Oates, Joyce Carol.Small Avalanches and Other Stories. HarperTempest, 2003. lib ed 0-06-001218-8 $17.89 Oates collection of previously published short stories thought to have teen appeal is dedicated for the bad girls. Quite fitting, for protagonists include sisters who deliberately destroy their twice-divorced mothers relationship with a new potential mate, a is pursued by a stranger, Melissa, who willingly trades a friends life for her own; Sunny, whose refusal of a marriage proposal drives a boy to suicide; and Melanie, who lets her beautiful but naïve cousin Steff take off with a man met on the Internet. Stranger danger abounds in these stories as girls on the brink of womanhood lose their innocence through interaction with pedophiles, crazy neighbors, and other shady characters.
Oates adeptly portrays that tensions of wanting to be a grownup and a little girl all at once, and chronicles the way girls change sleekly change personas, depending on whom they are talking to. The literary merit of the collection is to be expected from the winner of the Pen/Malamud Lifetime Achievement Award in Short Fiction; the language feels surreal in most stories, and dialogue is not typical casual teenspeak. The stories are technically flawless, but wouldnt be my first choice for a booktalk.
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