Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 excellent February 6, 2008
The chapter from Wieland is excellent; I have read the novel, and found it one of the best gothic novels of America. I figure it is the way schizophrenia works in human mind. I also enjoyed Melville's "the tartarus of maids". Maybe it is not strictly a gothic tale, but it has a gothic atmosphere, and many levels of reading. I like the way the landscape is depicted, and the feelings it conjures. It is really an industrial nightmare, possibly inspired by the XIX century industrial revolution, and the terrible labour conditions of that time.
The legend of Sleepy hollow is a brilliant combination of gothicism, humour, and a thorough or exhaustive description of primitve dutch communities, rural life, and the lovely place where they settled. It is not so easy a combination, so the writer must have been very gifted to create it, and make of it one of the american classics. I did not like to much Ambrose Bierce's "The damned thing", It certainly is not the best gothic tale of this writer. He had wrote many other and more interesesting gothic tales, like "an episode in owl creek bridge".
It seems that american writers of the nineteen century were higly influenced by religious puritanism, and - mainly - by its dark side, and destructive behaviour. For instance, "The man of adamant", of Hawthorne, and the above mentioned Wieland.
I did not like to much Gertrude Ashterton tale. Neither did I like Sherwood Anderson "death in the woods"; it is simply a sad story of a miserable woman, but it lacks interest. I enjoyed a lot, Lovecraft`s, derleth`s, and Faulkner tales. "The lonesome place" is a remarkable tale, about our dark places of our minds, and our fears of those places. Faulkner story is about a decadent southern aristocrat, that slightly reminded me of Tenesse Williams` Blanche DuBois. (even if they were not alike in any apparent sense) E.B. White story, "The door", is an unsettling tale of what happens in human mind when confronted with apparently insoluble problems. I do not know if it is a gothic story, but is a very good one. "The lovely house", by Shirley Jackson, has a feeling of impending danger... you feel that things are not so lovely as they look, that people are not what they seem to be, and that something bad is about to happen. Paul Bawles story is somewhat poor, I did not like it to much, notwithstanding the reference to drug use.
William Goyen tale, and "The Penny Arcade", are excellente literary works, but cannot be considered gothic. "Cat in glass", by Nancy Echemendy, is hundred per cent gothic, and a very good story. "Replacements", is quite weird and interesting. I did not like Stephen King tale, "The Reach", it is very long and not very good. There is a short tale called "time and again", that cannot be considered gothic either, but is quite good, unsettling, and weird. "The last feast of Harlekin ", is one of the best tales of the books. Gradually you start to feel a dangerous athmosphere, unfathommable misteries from ancient times, and fear of the unknown, and of what it is about to happen.
Mrs. Oates selection of american gothic tales includes many excellent, some good and a few definitively mediocre stories. I do think that in spite of some flaws, it is a book to recommend to anyone interested in good literature.
 This book is a keeper... December 1, 2007
I had to get this book for a Gothic class I recently took, and absolutely loved it! This is the kind of book that you keep and read over and over again. One of the things that I really liked was the way Oates selected authors and put them in chronological order through the book. I can't think of anything I would change about this collection - all the stories are very unique in their own way.
 a rather tepid hodgepodge of weirdness.. July 4, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Since I love gothic novels I eagerly dove into 'American Gothic Tales', a large collection of gothic short stories. And with Joyce Carol Oates as the editor I thought for sure this book would be terrific. Well, it wasn't. Not even close.
While it is hard to write a singular review of so many varied stories, let me say that hardly any of the stories were memorable. Worse, some of the stories were almost incomprehensible. As with other collections of short stories, I would have greatly appreciated some blurb by the editor in front of each story explaining its significance. Instead we have dozens of stories smashed together without interruption, with no real pattern to them.
Bottom line: I found very few jewels in this otherwise dull collection of stories. Not recommended.
 Some great stories, some lame April 10, 2007
I was rather disappointed in this book. Some of the stories were great. Most were unimpressive and a couple I would not have called 'gothic' by any definition I know of. I would instead reccomend the Oxford book of Gothic Short Stories.
A Better Name Would Be American Tales of the Weird May 2, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I don't necesarily agree with Joyce Carol Oates' defintion of Gothic literature in her introduction or that all of the stories in this collection are Gothic. The editor does a good job on the back cover, in her biographic section, and in the final page, of trying to advertise herself as being not only a "genius" but "rank[ing] on the spine-tingling chart with the masters". I beg to disagree.
Traditionally, Gothic literature deals with the dark and mysterious and with the tortured soul. I had great difficulty seeing some of these stories as being gothic at all. Some of these stories would better fit the category of "tales of the weird", but some don't even fit in that category. For example, there's a two-page story of a man leaving his wife and trying to wrest the baby from her arms in the dark. There's another with two men in a spaceship contemplating life. Another is merely a story of someone tripping on drugs.
Granted, there are some good gothic and weird stories here. The stories are placed in the book chronologically. Many of the earlier stories are anti-climatic with endings that are little more than a tiny "Boo!" (if that). Such a story is Oates' own attempt at a gothic story, "The Temple". Others are page-turners. In trying to put in some more obscure stories, she's left out better ones by the same author. For example, "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" would have been a better Gothic literature choice for displaying Nathaniel Hawthorne's talents. And authors like H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, who greatly inspired writers of this genre, should have more inclusions in the book.
If this book were to truly be a book of good gothic literature, the following stories would remain (favorites starred): *Brown's exerpt from Wieland, *Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", Hawthorne's "The Man of Adamant" and "Young Goodman Brown", Poe's "The Black Cat", Perkin's "The Yellow Wallpaper", James' The Romance of Certain Old Clothes", Bierce's "The Damned Thing", *Wharton's "Afterward", Anderson's "Death in the Woods", *Lovecraft's "The Outsider", Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily", Derleth's "The Lonesome Place", *Jackson's "The Lovely House", *Cheever's "The Enormous Radio" (more twilight zone than gothic), *Bradbury's "The Veldt" (more science fiction than gothic), Doctorow's "The Waterworks", *L'Heureux's "The Anatomy of Desire", Oates' "The Temple", *Rice's "Freniere", Millhauser's "In the Penny Arcade", *King's "The Reach", Johnson's "Exchange Value" (good but not really gothic), *Crowley's "Snow", *Ligotti's "The Last Feast of the Harlequin" (a wonderful story in memory of Lovecraft), *Tuttle's "The Replacements", *Etchemendy's "Cat in Glass", and Baker's "Subsoil".
Even though I felt that some of the selections for this anthology were poor choices, the good selections makes this a worthwhile read. Had she replaced the non-gothic and anti-climatic stories with more good stories by the above authors, the book would have been perfect. I will definitely be looking more into works by some of the authors like Ligotti and Wharton. I will not, on the other hand, be seeking out works by the editor. Her self-advertisement has fallen upon deaf ears.
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