An enthralling collection of short stories from the National Book Award shortlisted author of 'Blonde' and 'Middle Age'. In this collection of 21 stories, the mysterious private lives of individuals are explored with vivid, unsparing precision and sympathy. By turn interlocutor and interpreter, magician and realist, Joyce Carol Oates dissects the psyches of ordinary people and their potential for good and evil with chilling understatement and lasting power. In 'Faithless' two adult sisters recall their mother's disappearance when they were children; in 'Ugly Girl' a bitterly angry young woman defines herself as ugly as a way of making herself invulnerable to hurt, and in so doing hurts others; in 'Lover' a beautiful woman locked into an obsessive love affair seeks her revenge in a bizarre, violent manner. Intense and provocative, 'Faithless' is a startling look into the heart of contemporary America from the modern master of the short story.