A Fair Maiden

By Joyce Carol Oates

"For 40 years, Joyce Carol Oates has maintained a creative dialogue with the roiling cauldron of contemporary American culture, writing unflinchingly about the oddities that bubble up into the headlines." -Washington Post Book World

Sixteen-year-old Katya Spivak is out for a walk on the gracious streets of Bayhead Harbor with her two summer babysitting charges when she’s approached by silver-haired, elegant Marcus Kidder. At first his interest in her seems harmless, even pleasant; like his name, a sort of gentle joke. His beautiful home, the children’s books he’s written, his classical music, the marvelous art in his study, his lavish presents to her — Mr. Kidder’s life couldn’t be more different from Katya’s drab working-class existence back home in South Jersey, or more enticing. But by degrees, almost imperceptibly, something changes, and posing for Mr. Kidder’s new painting isn’t the lighthearted endeavor it once was. What does he really want from her? And how far will he go to get it?

In the tradition of Oates’s classic story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" A Fair Maiden is an unsettling, ambiguous tale of desire and control.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jan 16, 2010
• ISBN: 9780547394411

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the 2019 Jerusalem Prize, and has been several times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

Book preview

Dedication

for

Jeanne Wilmot Carter

Epigraph

So slowly, slowly, she came up

And slowly she came nigh him.

And all she said when there she came,

Young man, I think you’re dying.

—The Ballad of Barbara Allen

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Part II

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

About the Author

Other Otto Penzler Books by Joyce Carol Oates

Copyright

About the Publisher

Part I

1

INNOCENTLY IT BEGAN. When Katya Spivak was sixteen years old and Marcus Kidder was sixty-eight.

On Ocean Avenue of Bayhead Harbor, New Jersey, in the thickening torpor of late-morning heat she’d been pushing the Engelhardts’ ten-month-old baby in his stroller and clutching the hand of the Engelhardts’ three-year-old daughter, Tricia, passing the succession of dazzling and dreamlike shops for which Ocean Avenue was known—the Bridal Shoppe, the Bootery, the Wicker House, Ralph Lauren, Lily Pulitzer, Crowne Jewels, the Place Setting, Pandora’s Gift Box, Prim Rose Lane Lingerie & Nightwear—when, as she paused to gaze into the Prim Rose Lane window, there came an unexpected voice in her ear: And what would you choose, if you had your wish?

What registered was the quaint usage your wish. Your wish, like something in a fairy tale.

At sixteen she was too old to believe in fairy tales, but she did believe in what might be promised by a genial male voice urging your wish.

With a smile she turned to him. In Bayhead Harbor, it was generally a good idea to lead with a smile. For possibly she knew this person, who’d been following her, keeping pace with her in the periphery of her vision, not passing her as other pedestrians did as she dawdled in front of store windows. In Bayhead Harbor, where everyone was so friendly, you naturally turned to even a stranger with a smile, and it was something of a disappointment to her to see that the stranger was an older, white-haired, gentlemanly man in a seersucker sport coat of the hue of ripe cantaloupe, white sport shirt and spotless white cord trousers, sporty white yachtsman’s shoes. His eyes were a frank icy blue, crinkled at the corners from decades of smiling. Like a romantic figure in a Hollywood musical of bygone days—Fred Astaire? Gene Kelly?—he was even leaning on a carved ebony cane. Well! I’m waiting, dear. What is your wish?

In the Prim Rose Lane display window were such silky, intimate items of apparel, it seemed very strange that anyone who passed by could see them, and yet more unnerving that others might observe. Katya had been staring at a red lace camisole and matching red lace panties—silk, sexy, ridiculously expensive—worn by an elegantly thin blond mannequin with a bland beautiful face, but it was a white muslin Victorian-style nightgown with satin trim, on a girl mannequin with braids, to which she pointed. That, Katya said.

Ah! Impeccable taste. But you weren’t looking at something else, were you? As I said, my dear, you have your choice.

My dear. Katya laughed uncertainly. No one spoke like this; on TV, in movies, maybe. My dear was meant to be quaint, and comical. You are so young, and I am so old. If I acknowledge this with a joke, will I come out on top?

He introduced himself as Marcus Kidder, longtime Bayhead Harbor summer resident. This too sounded playful, as if Kidder had to be a joke. But his smile was so sincere, his manner so cordial, Katya saw no harm in volunteering her name, in abbreviated form: I’m Katya. I’m a nanny. Pausing to suggest how silly, how demeaning the very term nanny was—she hated it. She was spending July and August until Labor Day working for a couple named Engelhardt, from Saddle River, New Jersey; the Engelhardts had just built a split-level house on New Liberty Street, on one of the harbor channels. Maybe you know them? Max and Lorraine? They belong to the Bayhead Harbor Yacht Club.

Doubtful that I do, Mr. Kidder said with a polite sneer. If your employers are among the swarm of new people multiplying along the Jersey coast like mayflies.

Katya laughed. Dignified Mr. Kidder didn’t like the Engelhardts any more than she did, and he didn’t even know them.

Was he going to offer to buy her the nightgown? It seemed to have been forgotten, for which Katya was both grateful and mildly disappointed.

Though there was no doubt in her mind how she’d have reacted: Mr. Kidder, no thanks!

Well, I have to leave now, Katya said, edging away. Goodbye.

And I, too. In this direction.

And so Mr. Kidder fell into step with Katya, walking with her on Ocean Avenue and making sparkly conversation with Tricia, a shy child, now a not-so-shy child, beguiled by this charming old white-haired man who, so far as a three-year-old could know, might be a grandfatherly friend or acquaintance of her parents’. Now in the succession of shop windows Katya was aware of two reflections—her own, and that of the tall, white-haired Mr. Kidder. You would think, An attractive pair! Katya smiled in the hope that passersby might imagine them together, maybe related. She was thinking how unusual it was to see a man of Mr. Kidder’s age so tall, at least six feet two. And he carried himself with such dignity, his shoulders so straight. And his clothes—those were expensive clothes. And that striking white hair, soft-floating white, lifting in two wings from his high forehead. His skin was creased like a glove lightly crushed in the hand and was slightly recessed beneath the eyes, yet no more, Katya thought, than her own bruised-looking eyes when she had to push herself out of bed at an early hour after an insomniac night. Mr. Kidder’s face was flushed with color, however, as if blood pulsed warmly just below the surface of his skin. He appeared to be of an age far beyond that of Katya’s father, yet she couldn’t believe that he was her grandfather’s age: that terrifying limbo of free fall when specific ages become, to the young, beside the point. To the young there are no meaningful degrees of old, as there are no degrees of dead: either you are, or you are not.

Katya noticed that Mr. Kidder winced just slightly, walking with his cane. Yet he meant to be entertaining, telling her and Tricia that he had a new, one-hundred-percent nonorganic plastic right knee: Have you ever heard of anything so amazing?

Katya said, Sure we have. People can buy new knees—hips—hearts—lungs—if they have the money. Nothing needs to wear out, if you’re rich. Tricia here will live to be one hundred and ten. Her parents expect it.

Katya laughed, and Mr. Kidder joined in. Exactly why, neither could have said.

And what of you, dear Katya? How long do you expect to live?

Me? Not long at all. Maybe until I’m . . . forty. That’s old enough. Carelessly Katya spoke, with a shiver of distaste. Her mother was over forty. Katya had no wish to resemble her.

Forty is far too young, dear Katya! Mr. Kidder protested. Why do you say such a thing?

He seemed genuinely surprised, disapproving. Katya felt the warmth of his disapproval, which was so very different from the chill disapproval of her family. Katya has a mouth on her! A mouth that wants slapping.

Because I have bad habits.

Bad habits! I can scarcely believe that. Mr. Kidder frowned, intrigued.

Why she sometimes spoke as she did, Katya didn’t know. The mouth speaks what the ear is to hear.

Wanting to impress this man, maybe. Flattered by his interest in her, though she guessed she knew what it was, or might be; yet somehow she didn’t think that was it. Older men often looked at her—Mr. Engelhardt often gazed at her with a small, distracted smile—but that was different somehow. Katya could not have said why, but she knew.

Now they were passing the large, lavish display window of Hilbreth Home Furnishings, and Mr. Kidder touched Katya’s wrist lightly. And in this window, Katya, what would you choose, for your dream home?

Dream home. Another quaint usage that stirred Katya’s pulse.

The first time she’d looked into Hilbreth’s window, Katya had felt something sharp turn in her heart: a stab of dismay, resentment, dislike, anger against those who bought such expensive things for their expensive homes, and a childish envy. Yet now, at Mr. Kidder’s playful urging, she gazed into the window with a small smile of anticipation. Such elegantly spare, angular furniture! Here there were no comfortably cushioned sofas or chairs, no bright chintz or floral patterns, scarcely any colors. Instead there was a preponderance of chrome; there was sleek black leather, low tables of sculpted wood, heavy slabs of tinted glass. Wheat-colored cushions in profusion, flat dull rugs, gigantic table lamps and skeletal floor lamps that didn’t seem to require light bulbs . . . In Vineland, New Jersey, which was Katya’s home town, inland in the scrubby Pine Barrens, you would not encounter objects remotely like these, just soft, formless, graceless things, soiled and sagging sofas, worn vinyl chairs, Formica-topped tables.

Anything from this window, Katya said, smiling so that her words wouldn’t be misinterpreted as sarcastic, I would need a special house for.

With an ambiguous smile of his own, Mr. Kidder said, Maybe that could be arranged.

Katya shivered. Though Mr. Kidder was joking, of course, in the dazzling display window her reflection shimmered like a fairy figure in water.

Mr. Kidder had not inquired where Katya was taking the children, and Katya had not volunteered the information. Yet he expressed no surprise when Katya crossed Chapel Street, and now Post Road, when Katya pushed the stroller into Harbor Park. Here Tricia would feed the noisy waterfowl for twenty minutes or so and, if circumstances were right, mingle with other children in the park. Here were a half-dozen swans, many fat waddling Canada geese, platoons of smaller geese and mallards wriggling their feathered bottoms as they rushed forward to be fed. Tricia delighted in tossing bread bits to the waterfowl, which was, like their daily outings to the beach, a high point of her day. Katya had quickly come to dislike feeding the geese, which seemed to provoke hunger more than satisfy it and made the birds contend with one another in a way that was crudely comical, too pointedly human. In Harbor Park much of the grass near the lake had been dirtied by the birds’ myriad droppings; the lake was really no more than a large pond, shrunken in midsummer. Other nannies—most of them Hispanic, and older than Katya—brought small Caucasian children to the park to toss bits of bread at the clamorous birds; Katya had begun to recognize some of these women. As if she’d been trekking to Harbor Park for months, not less than two weeks.

Katya provided Tricia with bread for the birds and cautioned her not to get too close to them. As Tricia ran off excitedly, Mr. Kidder, looking after her, said, You wish, don’t you, that they would always stay that age . . . He spoke sentimentally, leaning on his cane.

Katya said, "No. I hated being so small, and I hated being so weak. It was scary—adults are so tall."

And now we’re not so tall to you?

Yes. Those of you who matter. And I’m still afraid of you.

"Afraid of me, dear Katya? Surely not."

Katya laughed. If this was a flirtation—and it felt like a flirtation—it was like no other flirtation in Katya’s experience: with a man old enough to be her grandfather? (Though in fact very different from Katya’s grandfather Spivak, stooped and tremulous from a lifetime of heavy drinking.) Meaning to shock him mildly, she said, Know what I’d like right now? A cigarette.

A cigarette! Not from me.

She’d begun smoking when she was twelve. One of Katya’s bad habits.

In middle school she’d begun. If you were a girl and good-looking, older boys provided you with cigarettes as with other contraband: joints, uppers, beer. Katya would not have smoked in the Engelhardt children’s presence, of course. She would not have dared to smoke in any circumstances in which her employers might observe her, or in which she might be reported back to her employers, for at their interview Mrs. Engelhardt had asked if she smoked and Katya had assured her no. And she didn’t drink. (Why, I should hope not—Mrs. Engelhardt’s prim response.)

In a wistful tone, Mr. Kidder was saying that he’d smoked for many years—Deplorable, delicious habit, like all habits that endanger us. He smiled, as if he had more to say on this intriguing subject but had thought better of it. But, dear Katya! It pains me to think of you smoking so young. Such an attractive girl, so healthy-seeming, with all your young life before you . . .

Katya shrugged. That’s why, maybe. That long way ahead.

Again Katya felt that she’d shocked this man, unsettled him. Their conversation, which appeared to be so wayward, casual, haphazard and spontaneous, like the children’s cries as they tossed bread to the waterfowl, was more accurately following a deeper, more deliberate route, like an underground stream that, from the surface of the ground, you can’t detect. All this while Katya was gently jiggling the stroller in which the baby was strapped, a mindless rhythmic action that made the baby smile moistly up at her, as if with love. Easy to mistake for love, Katya thought.

In Vineland, Katya frequently looked after small children, including her older sister’s children, and she had come to the conclusion that she wanted no children of her own, not ever. But here in Bayhead Harbor, where the children of summer residents were so prized, and exuded an unexpected glamour, she had to reconsider.

How old are you, my dear? If you don’t mind my asking.

How old are you? Katya bit her lower lip with a sly smile but said instead, How old do I look?

In her T-shirt and denim cutoffs, with her smooth, tanned bare legs and arms, streaked-blond ponytail, and calm, steely gray eyes lifted provocatively to Mr. Kidder’s face, Katya knew that she looked good. She was five feet five inches tall, slender but not thin, the calves of her legs taut, hard. Mr. Kidder’s eyes moved over her with appreciation. "I assume you must be at least . . . sixteen? To be trusted as a nanny? Though you look younger,

Reviews for A Fair Maiden

[paroof · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Disturbing and well written. I first encountered Oates many years ago with her short stories in horror anthologies and she made a brilliant impression. I was not disappointed with this novella.

[write5review · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dark, Suspenseful, with a Subtext

Katya Spivak, sixteen, comes from the wrong side of the tracks, Vineland, NJ, where she feels unloved and badly used, by a father who deserted her, a mother who neglects her, brothers and sisters who have little to do with her, and a sometimes boyfriend who abuses her. So, you can imagine, working as a nanny for a well-off couple in Bayhead, NJ, a wealthy summer community, would be a welcome escape from her normal life.

However, even here, though she loves the little girl and boy she minds, she feels the mother takes advantage of her and the husband, when around, leers at her. So you can imagine how the attention paid to her by wealthy and refined Marcus Kidder, sixty-eight, appeals to her, at least initially. That is, until their budding relationship, predicated on his belief he knows her, perhaps from another time, and his use of her as a model, for Marcus Kidder not only is rich, he is a painter, sculptor, composer, and writer of children’s books, strikes you as decidedly wrong. It gives nothing away to say readers will almost immediately suspect Marcus Kidder’s intentions, heightened when he tells Katya that she will one day, when properly prepared, assist him on special mission.

JCO’s writing style, here at its most affected, especially in the speech of Marcus Kidder, works superbly establishing character and building the reader’s wariness: something very bad is going to happen. You’ll easily recognize the pattern here, called grooming, and you’ll be even more suspicious of Marcus Kidder, as you observe, along with Kayta, that he has painted and lined his studio walls with numerous young women like her. But things may not be entirely as you fear them to be, and this includes your worst fears.

And, upon reflection, after journeying with Katya and Marcus Kidder, you may discover the seemingly simple tale a bit more layered and complex. This is because Oates, consciously or not, raises questions in your mind regarding moral exceptions for artists and the strictures on one’s personal control of one’s life, not to mention the involvement of others, even on a voluntary basis.

[adpaton · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It’s no wonder Joyce Carol Oates have never won any major award – she’s just too brilliantly readable. A Fair Maiden is subtitled A Novel of Dark Suspense and although it’s not really dark or that suspenseful, it is a brilliantly observed domestic page turner. Jenny Spivak’s a 16-year-old from the poorer area of New Jersey: her no-good dad ditched them years ago and her man-hungry mum is always in trouble. Jenny has made bad choices, but the summer in question she is earning some money by working as a live-in-nanny for rich trash in an elite area of New Jersey. It’s there she meets the 68-year-old Marcus Kidder - slim, suave, rich, and with a head of lovely white hair, Kidder is everything Katya has never known: cultured and fabulously wealthy, he is a writer, artist, and musician, so when he takes an interest in her, Katya thinks she knows what he wants. But Marcus makes her feel uniquely special so when he asks her to sit for him, she agrees. She accepts a gift of lingerie; she poses first in sexy undies and then in the nude and although when he kisses her she storms out, she longs to return, relishing that feeling of being loved and desired.

[nancyewhite · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thank god for JCO. She writes about what lurks around the edges; the shadows that dart away as soon as you turn your head to look. In this one, a young woman with a difficult home life gets a summer job babysitting for a rich family at the Jersey Shore. She is mesmerized by and jealous of the affluence she finds at the beach. When she meets a man who is the richest of the rich people there, that he's in his 60s doesn't matter to her. He is a sophisticated writer, artist and musician. He buys her an inappropriate gift almost immediately and things move forward from there. The subject matter is obviously repulsive. However, Oates kept me reading. She is insightful about America's class issues. Her characters may behave in appalling ways, but they feel real as they do so. There is real value in shining light into the shadows and many great books do just that. This book illuminates and humanizes the teenager and the old man even as we shudder at their relationship.

[currerbell-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was really creeped out by the subject, especially given the child's apparent enjoyment of the situation, but still, this is one of JCO's better-written novels with great point-of-view narration, so I have to give it 4****.

[glennbell_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting story line. The author is highly creative and able to set mood well. I am sure some will not like the book because of the topic and sad characters. Seems like a modern day Poe.

[hannawy · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I am ambivalent about this book. On the one hand I read it in a day because I had to know what would happen, but for me it lacked a sense of urgency in the book itself. Still not sure how I feel about the ending either.

[sarahwagner503 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A quick read where the main character, Katya, is captured wonderfully with all the insecurities and indecisiveness of a teenage girl. Joyce Carol Oates leaves some ends open in this novel (Naomi, for instance), but only the most insistent reader would dwell on it.

[sarahzilkastarke · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is standard Joyce Carol Oates. It's dark, it's gothic and it's deep.

This book is the story of the lamentable 16 year old Katya and her paramour 68 year old Marcus. Katya is working as a nanny on the Jersey shore escaping her difficult home life. She meets Marcus an intriguingly handsome artist, writer and musician. They develop a rapport though that is where this book stops being straight forward. You constantly find yourself pitying Katya and suspecting the worst of Marcus but somehow it always seems his motives are pure. Katya having lived a lifetime before her summer at the shore thinks she knows exactly what she is doing and plays her old lover for a fool. Things unravel into abuse when Marcus reveals his true motives in befriending young Katya.

[maryreinert · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At times, I felt this was truly "creepy" but at other times sad and insightful. Thankfully, it is a very short novel because I don't think the suspense could be drawn out any longer. The contrast between the lives of Katya and Kidder couldn't be greater; the push and pull between the two is effectively drawn especially at the beginning of their relationship. It must be a sign of good writing when the plot is about an old wealthy manipulative man "seducing" an naive young needy girl and then making the reader sympathetic to the man. In short, it's a fun, interesting, and very readable way to spend a hour or so.

[imyril · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Intriguing and repellent by turns, this deftly-structured novel lends unpleasant insights into modern America. Well-written, but not an entirely easy read.

[latorreliliana · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Old guy wants his death to be with young girl. Reminds one of Lolita,but with much older man. Unusual novel. Weird old guy. Hard to believe in any kind of relationship of a 16 year old with a 70 year old.

[mulberrymarsh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Joyce Carol Oates gives us another creepy yet riveting short novel centered on the irresistible urgings of the adolescent girl. Katya is a summer nanny in a seaside resort. Nannying is fine, but relatively boring, for the budding young woman so when mysterious, artistic and rich Mr. Kidder shows an increasingly compulsive interest in her she cannot resist his charms, nor his money. Katya comes to the shore from a broken white trash home life, replete with drug addled violent, ex-con, “cousin”/boyfriend – Roy. In her confused adolescence, being pulled by the admiration of men, in this case a creepy dichotomy between the hyped up red-neck Roy, and the suave mealy-mouthed Marcus Kidder, Katya seems to make all the wrong choices. Katya satisfies a need for each man, ostensibly sexual, but in the end it is each to their own violence. All the pieces fall into place bringing the story to a confluence of events with an unexpected and twisty ending. Katya will be scarred for life, even if her earlier home life hadn’t already achieved this. The story leaves one with the lingering bad taste of a morality born of a - beware the motives and driving forces behind self-serving men! - mentality.

[rosa_saks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Chilling, exciting, and extremely well written. Oates takes the reader into the story in medias res, and immediately introduces the main conflict in the novel, as represented by the relationship between 15-year old Katya and 68-year old Marcus Kidder. They have a chance meeting in the park in a coastal town on the shore of New Jersey, and strike up a friendship which soon grows into a sort of close bond. Their relationship is of an alien-like nature and contributes to the eerie feel of the novel. As their relationship continues to develop, I as reader get the feeling of being a witness to something unspeakable. Mr. Kidder obviously wants something from young Katya, but Oates carefully covers it up and reveals only small bits and peaces of his intentions as the narrative progresses. The narrative tension and suspense becomes almost unbearable to me as a reader, which is the brilliance of the novel. I was absolutely mesmerized by this book, and can't wait to read more of Oates's works.

[triscuit_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Compelling but a bit icky, waiting for the nasty conclusion that seems inevitable. The young heroine is well drawn.

[starnarcosis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Three stars for story, 4 stars for writing. An odd tale.

[monikag_372730 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Joyce Carol Oates delivers unforgettable characters wrapped in enchanting prose. Katya Spivek was seen running through my mind at inopportune moments when I was supposed to be thinking about other things. When I didn't like Katya Spivek it was because she reminded me of too much of myself. Her character was eerily real and the relationship she develops in the novel with Mr. Kidder is shocking and unlikely, but completely true. The idea of romance between an elderly man and a young girl is off-putting to say the least, yet Joyce Carol Oates makes it seem magical and somehow beautiful. My favourite author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, to whom I am entirely devoted, wrote about this subject in "Memoirs of my melancholy whores" and managed to turn me off completely turning me off his works. (Never thought that could happen!) Yet when Joyce Carol Oates tackles this unseemly topic, I am enchanted. Amazing!This is my first Joyce Carol Oates book and I'm racing to find more.

[lauriebrown54 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A strange story by an author who has made thousands of fans by writing about strange things. Katya Spivek, 16, is from a low class family. She is spending the summer in a high class beach enclave, working as a live-in nanny for a rich couple. Her employers seem to regard Katya as a possession -albeit a disposable one. One day, window shopping on the way to taking the children to the park, she meets Marcus Kidder, a long time resident who considers himself far above the new people like Katya’s employers in both money and class. Indeed, the entire town considers him to be such. He and Katya are at the opposite ends of the social spectrum, yet he picks her to befriend.Katya doesn’t know what to make of him- stately gentleman? Old perve after a nubile teenager? He seems innocent enough, charming the three year old, having them to tea. But when he gives Katya an inappropriate gift (red silk underwear), she decides to never go back. Then her drunken mother calls, saying she owes someone bad $300, that she has no one to help her but Katya, and she must send her the money immediately or bad things will happen to her. Turned down by her employers, with no one else to turn to, Katya must borrow from Kidder, putting her in his debt. Already almost powerless by virtue of her social class, now she is completely powerless in this relationship. Things go completely out of her control, spiraling down into a series of dark events. A sense of foreboding fills the entire story. Katya is isolated, not just in the summer town where she knows no one, but also at home. Her father is long gone, her mother an alcoholic gambler, her relatives abusive and violent. Katya stands apart from them because of her love of books and her ambition of going to college. She fits no where. You know all along that bad things will happen to her, that there is no way out for her. She’s young, female and poor.

[tadad_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a modern folk tale, not in the sense of a fairy story with magical creatures, but in the sense of a piece of legend, something that might start, “In a kingdom by the sea dwelt a Fair Maiden. And the King of this kingdom was agèd and yearning…”…which, indeed, the legend Oates has written within the larger story does. Katya is a pretty, 16 year old, world-wise nanny in Bayhead Harbor, New Jersey. Marcus Kidder is an aging, wealthy member of a prominent family in that town who contrives to make her acquaintance. From this meeting a story about seduction of innocence emerges, yet one whose course manages to surprise and disconcert the reader. Like the best of this genre, it draws the reader into the insecurities and ambiguities of Katya’s mind as she struggles against the trap she sees coming. The slowly-building disquiet fascinated me and this became a “single sitting” book.

[teresa1953_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another beautiful novel by Ms Oates. She has this wonderful talent of lulling you in to a false sense of security as you read. Just when you think all is well........suddenly it most certainly isn't. Her prose is second to none and I loved this book and the way it distinguishes between youth and old age....together with differences in the social "classes".

[samsattler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In "A Fair Maiden," Joyce Carol Oates returns to the theme for which she is perhaps best known: a very young woman is being preyed upon by an older man interested only in using her for his own, less than honorable, purposes. Female characters created by Oates live in a world in which they can never afford to let their guards slip because, just when they begin to feel comfortable about their surroundings, a man will step from the shadows to yank them back into the brutal nature of the real world they inhabit. Sixteen-year-old Katya Spivak is not exactly an innocent. Even before her father disappeared from her life, the Spivak family struggled to make it from one payday to the next. These days, her mother is much more interested in partying in Atlantic City than in holding a job. Katya may have come up the hard way but she resents those who look down on people like her and her family. Despite her feelings, she is spending the summer in an exclusive Jersey shore community as nanny to the children of a wealthy couple who seem determined to put as little cash in her pocket as possible. Marcus Kidder, 68, is pretty much the last of the Kidder family to spend time in the community but he, and his surname, are well known there. Kidder was born into wealth but built a minor reputation for himself over the years as an artist and writer/illustrator of several children's books. He begins a gentle courtship of Katya after spotting her on the street one morning with the two young children in her charge. Despite her suspicions about the old man, Katya is flattered enough by the attention of someone of his class and wealth that she visits his mansion for tea one afternoon. The horror of "A Fair Maiden" comes from the cunning approach Marcus Kidder uses to gain Katya's trust. Ever patient, never pushing too hard or too obviously, Kidder finally succeeds in getting Katya to pose for a portrait like the ones already hanging in the mansion. That, though, is just the beginning of what Kidder has in mind for his young friend and, almost despite herself, Katya at last finds herself posing nude. She tells herself, after all, that the cash Mr. Kidder pays her after each visit means that she is a professional model and this is what professional models do. But she is no match for a man like Marcus Kidder. As the book reaches its conclusion, it becomes clear that Katya's understanding of how someone like her is seen by a man as wealthy and spoiled as Marcus Kidder is not far from the mark. Kidder is used to buying what he wants with no regard for the cost or the consequences. The question is what, exactly, does he want from Katya Spivak - and what it will cost both of them. "A Fair Maiden" comes in at only 165 pages but, because of its subject matter and the intensity of Oates' prose, it is not an easy book to read. It is, however, vintage Joyce Carol Oates and few readers will see the ending coming before Ms. Oates is ready to reveal it to them. Rated at: 4.5

[bale_5 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was disappointed. Oates could do better, using the same characters and issues.