LLL Presents – “48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister & Zero-Sum: Stories”

The inimitable Joyce Carol Oates has published  both another masterful mystery and a collection of linked stories. Join us for a reading and a discussion between the author and fellow writer and colleague A.M. Homes.

In 48 Clues, a young woman mysteriously vanishes from her family home, and her sister must tally up the clues to discover her fate.

After beautiful Marguerite suddenly vanishes from her small town in Upstate New York, the causes of her disappearance are entirely unclear. Was foul play involved? Or did she merely take an opportunity to get away for fun, or finally make the decision to leave behind her claustrophobic life of limited opportunities?

In Zero-Sum, games are played for lethal stakes. A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered; diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community; a woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover; a young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as “mother.” In the collection’s longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with “drafts” of his own suicide. Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism, and ever-shifting identities.

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the National Book Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement Award, and the National Book Award, among many honors. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national best sellers We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde; and The Falls. Her most recent novel prior to 48 Clues  and Zero-Sum is Babysitter. She is Professor of the Humanities emerita at Princeton University and teaches at NYU. A.M. Homes is the author most recently of The Unfolding. Her other books include the best-selling memoir The Mistress’ Daughter; the novels This Book Will Save Your Life, The End of Alice, and Jack; and the short story collections Days of Awe, The Safety of Objects and Things You Should Know. She also teaches creative writing at The Lewis Center for the Arts.