Flint Kill Creek: Stories of Mystery and Suspense

“The stories in Flint Kill Creek are unforgettable . . .”

If the 12 stories in this new collection by Joyce Carol Oates have a common theme, it is the confusion, the bewilderment, of the characters she creates. They seem befuddled by relationships, by work, by life in general, even by themselves—unsure of what is happening around and to them, blown about by winds of uncertainty and unable, or unequipped, to cope.

In the story from which the collection takes its name, a man is worried about a budding relationship: “In such close quarters with her—as with anyone—he was likely to feel anxious. Since childhood he wasn’t accustomed to emotions of a visceral kind—immediate and palpable as a beating heart . . . He’d felt anxiety that Inga would want to stay with him through the night, for she’d become so quiet. The wild thought came to him—What if she never leaves?” Inga is as insecure in the relationship as he is. Their bafflement results in tragedy at storm-swollen Flint Kill Creek, where the two often hike.

The stream makes a cameo appearance in the story that closes out the volume, “The Siren: 1999,” where a troubled college student also hikes at Flint Kill Creek to seek refuge, mostly from himself. “[I]n weak moments, in the early hours of the morning sleepless in his bed he cannot help but think of the past, for the past pulls at him like an undertow; in moments of loneliness and self-doubt, the (modest) scholarship he has to attend the university, the anxiety of the possibility of losing that scholarship, such thoughts like a noose tightening around his throat . . .” Uncertainty surrounding the sound of sirens introduces yet another source of anxiety for the young man.

The centerpiece of the collection, and the longest story by far, features two women who were friends of a sort at college. One is attractive, articulate, and gregarious, the other shy, awkward, and withdrawn. As Oates writes,

“There are the exploited, and there are those that exploit.

“The predator, and the prey.

“The parasite, and the host.”

The exploited, the prey, the host, convinced of her intellectual superiority, struggles with the course of their lives since college. She thinks of her former friend, “Your star ascended, brightly glaring with sparks, while mine smoldered, and nearly went out. (Indeed my star was hardly a star, rather an ember.)” Her anger, her anxiety, focuses on an opportunity to confront her supposed nemesis, and the aftermath of their meeting.

Characters in other stories are equally perplexed. A medical patient is both repelled by and drawn to advances by the title character in “The Phlebotomist,” and is confused about nearly everything in her life. “[S]he is often unsure. Each day is an unrolling scroll, unpredictable. She is afraid of something—worse, she is afraid that she has already lost something crucial and cannot remember what it is.”

The main character in “Weekday,” succumbs to confusion despite relying on “his particular sort of photographic memory.” Confronted by a list of things to do and errands to run, “He will work through the day, he has worked through similar days in the past, an undertow you just step into, take a deep breath and step through, no reason for panic or alarm, telling himself You have been here before.” But, in the end, he finds himself in a place he has never been before and would not have dared contemplate.

In “***” the character is baffled and obsessed by the entry of three red asterisks in his calendar whose purpose has escaped him. “If there’s one thing he hates, it’s giving the impression of not knowing what the hell he’s doing.” His obsession sends him on a quest into his past, only to confront further confusion.

“From kindergarten onward,” the “Nice Girl” had “fretted that, if others knew what she was really like, what mean petty ignorant things streamed through her Nice Girl mind, they would shrink from her. In the yearbook beside Lila Dey were the astonishing words most admired but if people knew, they wouldn’t admire her at all.”

In “Mike and Minn,” a story so harsh it is almost impossible to read, a survivor—the favored son—of abusive foster parents attempts to make sense of his upbringing. He is perplexed by his feelings for Mike and Minn, despite having witnessed every sort of child abuse imaginable. “Nobody set out to starve them, only just to ‘punish’ them dragging the sobbing/screaming kid into the cellar, down the wobbly steps into the dark, giving a kick to loose a child’s desperate grip on an adult’s hand.”

In these and every other story, characters are thrown off balance. And there are no happy endings for these people. Yet, in thrall to a master manipulator of words, readers will grit their teeth and turn another page in this collection. The stories in Flint Kill Creek are unforgettable—although many may well wish they could forget.