A review by disreputabledog
American Gothic Tales by Joyce Carol Oates
5.0
"American Gothic Tales" is a superb collection of gothic stories published by American authors, ranging from the late 18th century to the present. I'm about halfway through the anthology, and so far none of the stories have been anything but excellent and enjoyable, although some stand out more than others.
A few of the stories I've read before, like "The Black Cat," "The Yellow Wallpaper," and of course "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," but what makes this collection so interesting is the inclusion of gothic stories by authors that are not usually considered to be gothic writers. (Joyce Carol Oates, the editor of this collection, notes in the introduction that the point is to make readers question how flimsy the concept of "genre" is.)
The stand-out stories from the ones I hadn't read before:
Nathaniel Hawthorn - "Young Goodman Brown"
Herman Melville - "The Tartarus of Maids"
Edith Wharton - "Afterward"
Gertrude Atherton - "The Striding Place"
HP Lovecraft - "The Outsider"
EB White - "The Door"
A few of the stories I've read before, like "The Black Cat," "The Yellow Wallpaper," and of course "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," but what makes this collection so interesting is the inclusion of gothic stories by authors that are not usually considered to be gothic writers. (Joyce Carol Oates, the editor of this collection, notes in the introduction that the point is to make readers question how flimsy the concept of "genre" is.)
The stand-out stories from the ones I hadn't read before:
Nathaniel Hawthorn - "Young Goodman Brown"
Herman Melville - "The Tartarus of Maids"
Edith Wharton - "Afterward"
Gertrude Atherton - "The Striding Place"
HP Lovecraft - "The Outsider"
EB White - "The Door"