About the Book
A young wife is home alone when the phone rings in "So Help Me God." Is the strange voice flirting with her from the other end of the line her jealous husband laying a trap, or a stranger who knows entirely too much about her? In "Madison at Guignol" an unhappy fashionista discovers a secret door inside her favorite clothing store and insists the staff let her enter. But even her fevered imagination cannot anticipate the horror they have been hiding from her. In these and other gripping and disturbing tales, women are confronted by the evil around them and surprised by the evil they find within themselves.
With wicked insight, Joyce Carol Oates demonstrates why the females of the species-be they six-year-old girls, seemingly devoted wives, or aging mothers-are by nature more deadly than the males.
About the Author
 JOYCE CAROL OATES is the recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the winner of the National Book Award. Among her major works are We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, and The Falls. She lives in New Jersey.
Praise for The Female of the Species
“For four decades, Oates has rendered razor-sharp tales of marginalized lives. This latest collection, showcasing her work in crime-related stories (several of which have landed in best-of-the-year anthologies), is no exception. From adulterers to murderers, the women portrayed in these pages possess a killer combination of venom and vice . . . Oates' prose is luminous.”
—Booklist
“Whatever the situation, Oates, with her usual clarity and precision, creates a world where danger lurks within every woman, and no one is safe.”
—Library Journal
“As evidenced in this collection of nine stories, Oates's imagination is still fertile, feverish and macabre.”
—Publishers Weekly
Art: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610), Judith and Holofernes
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