Night-side

Night-Side is Joyce Carol Oates's 1977 collection of eighteen tales that probe the mysterious borderland between reality and surreality, featuring psychologically acute explorations of alienation, loneliness, hidden sexualities, and odd happenings.

Stories like the title tale, 'The Widows,' 'The Thaw,' and others depict distressed minds facing crises, evoking the perverse everyday human nature in a style compared to Flannery O'Connor and Shirley Jackson.

The book offers haunting portraits of isolation and the grotesque, showcasing Oates's early mastery of the macabre.