A stunning, major achievement from Joyce Carol Oates, "one of the great artistic forces of our time" (The Nation). A haunting story of the powerful spell Niagara Falls casts upon two generations of a family, leading to tragedy, love, loss, and, ultimately, redemption. A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. A newlywed, he has left behind his wife, Ariah Erskine, in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. "The Widow...

After her husband, the greatest love of her life, commits suicide, a young woman finds the strength to move on with the help of her tight-knit Nigerian family and happy memories of the man she'll never forget. Here are three things you should know about my husband: He was the great love of my life despite his penchant for going incommunicado. He was, as far as I and everyone else could tell, perfectly happy. Which is significant because… On...

Matthew Vaber’s life has just taken a turn for the worse. His father has killed himself—a tragedy for which he feels bitterly responsible, when he lets himself feel much of anything about it at all—and his thrilling but damaged mother has taken center stage yet again. Into this cocktail of familial mayhem, Matthew tosses a bubbling new ingredient: the Pump Line, New York’s tawdriest phone sex service, where men appear and disappear with the...