wild Nights!: New Stories
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    Wild Nights!: New Stories
    Ebook236 pages2 hours

    Wild Nights!: New Stories

    By Joyce Carol Oates

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    New York Times bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates’ imaginative look at the last days of five giants of American literature, now available in a deluxe paperback edition in Ecco’s The Art of the Story Series.

    Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Samuel Clemens (“Mark Twain”), Henry James, Ernest Hemingway—Joyce Carol Oates evokes each of these American literary icons in this work of prose fiction, poignantly and audaciously reinventing the climactic events of their lives. In subtly nuanced language suggestive of each of these writers, Oates explores the mysterious regions of the unknowable self that is “genius.”

    Darkly hilarious, brilliant, and brazen, Wild Nights! is an original and haunting work of the imagination.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061757532
    Unavailable
    Wild Nights!: New Stories
    Author

    Joyce Carol Oates

    Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the 2019 Jerusalem Prize, and has been several times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

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    Reviews for Wild Nights!

    3.5/5

    91 ratings13 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Imagination in overdrive!
    • 4/5
      Great writers do not necessarily lead great lives, and the end of their lives can be as miserable as anybody's. "Wild Nights!," the 2008 book of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates, examines the last days of five of the greatest American writers. Although she writes fiction, Oates did her homework and bases her tales on biographical information about the writers.The one possible exception may be "EDickinsonRepliLuxe," a wonderful bit of science fiction in which Oates imagines a future time when anyone with enough money can purchase small robots with the appearance and personalities of famous people from the past. Mr. and Mrs. Krim choose to have a little Emily Dickinson in their home. Is there any other writer whose personality would be less suited to being, in effect, someone's household pet than the reclusive poet? Little Emily, her pockets stuffed with little pieces of paper covered with lines of poetry, tries to keep to herself until Mr. Krim, his wife away, decides to finally get his money's worth. The title of this collection, by the way, comes from a Dickinson poem.The least successful story, "Poe Posthumous; or, The Light-House," takes the form of journal entries written by Poe while living in a lighthouse near the end of his brief life. Oates captures the increasing madness and declining health of the writer, but I didn't find the story very interesting. The three others prove to be gems, however."Grandpa Clemens & Angelfish, 1906" focuses on Mark Twain's late-in-life fascination with pretty girls between the ages of 10 and 16. He called them his Angelfish. In the story, Maddie is the favorite of his Angelfish, with whom he maintains a secret correspondence and conspires to meet in their secret place until he discovers, to his horror, that she has passed her 16th birthday. Then he shuts her off completely, even after the girl's mother, discovering his letters, begs him to write again because Maddie, in her despair, refuses to eat."Papa at Ketchum, 1961" takes us inside Ernest Hemingway's mind as he contemplates suicide. Always vain and selfish, he worries that even with a shotgun he will not do as good a job at it as his father managed with a handgun.The writer who looks the best at the end of his life, at least in these stories, is Henry James in "The Master at St. Bartholomew's." The pompous and privileged writer, who loves being called the Master, chooses to become a servant to English boys wounded in the trenches during the Great War. He volunteers to help at a hospital in London where many of these soldiers are brought. At first he only talks with them or reads to them, but as the burden of so many wounded becomes too much for the strained hospital staff, he takes on less agreeable tasks, including emptying bedpans. Never in his life has he performed such labor. Now he does so willingly and with pride, wishing there was more he could do for these boys.Oates has given us some fine stories about some fine writers. They may be fiction, but you will feel like you know the writers better after reading them.
    • 4/5
      Joyce Carol Oates has reimagined the final days of five important American authors: Poe, Dickinson, Twain, Henry James and Hemingway. The stories of Twain, James and Hemingway are the ones that stick closer to the historical record, while those of Poe and Dickinson take flight into the fantastic.

      "Poe, Posthomous" imagines that Poe spent his final days not in Baltimore but in an isolated lighthouse off the coast of Chile, hoping that the solitude would allow him to produce an important philosophical treatise. As with most of the stories, Oates mimics the writing style of the author in question, and the story is very reminiscent of those Poe tales where the protagonist succumbs to madness, yet there are several elements, including the setting and the final development, that suggest Oates is channeling not Poe but Lovecraft. "EDickinsonRepiluxe" tells not so much about Emily Dickinson's last days, as of her 21st century resurrection as a sort of robotic family member/pet, purchased by a childless middle-aged couple to fill a void in their lives. Intriguing, but aside from its Twilight Zone-like premise, it felt like a familiar story of middle-age disappointment and estrangement.

      The Twain, James and Hemingway are closer to what you'd expect given these authors final days. Twain is a broken man after the death of his wife and beloved daughter, resentful of the public persona he has to play. He seeks solace in the company of girls, younger than 16, mostly innocent but with somewhat creepy undertones. James volunteers in a veteran's hospital during WWI, where the suffering of young men affects him deeply. Hemingway struggles with his poor mental and physical health as he obsesses over bringing his life to an end. There's an interesting dichotomy between the first two stories, with their fantastic concepts, and the final three, which feel so much more grounded that it's hard to know when the truth ends and Oates' extrapolations begin.
    • 3/5
      An odd book about the final days of famous authors. It's a collection of short stories that are mostly historical fiction with a few fantastical ones thrown in for good measure. Some stories were better than others.
    • 4/5
      Interesting reading this exercise in virtuosity and speculation--Oates imagines the last days of five American authors--Poe, Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James and Hemingway, each written in a style that seems to be that of the author-subject. More interesting is that each story is also about love and sex as well as death.
    • 3/5
      Joyce Carol Oates and I have an odd relationship—purely literary, of course. Many times her works have left me quite satisfied. Others have been disappointing. I know this is not a so much a reflection of her talent; rather, it is her push (a need?) to publish what seems like a million books in her lifetime. When an author is churning out five books a year, the reader should expect it to be hit-or-miss. Yet, I come back for more. For all the nights I’ve spent awake mulling over lackluster tales, I keep returning in the hopes of stories that will keep make my nights wild with excitement.

      So what book could be more perfect than Wild Nights!, a collection of five stories that tell of the last days of five literary giants—Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James, and Ernest Hemingway? I was captivated with the concept when I first heard of it, and, to date, it is the only Oates book I have read immediately after publication. Yet, through the entire book, I was prepared for disappointment, so that when it came along, I was able to brush it aside and enjoy Wild Nights! for its better qualities.

      Unfortunately, the biggest disappointment is the concept itself. The publishers knew what they were doing by adding the tagline "Stories about the last days of…" It certainly worked on me: I was captivated, even though I have yet to develop an appreciation for Twain and am not the slighest bit familiar with Henry James. Be advised, however, that these five stories are not necessarily depicting "the last days" of the aforementioned authors. They’re not always even depicting the authors themselves. Now that’s disappointing!

      My hope with the Poe story was that it would speculate as to what happened to the influential writer whose death remains a mystery today. Immediately, one sees this is not the case, however, as the tale begins with the day Poe died and carries on for many months afterwards as he performs his duties as sole occupant of a Chilean lighthouse. Not what I had expected, but more than acceptable as it carried a Poe-esque theme and tone throughout its entirity.

      For Dickinson, I had considered a moving tale which pondered the poet’s seclusion, heartache, and obsession with death. Oates, instead, weaves together "EDickinsonRepliLuxe", the story of a 21st-century couple who purchases a mechanical reproduction of the author herself. What does this have to do with the last days of Emily
      Dickinson, or even Dickinson herself, you ask? Absolutely nothing. The android doesn’t even give us much of a glimpse into the author.

      At this point, I had thrown what few expectation I had away. I knew before reading it that the story of Twain would have nothing to do with his birth and death coinciding with Haley’s comet like I had entertained before taking the collection home from the library. It didn’t. And it didn’t have anything to do with his death. This story was however about the author and even took place at a late point in his life, which I guess falls into the vague misnomer of "last days." "Grandpa Clemens & Angelfish, 1906" gives insight into a part of Twain’s life that I had known nothing of. It was equally suspenseful and tender and stood out as the collection’s best.

      Of the authors, Henry James was the only I had read no works of; other than faint name recognition, I knew nothing of him. James’ "last days" peer into his time spent volunteering at a London hospital during World War I. It carried over a certain feeling that the Twain story had in it’s eery sentimentality. This one, however, seemed to carry on a bit too long and by the end, I just wasn’t as interested as I was the first half.

      The final tale regarded Hemingway, the writer whose life ended in the stereotypical author way. Surprisingly at this point in the book, "Papa at Ketchum, 1961" begins immediately with a shotgun pointed to Hemingway’s head. Could this truly be a story about the author’s "last days?" Here again, Oates effectively uses the writer’s style which may be jarring to the reader unfamiliar with Hemingway. (He liked pronouns. He liked them very much. You could say he loved them. Except he loved many things. Like short sentences.) Of course this story wouldn’t fit in to this collection if it just told a straight forth narrative of Hemingway’s death, and so Oates digresses on other paths which I will not reveal.

      If I were unfamiliar with Joyce Carol Oates, I would’ve thrown this book across the room. I would have felt lied to. Disappointed. It’s not what one should expect. Those familiar with Oates, however, probably will expect it. And they’ll equally expect that though this book, like any of Oates’ many books couldn’t possibly be bad, it very likely is not that good, either.
    • 5/5
      Many readers and writers consider Joyce Carol Oates the first woman of American letters writing today. I have long admired her, but keeping up with her literary output proved a daunting tasks. I have about 100 books by her, yet I only have about half her novels. She averages about five books a year.Oates has gone through quite a few different styles in her writing. In addition to conventional novels and short stories, she has written Gothic Romances and historical fiction. As a child, her father took her to boxing matches, and she wrote a non-fiction book on the “sweet science.” She wrote several novels under the pseudonym, Rosamond Smith, along with poetry, plays, and masses of essays. She won the National Book Award and several Pulitzer nominations. Since 1978, she has taught at Princeton University and is now a Professor in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing.Despite all this, Wild Nights! is something completely different. This collection of stories details the last days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway. Poe is particularly interesting because of the way he died. He was found wandering around the streets of Baltimore in a delirious state. He dies a few days later, and Oates takes up his story that day with a journal. Poe finds himself on a strange island. Oates captures the style and voice of the writers she profiles. She begins the day Poe died:“7 October 1849. Ah, waking!—my soul filled with hope! on this, my first day on the fabled Light-House at Viña de Mar—I am thrilled to make my first entry into my Diary as agreed upon with my patron Dr. Bertram Shaw. As regularly as I can keep the Diary, I will—that is my vow made to Dr. Shaw, as to myself—tho’ there is no predicting what may happen to a man so entirely alone as I am--one must be clear-minded about this—I may become ill, or worse…” (3).Dickenson, on the other hand, appears as “EDickensonReplilux, which is a robot programmed to think, act, and even speak like Dickenson. Henry James appears much like the characters in his fiction -- unable to communicate his true feelings. The most chilling story belonged to Hemingway and his last days. Twain’s story tells of his last years collecting young girls under the age of 16 as his “Angelfish.” Nothing untoward happens to any of the girls, but it does have a creepy feeling. Oates has recreated the last days of Papa in Ketchem, Idaho.Wild Nights! by Joyce Carol Oates is an intriguing and absorbing look into the lives of some of the great writers of American Literature. 5 stars.--Jim, 3/17/13
    • 2/5
      I was really disappointed with this one. Part of it is my fault, because I thought (from the title) that this was a nonfiction book about the listed authors’ final days. Instead it’s a fictional short story collection with Oates’ imagined accounts of their later days. Each of the five stories deals with one author. Poe’s story never seemed very focused to me. Twain’s story was incredibly creepy and I wasn’t a fan. I’m hoping Oates doesn’t believe he was actually like the way she wrote him, because her version of Twain in disturbing. James’ wasn’t bad, but again, there was no real spark. Hemingway’s story was probably the closest to reality and I think that’s why I liked it best. The Emily Dickinson’s section isn’t actually about her at all. It’s about a live mannequin, called an EDickinsonRepliLuxe, that’s created to look and act like her. A husband and wife purchase it so they can interact with her in their own home. This story reminded me so much of Ray Bradbury’s style, particularly his short story “Marionettes, Inc.” from The Illustrated Man. BOTTOM LINE: The whole collection is better in theory than in actuality. Skip it and find a nonfiction account about your favorite authors. 
    • 4/5
      The subtitle describes it perfectly. I found the stories to be agreeable and occasionally profound speculations, and, for once, all of the stories were of uniformly high quality.
    • 1/5
      In her heart, I believe Joyce Carol Oates is a Science Fiction writer. However, she made her name outside the genre, so she isn't characterized as such. I finished reading her collection of (long) short stories, Wild Nights!, which is Oates' revisionist telling of the last days of Twain, Poe, Hemingway, James, and Dickinson. To be clear, I believe Oates is an exceptionally talented writer. I also don't care for her very much. She seems, to me, to try a little too hard to shock, and acts as if she discovered mucous just yesterday. So why, you ask, did I give her money? Airport. Flight. Needed book.The Hemingway story is without a doubt the best. Possibly she didn't take the liberties with him that did with the others (Poor Poe! Forced to live out his elder days mated with a sea-creature raising a Cthulu breed, better for him to die in a gutter in Baltimore) because Hemingway's children could sue her. The treatment meted out to the other greats wasn't much of an improvement. I sincerely doubt Dickinson, as a replicant or as herself, would be so ephemeral. And while I understand, from Oates' modernist viewpoint, turning Clemens into a Humbert Humbert, my greatest distaste was left for the writer who twisted history. Ah well. I suppose Oates has her own issues. The writing style is excellent. What she chose to do with it left me feeling slightly unclean. Next time I'll pick up Stephen King.
    • 5/5
      Amazing, truly creative talent. Joyce Carol Oates is able to be brash and subtle, wild and tame as she imagines the last days of some of our most beloved authors. It is shocking, thought-provoking, and left me with a great deal of curiosity and ambivalence. Overall it is a treatise on accepting out humanity!
    • 5/5
      This short story collection examines the last days and nights of five prolific American writers, from Poe to Hemingway. Together these five tales describe five eminient writers on the brink of despair and madness that culminates in their deaths. The stories vary in the extent to which they depart from realistic portraits of these authors' deaths. While Oates's treatment of Hemingway's death could conceivably be a factual rendering, those of Poe and Dickinson are far more fanicful, and depart from the historical record. Together, these stories create a riveting and unusual collection. Because the reader knows from the outset that each of these tales ends in death, the narratives flow with significant dramatic tension. From the beginning of each story the reader gets a sense of how each author will meet his or her end. As they move toward this preordained conclusion tension builds for the reader, as he or she discovers just how his or her assumptions will play out. Oates does an excellent job of adopting the voice and persona of each of the writers in question. Each story has its own flavor and style. Hemingway's story reads with the stark prose one might expect from the man, and Poe's narrative reads like a nineteenth-century gothic tale. Overall, this was a very enjoyable read, one that showcases Oates's remarkable versatility, and reaffirms her place as a master of psychological suspense.
    • 5/5
      Oates reimagines the last days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway in this series of novellas. In each, the sexuality of is examined in the context of his or her dying days. In each, their death is brought about as a result of their own sexual proclivities. Each is depressed and suicidal as their writing skills leave them and it becomes apparent that death is at hand.Each story is disturbing in itself, but representative of the individual author Oates is examining. Poe, left alone with his own imagination to man a lighthouse in the South Seas, goes insane. Dickinson is a manufactuered person, purchased by a rich couple for their own amusements, who, as a result of her poetry, is expected to be sexual, but, being manufactured, is not. Twain dies among the little girls he surrounded himself with in his old age. James cannot help but moon over the WWII soldiers he has volunteered to care for in a British hospital. And Hemingway loses his manhood along with his writing skills and his mind as he tries to figure a way to take his own life.A great book for fans of classic literature and the lives of those who wrote them. For the Oates fan, another example of her diversity and depth as a writer.