The Goddess and Other Women
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 First edition | |
| Author | Joyce Carol Oates |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Vanguard Press |
Publication date | 1974 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 468 |
| ISBN | 978-0814907450 |
The Goddess and Other Women is a collection comprising 25 works of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates and published by Vanguard Press in 1974.[1]
Those stories first appearing in literary journals are indicated.[2][3]
- "A Premature Autobiography"
- "The Goddess" (Antaeus, Spring–Summer 1974)
- "Honeybit" (Confrontation, Fall 1974)
- "The Daughter" (entitled "Childhood" in Epoch, Spring 1967)
- "Magna Mater" (Antaeus, Spring–Summer 1974)
- "Ruth"
- "Unpublished Fragments"
- "Psychiatric Services"
- "The Girl" (limited edition by The Pomegranate Press, 1974)
- "The Wheel" (Epoch, Spring 1973)
- "Assault" (Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, 1973)
- "Concerning the Case of Bobby T." (The Atlantic, February 1973)
- "Explorations" (Remington Review, October 1973)
- "I Must Have You" (Ohio Review, Spring 1973)
- "The Maniac" (Viva, October 1973)
- "... & Answers" (Family Circle, January 1973)
- "Narcotic" (Mademoiselle, October 1972)
- "A Girl at the Edge of the Ocean" (The Falcon, Spring 1972)
- "Small Avalanches" (Cosmopolitan, November 1972)
- "Blindfold" (Southern Review, Spring 1972)
- "Free" (Quarterly Review of Literature, 1971)
- "Waiting" (Epoch, Spring 1968)
- "In the Warehouse" (The Transatlantic Review, Summer 1967)
- "The Voyage to Rosewood" (Shenandoah, Summer 1967)
Reception
Literary critic Marian Engel in the New York Times compares Oates favorably to the European masters of short fiction: "One or two of these stories are as good as James's and Conrad's. None of them is conventional or commercial, the 25 of them add up to a magnificent achievement."[4]
Literary critic John Alfred Avant, writing in The New Republic, offers this a contrary assessment of the volume:
Oates at her worst. Of the 25 stories, three are acceptable...The charge is often made that Oates writes too quickly and too much; but the same working habits that produced The Goddess also produced her last two big collections, which contain, along with some tripe, some of the best stories in the language. Oates can't work in any other way. We have to take the mediocre with the good, the bad with the great.[5]