The Accursed

＂Joyce Carol Oates has written what may be the world’s finest postmodern Gothic novel: E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime set in Dracula’s castle. It’s dense, challenging, problematic, horrifying, funny, prolix and full of crazy people. You should read it.＂ --Stephen King, New York Times Book Review

Princeton, New Jersey at the turn of the 20th century: a tranquil place to raise a family, a genteel town for genteel souls. But something dark and dangerous lurks at the edges of the town, corrupting and infecting its residents. Vampires and ghosts haunt the dreams of the innocent. A powerful curse besets the elite families of Princeton--their daughters begin disappearing. A young bride on the verge of the altar is seduced and abducted by a dangerously compelling man--a shape-shifting, vaguely European prince who might just be the devil, and who spreads his curse upon a richly deserving community of white Anglo-Saxon privilege. And in the Pine Barrens that border the town, a lush and terrifying underworld opens up.

When the bride’s brother sets out against all odds to find her, his path will cross those of Princeton’s most formidable people, from Grover Cleveland, fresh out of his second term in the White House and retired to town for a quieter life, to soon-to-be commander in chief Woodrow Wilson, president of the University, and a complex individual obsessed to the point of madness with his need to retain power; from the young Socialist idealist Upton Sinclair, to his charismatic comrade Jack London, and the most famous writer of the era, Samuel Clemens/ Mark Twain--all plagued by ＂accursed＂ visions.

Narrated with Oates’s unmistakable psychological insight, The Accursed combines beautifully transporting historical detail with chilling supernatural elements to stunning effect.

作者簡介

喬伊斯‧卡洛‧奧茲（Joyce Carol Oates）

　　喬伊斯．卡洛．奧茲寫作以來得獎無數，曾獲美國 國家書評協會頒發的伊凡．桑德羅夫終生成就獎、國家書卷獎、美國筆會／馬拉姆傑出短篇小說獎（PEN/Malamud）。著有當代最為雋永的小說，包括叫 好叫座的《我們是馬爾瓦尼一家》（We Were the Mulvaneys）、入圍國家書卷獎與普立茲獎的《浮生如夢》（Blonde）、《紐約時報》暢銷書《大瀑布》（The Falls）、《掘墓人的女兒》（The Gravedigger’s Daughter）。奧茲亦跨足青少年小說，作品包括《大嘴巴和醜女孩》（Big Mouth & Ugly Girl）、《奇異的綠眼睛》（Freaky Green Eyes）、《逆風飛翔》（After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away）、《性．性感》（Sexy）等。奧茲擔任普林斯頓大學人文學院特聘教授，從一九七八年以來，亦是美國藝術暨文學學會會員。二〇〇三年，獲得共同 財富文學卓越貢獻奬，二〇〇六年，獲《芝加哥論壇報》終身成就獎。

　　Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.