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By some cosmic coincidence, Alice Munro, one of the most revered short story writers of all time, died this month (May 2024) just as folks are celebrating a seemingly unofficial Short Story Month. So it seemed like a good time to dip into a few of the recommended stories, particularly since I’d never read any Munro, nor the author recommended here, Joyce Carol Oates. Given that the latter is the author of nearly 60 novels and hundreds (?) of short stories, I’ve seen plenty of her books in thrift stores and book sales, but somehow associated here with gothic romance or domestic drama. At any rate, such expectations left me ill-prepared for this classic tale.

It starts off in straightforward and honestly uninteresting enough fashion: fifteen-year-old Connie is the pretty daughter in a family with a mostly-absent father, responsible but dowdy older sister and a mother who seems to resent her younger daughter for the good looks she herself has lost. Connie is resentful of the constant disparaging comparisons to her sibling and just getting interested in boys, so she’s begun acting out and resisting parental authority. Yawn.

SPOILER ALERT: But then the story takes such a dark turn the reader can barely keep up. Connie refuses to go to a barbecue with the family one evening and two “boys” turn up in the driveway in a car with slogans painted on the side:
"Can'tcha read it?" He opened the door very carefully, as if he were afraid it might fall off. He slid out just as carefully, planting his feet firmly on the ground, the tiny metallic world in his glasses slowing down like gelatine hardening, and in the midst of it Connie's bright green blouse. "This here is my name, to begin with, he said. ARNOLD FRIEND was written in tarlike black letters on the side, with a drawing of a round, grinning face that reminded Connie of a pumpkin, except it wore sunglasses. "I wanta introduce myself, I'm Arnold Friend and that's my real name and I'm gonna be your friend, honey, and inside the car's Ellie Oscar, he's kinda shy." Ellie brought his transistor radio up to his shoulder and balanced it there. "Now, these numbers are a secret code, honey," Arnold Friend explained. He read off the numbers 33, 19, 17 and raised his eyebrows at her to see what she thought of that, but she didn't think much of it. The left rear fender had been smashed and around it was written, on the gleaming gold background: DONE BY CRAZY WOMAN DRIVER. Connie had to laugh at that. Arnold Friend was pleased at her laughter and looked up at her. "Around the other side's a lot more —you wanta come and see them?"
This Arnold Friend somehow knows all about her, from her name to the fact she’s stayed home alone, even down to what her family is eating at the party. And in a constant patter he cajoles Connie to go for a ride. The encounter grows ever darker and “Friend” more threatening until, finally, she agrees to go.

On finishing the story I found Connie’s behavior so inexplicable that it diminished the admitted hypnotic power of the telling. But then I did some research and, lo and behold, Ms Oates’s source material is a true crime story–The Pied Piper of Tucson (Don Moser, March 4, 1966, Life Magazine)--about a serial killer just as peculiar as Arnold Friend and of the young people who went along with him, not just those who went to their deaths but those who knew about the killings:
One disclosure, however, has most disturbing implications: Smitty’s boasts may have been heard not just by Bruns and his other intimates, but by other teen­agers as well. How many—and precisely how much they knew—it remains impossible to say. One authoritative source, however, having listened to the admissions of six high school students, says they unquestionably knew enough so that they should have gone to the police—but were either afraid to talk, or didn’t want to rock the boat. As for Smitty’s friends, the thought of telling the police never entered their minds.

“I didn’t know he killed her,” said one, “and even if I had, I wouldn’t have said anything. I wouldn’t want to be a fink.”

Given this background and the spooky manner in which Ms Oates fictionalizes it, you can see why it’s her most anthologized and analyzed piece of work. The power of persuasion Friend uses to manipulate Connie readily lends itself to the supernatural reading some have given the story and brings it, at least, to the brink of horror. Color me surprised, maybe even humbled.


(Reviewed:)

Grade: (B+)


Websites:

See also:

Short Stories
Joyce Oates Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Joyce Carol Oates
    -TWITTER: @JoyceCarolOates
    -SUBSTACK: A Writer’s Journal
    -ENTRY: Joyce Carol Oates (Poetry Foundation)
    -ENTRY: Joyce Carol Oates American author (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
    -FACULTY PAGE: Joyce Carol Oates, the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor of the Humanities (Princeton University)
    -ENTRY: Joyce Carol Oates (Paris Review)
    -ENTRY: Joyce Carol Oates (New Yorker)
    -ENTRY: Joyce Carol Oates (NY Times)
    -TRIBUTE SITE: Celestial timepiece: a Joyce Carol Oates Patchwork
    -ESSAY: JOYCE CAROL OATES ON WOMEN AND THE ROOTS OF BODY HORROR: In a new collection, the author is gathering women writers to explore A Darker Shade of Noir (Joyce Carol Oates, 9/06/23, CrimeReads)
    -ESSAY: Remembering Robert Stone: In the tradition of Melville, Hawthorne, Dreiser, Dos Passos, and Hemingway (Joyce Carol Oates, July 24, 2015, LitHub)
    -REVIEW: of Ali: A Life by Jonathan Eig (Joyce Carol Oates, NY Times Book Review)
    -SHORT STORY: Ugly Girl (Joyce Carol Oates, , SUMMER 1997, Paris Review)
    -SHORT STORY: Heat (Joyce Carol Oates, SPRING 1989, Paris Review)
    -SHORT STORY: Nairobi (Joyce Carol Oates, SPRING 1983, Paris Review)
    -SHORT STORY: Plot (Joyce Carol Oates, SUMMER 1971, Paris Review)
    -ESSAY: Diary, 2019: Berkeley/Summit Hospital, Oakland (Joyce Carol Oates, May 16, 2022, Paris Review)
    -INTERVIEW: Joyce Carol Oates: ‘It’s a fairytale nightmare to be rejected’ (Anita Sethi, 6/01/19, The Guardian)
    -INTERVIEW: Joyce Carol Oates: 'I had a dream about a woman whose make-up was dried and cracking, she made a fool of herself' (Interview by Tim Adams, 2/25/12, The Guardian)
    -INTERVIEW: Joyce Carol Oates: ‘People think I write quickly, but I actually don’t’ (Hermione Hoby, 6/09/16, The Guardian)
    -INTERVIEW: ‘Every time I write, it’s like the first time’:: Joyce Carol Oates on her 61 novels, Twitter storms and widowhood (Paula Cocozza, 9/01/22, The Guardian)
    -POEMS: Two Poems (Joyce Carol Oates, SPRING-SUMMER 2001, Paris Review)
    -POEM: Harvesting Skin (Joyce Carol Oates,, FALL 2003, Paris Review)
    -POEM: The Mercy (Joyce Carol Oates, Fall 2019, Paris Review)
    -INTERVIEW: Joyce Carol Oates, The Art of Fiction No. 72 (Interviewed by Robert Phillips, FALL-WINTER 1978, Paris Review)
    -ETEXT: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
    -AUDIO: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
    -WIKIPEDIA: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
    -ESSAY: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and Smooth Talk: Short Story Into Film (Joyce Carol Oates, 3/23/96, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: WHEN CHARACTERS FROM THE PAGE ARE MADE FLESH ON THE SCREEN (Joyce Carol Oates, March 23, 1986, NY Times)
    -VIDEO LECTURE: Story Study: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (Joyce Carol Oates, MasterClass)
    -INTRODUCTION: to Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Elaine Showalter)
Oates has described her many stories and novels as “tributaries flowing into a single river”; so it is not surprising that “Where Are You Going” should contain many elements that have been characteristic in her work, including the blurring of realism and the supernatural, and the effort to bear witness “for those who can’t speak for themselves.”1 The story also takes up troubling subjects that have continued to occupy her in her fiction: the romantic longings and limited options of adolescents, especially girls; the sexual victimization of women; the psychology of serial killers; and the American obsession with violence.

    --ENTRY: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (Encyclopedia.com)
    -ETEXT: The Pied Piper of Tucson (Don Moser, March 4, 1966, Life Magazine)
    -
   
-ESSAY: Charles Schmid: The Pied Piper: Inspiration for Joyce Carol Oates (Katherine Ramsland, Crime Library)
    -ESSAY: Charles Schmid: The Pied Piper (Katherine Ramsland, WAYGWHYB)
    -ARTICLE: Joyce Carol Oates defends 'breach of narrative promise': Author justifies failure, criticised by Julian Barnes, to mention remarriage in her memoir A Widow's Story (Alison Flood, 11 May 2011, The Guardian)
    -CHAPTER: Chapter 4 “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”: Foundations and Methods for Revitalising Story Reading for Children In: Storytelling: Global Reflections on Narrative (Phyllis Hastings)
    -ESSAY: In Tribute to Joyce Carol Oates (Nell Freudenberger September 13, 2018, Paris Review)
    -ESSAY: Joyce Carol Oates “Where are you going, Where have you been? and the Exploitation of Women From a Freudian Lens (CRA) (Madeha Hussain)
    -ESSAY: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?: (Linda Wagner-Martin, Reference Guide to Short Fiction)
    -ESSAY: Who is Arnold Friend? The Other Self in Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (G. J. WEINBERGER. Summer 1988, American Imago)
    -ESSAY: It's All Over Now, Baby Blue: Psychoanalyzing Connie in Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (Nicole Holmen, Inquiries Journal)
    -ESSAY: Judges 19 and Arnold Friend’s Enigmatic Code (Interminable Ramblings)
    -ESSAY: "Don't You Know Who I Am?": The Grotesque in Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (Joyce M. Wegs, January 1975, The Journal of Narrative Technique)
    -ESSAY: The Eternal Present in Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (Michele D. Theriot, Spring 2007, Journal of the Short Story in English)
    -ESSAY: Death and the Maiden in Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” (Martha E. Widmayer, Spring 2004, Journal of the Short Story in English)
    -VIDEO LECTURE: Who’s Arnold Friend? English Prof Explains Oates' Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Analysis (Dr. Whitney Kosters)
    -ESSAY: The Real Story Behind Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (Matthew Jones, Mar 6, 2023, Medium)
    -CHAPTER: 14 - The “X in the Air” in Joyce Carol Oates's “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (Richard Kopley, The Formal Center in Literature)
    -ESSAY: Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" as Pure Realism (Coulthard, A R.? Studies in Short Fiction)
    -ESSAY: Impure Realism: Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (Hurley, D F.? Studies in Short Fiction)
    -ESSAY: "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" and Cold War Hermeneutics (James Cruise, Summer 2005, South Central Review)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (SparkNotes)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Interesting Literature)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Course Hero)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (GradeSaver)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Bartleby)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (LitCharts)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Storyville)
    -VIDEO ARCHIVES: joyce carol oates where are you going where have you been (You Tube)
    -PROFILE: The Unruly Genius of Joyce Carol Oates: In an era that fetishizes form, Oates has become America’s preëminent fiction writer by doing everything you’re not supposed to do. (Leo Robson, Jun. 26th, 2020, The New Yorker)
    -VIDEO BOOK LIST: Top 10 Joyce Carol Oates Novels (Lonesome Reader)
    -REVIEW ARCHIVES: Joyce Carol Oates (Lonesome Reader)
    -ARCHIVES: Joyce Carol Oates (NY Review of Books)
    -ARCHIVES: Joyce Carol Oates (The Guardian)
    -ARCHIVES: Joyce Carol Oates (LitHub)
    -VIDEO ARCHIVES: Joyce Carol Oates (You Tube)
    -ARCHIVES: “joyce Carol Oates” (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Coffee and a Book Chick)
    -REVIEW: of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Karin Salvalaggio, Bookanista)
    -REVIEW: of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Luther Ray Abel, National Review)
    -REVIEW: of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Internet Public Library)
    -REVIEW: of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Michael Potts, Live Journal)
    -REVIEW: of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Grass and Vanilla)
    -REVIEW: of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (The Sitting Bee)
    -REVIEW: of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (NASRULLAH MAMBROL, Literary Theory and Criticism)
    -REVIEW: of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Caroline Cochrane, UNC)
    -REVIEW: of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (Ivy Panda)
    -REVIEW: of Night, Neon and Other Stories of Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates (Ben East, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. by Joyce Carol Oates (Hephzibah Anderson, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates (Kate Kellaway, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Hazards of Time Travel (Liz Jensen, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of A Widow’s Story (Julian Barnes, NY Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of A Widow's Story: A Memoir by Joyce Carol Oates (Janet Todd, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Zero-Sum: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates (Dimitris Passas, World Literature Today)
    -
   
-REVIEW: of THE PIED PIPER OF TUCSON BY DON & JERRY COHEN MOSER (Kirkus)
    FILM:

    -FILMOGRAPHY: Joyce Carol Oates (IMDB)
    -
   
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-FILMOGRAPHY: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (2017) (IMDB)
    -FILM: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?: Screenplay / Produced / Directed / Edited by: Jacob Turrentine (Vimeo)

Book-related and General Links: