Zero-Sum: Stories


Zero-Sum: Stories is a collection of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates published in 2023 by Alfred A. Knopf. The stories originally appeared in magazines and anthologies.

Stories

I
  • "Zero-Sum"
  • "Mr. Stickum"
  • "Lovesick"
  • "Sparrow"
  • "The Cold"
  • "Take Me, I Am Free"
II
  • "The Suicide"
III
  • "The Baby Monitor"
  • "Monstersister"
  • "A Theory Pre-Post-Mortem"
  • "This Is Not a Drill"
  • "M A R T H E: A Referendum"

Reception

Declaring Oates "a master of the short form", Kirkus Reviews observes that the characters in the collection suffer more from the severity of the author's "taut, efficient sentences" than the narratives she places them in:
Literary critic Donna Seaman at Booklist notes the extremity to which Oates applies the Gothic literary traditions of Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson, characterizing the collection as "high-pitched, unnerving, and incisive". Reviewer Kate Folk at The New York Times identifies the longest story, "The Suicide" as "the collection's centerpiece". According to Oates, the chief protagonist, Harold Hofsteader, is a fictionalized "alter ego" of David Foster Wallace.