Purchased recently at a local book sale, this is another book by Joyce Carol Oates that allows the reader to get inside the mind of the characters. Matt McBridge appears to have a very good life. As a partner in a large, prestigious New Jersey real estate office, his income is above average and allows a high level of comfortability. A country club membership, nice clothes, a wife and two sons and a very nice home foster the image of a man who has it together.

But, there is a dark side to Matt. Calling himself the night stalker, he is excellent at taking photos, particularly those of crime scenes of young murdered girls, or car accidents wherein people have died.

Obsessively, Matt places himself in the unhealthy position of the murderer, so much so that the reader cannot help but wonder if he actually is the one who murdered the innocent victims.

As Matt discovers the killer, he places himself in a dangerous position. The author also takes the reader into the ugly thoughts of the man who slaughters girls/women who have talents. With a sick religiosity bent, at times I felt uncomfortable learning of the depravity.

As always with the books of Joyce Carol Oates, I love to hate her subject matters, while always returning for yet another book. ( )

Matt McBride has been accused of a crime he didn't commit. A girl he was just barely involved with has gone missing and her diary seems to indicate she and Matt were having an affair. This situation is also reminiscent of an incident in Matt's childhood in which a girl went missing and was later found dead in the rural area near Matt's town. Matt had a crush on the first missing girl, and this latest incident leads him to an obsession with the latest, which endangers his marriage, career and family. As Matt investigates the disappearances, he gets closer to the real killer, and puts himself in danger as well.
Along with the narrative from Matt's perspective, there are also chapters from the POV of the killer. Both characters have an insane, stream-of-conciousness narrative style, although Matt's begins more normal, but devolves as he is more obsessed and immersed in the crime and the investigation. Matt is a difficult character to root for or identify with as it seems his actions are careless and self-destructive. Although his actions do eventually lead to a resolution, it's hard not to think that investigating should be left to the police, and once Matt's name has been cleared, he should try to move on with his life.
This was a difficult book for me to get into or relate to, but the eventual climax was fairly riveting. The character study of madness and what drives a man to engage in the kind of behavior that leads both to murder and to obsession, to the detriment of all else, was interesting. Recommended for fans of psychological thrillers. ( )

Adults tend to see serial killers as replacements for the monsters of their childhoods. Something about how those mysterious killers strike time-after-time without being seen, often going years before being caught, if ever caught at all, reminds them of the monsters they imagined under their beds and in their closets. We never see them but they scare the hell out of us because we know they are out there somewhere.

Joyce Carol Oates, writing as Rosamond Smith in her 2001 book, "The Barrens," explores the long history of one New Jersey serial killer who, almost despite himself, gets away with murder for a very long time. Unbeknownst to the killer, this time, though, his snatch-and-murder of a young woman will also claim a male victim, a young family man who for the second time in his life becomes obsessed with one of the killer's victims.

Matt McBride has built a good life for his wife and two sons in wealthy Weymouth, New Jersey, where he is a hugely successful real estate agent. McBride, however, is unable to forget a high school classmate whose mutilated body was discovered in the swampy New Jersey Pine Barrens not far from the school they both attended. Though he barely knew the girl, McBride still feels guilty that he did not save her from her fate.

Twenty years later, this time in Weymouth, another young woman with whom he was barely acquainted disappears, and McBride's old nightmares return stronger than ever. Driven to find the killer, no matter the cost to his marriage, job or family, Matt McBride begins his own investigation into the woman's disappearance despite the fact that certain Weymouth detectives believe he himself might be her killer.

The suspense builds as Oates brings McBride and the killer closer and closer together in alternating chapters told from the points-of-view of the two men. As the official police investigation goes nowhere, a violent confrontation between McBride and the killer seems inevitable, the only question being which, if either of them, will survive the showdown.

"The Barrens" does not make for quick reading because of the rambling, at times almost incoherent, style Oates uses for the chapters written in the killer's voice. In fact, although the book is short of three hundred pages in length, it seems longer because of the extra effort it requires of its readers. Oates is not known for painting pretty pictures or crafting happy endings for her novels and here she fills Weymouth with flawed characters intent on making the most of their shallow lifestyles. Surprisingly, however, she has written an ending for "The Barrens" that can be characterized, for her, as a happy one - strange though it is.

Rated at: 4.0 ( )

roman noir dont l'écriture insiste trop sur les mêmes ressorts, les mêmes idées. L'intrigue devient vite lassante et transparente à la fois ( )

Oates is truly a master at characterization. Even the characters who where absent in the course of the novel were so well-defined I felt like I knew them. The author is also a master at depicting intense emotions, obsessions; it is disturbing how these feelings radiate throughout the story. I wasn't quite sympathetic with the protagonist as he was plagued by his own obsessions that were rather frightening, but that is simply a fulfillment of his character. This is not one of my favorite Oates works, as I found it a bit rambling at parts, but it was still a morbidly fascinating read. ( )