The Barrens: A Novel of Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates, Rosamond Smith

Book Description
One of the most powerful and original voices in contemporary American literature turns her remarkable skills in this new novel to the complex and compelling story of a serial killer and the people his crimes touch, and transform. Matt McBride, a seemingly happily married man, remembers his first victim. He was a boy when the mutilated body of the pretty, popular, outgoing teenager was found in the desolate New Jersey Pine Barrens. Matt's memory of the atrocity haunts him still; he has long felt guilty at not having been able to prevent it, although he'd hardly known the girl. Now another attractive young woman has disappeared. Matt knew this victim, too -- and just possibly he knew her more intimately than he can acknowledge. By degrees Matt becomes obsessed with guilt, and the police view his increasingly erratic behavior with a suspicion that draws official attention away from Name Unknown, an artist of limited talent but of fierce, demented vision. Under the spell of the missing woman, Matt sets out on a path that leads him to an inevitable confrontation with both Name Unknown and his own deepest, unacknowledged self.



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