Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed on 12/21/2020 + 1181 more book reviews

Another nightmarish collection of stories from Oates. I've come to believe that JCO is one of the best writers out there. I have enjoyed both her novels and her story collections and she has yet to disappoint me. This collection of previously printed stories that came from such publications as Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine were as the title implies, stories about females ranging from a six-year old to wives, mothers, and career nurses. All of these were sometimes rather ghoulish but once started could not be put down.

In "The Banshee" a six-year-old drags her baby brother onto a rooftop to get daddy's attention, with dire results. A razor-wielding miss who can pass for 11 is rented to pedophiles by her (step)daddy in "Doll: A Romance of the Mississippi"; Ugly cellar traumas await youngsters at the hands of their mommas in "The Haunting" and "Tell Me You Forgive Me." In a turnabout, the young mom in "Angel of Wrath" coaxes her stalker to murder. Then there are the wives: lonely and lusting on the Cape in "Hunger," rich and bored and window-shopping in Madison Avenue boutiques with sinister back rooms in "Madison at Guignol" and posing as the ultimate Daddy's Girl in "So Help Me God." What about the poor working lass? Two summa cum laude graduates of Mount Saint Joseph's Nursing School, class of '54 and class of '99, invade the hospital wards in "Angel of Mercy."

Overall, a page-turning collection of rather macabre tales that left me wanting to read more of Oates.

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