Cardiff, by the Sea is the second book I've read by Joyce Carol Oates this year. Interestingly enough, both books I've read by Joyce Carol Oates this year have been buddy reads. This time around, I read Cardiff, by the Sea with Marianne @ Let's Read. Marianne is a fan of Joyce Carol Oates's writing too! Marianne made a perfect reading buddy as we had lots to discuss. Checkout Marianne's blog by clicking on the link above.
I want to break my review of Cardiff, by the Sea by Joyce Carol Oates by reviewing each novella. Each novella contains a female protagonist who is threatened, manipulated, or traumatized by predatory, abusive, or toxically controlling male figures.
Additionally, most of these novellas has an ambiguous ending to them. The final novella has a resolution of sorts, but not everything is entirely wrapped up so neatly at the end. Joyce Carol Oates is notorious for writing ambitious endings! But then again perhaps that's the appeal... Perhaps, JCO wants you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions.
This is the titular first novella in the collection and happens to be my personal favorite. JCO's writing here is superb. The basic premise follows an academic in Pennsylvania who discovers a terrifying trauma from her past after inheriting a house in Cardiff, Maine, from a relative she never knew existed.
The protagonist, Clare, was given up for adoption as a baby and never spent much time dwelling on her origins—until she inherits property from her biological paternal grandmother. Summoned by the estate lawyer, Clare travels to Maine and meets her eccentric great-aunts and paternal uncle. That’s where things begin to go awry. Strange, unsettling things start happening to Clare—or so she believes.
Clare learns that both of her biological parents died tragically, but no one—not even the estate lawyer—will explicitly tell her how. Instead, Clare is directed to the local library to uncover the truth herself, and the answers she finds are horrific. Obsessed with uncovering what really happened, Clare sets out to interview anyone who might know the real story behind her parents' dark past.
2. Miao Dao
"Miao Dao" refers to a traditional Chinese two-handed saber, but it doubles as a clever wordplay on JCO's part, as cats ("meow") play a central role in the narrative. In this story, an eleven-year-old girl named Mia is struggling through her parents' tense divorce while navigating the uncomfortable, predatory attention of older neighborhood boys and men. Overwhelmed by loneliness and anxiety, Mia adopts a fierce feral cat. The bond between them turns dark and protective as the cat becomes a silent guardian against the increasingly aggressive males in her life. It’s an unsettling look at how young girls are forced to navigate terrifying environments far too early.
3. Phantomwise: 1972
Set in the title year of 1972, this story centers on Alyce, a brilliant but deeply insecure and shy college sophomore who finds herself in a terrifying dilemma when she becomes pregnant. The setting of 1972 is crucial here: it takes place immediately before the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973. At this time, abortion was still largely illegal across most of the United States, leaving young, isolated women with virtually no safe or legal options.
Terrified and lacking institutional support, Alyce becomes completely dependent on the men around her. Enter an older, charismatic poetry professor who steps in to "take her under his wing," though his motives are far from innocent. JCO brilliantly highlights the legal traps and social taboos of the pre-Roe era, showing how restrictive healthcare laws weaponized control over women's bodies and left them uniquely vulnerable to predatory, manipulative authority figures. The tension in this piece is suffocating as Alyce struggles to find agency in a world designed to strip it away.
4. The Surviving Child
This was probably my least favorite of the four novellas, but it was still a gripping, eerie read. The story functions as a subtle roman à clef inspired by the tragic lives of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. It follows Elisabeth, a woman who marries a charismatic, domineering widower whose famous poet ex-wife died by suicide, taking one of their children with her.
JCO leans heavily into the classic, dark "wicked stepmother" trope here—though with a psychological twist. Elisabeth steps into the household trying to care for the surviving child, but she is quickly consumed by the toxic family dynamic. Instead of being the villain, Elisabeth becomes a victim of the domestic haunting, finding herself tormented by the late wife's lingering voice, an inexplicably befouled well, and an unsettling, hypnotic attraction to the garage where the horrific tragedy took place. While it felt a bit slower than the rest, it paints a haunting picture of inherited grief and psychological decline.
Here's the publisher's summary for Cardiff, by the Sea by Joyce Carol Oates, which I discovered on Hoopla:
An academic in Pennsylvania discovers a terrifying trauma from her past after inheriting a house in Cardiff, Maine, from someone she has never heard of. A pubescent girl, overcome with loneliness, befriends a feral cat that becomes her protector from the increasingly aggressive males that surround her. A brilliant but shy college sophomore is distraught to discover that she's pregnant, and the professor who takes her under his wing may not have innocent intentions. And a woman who marries into a family shattered by tragedy finds herself haunted by her predecessor's voice, an inexplicably befouled well, and a compulsive attraction to a garage that took two lives.
In these psychologically daring, chillingly suspenseful pieces, the author of We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde writes about women facing threats past and present, once again cementing her reputation for "great intelligence and dead-on imaginative powers" (Los Angeles Times Book Review).
I am giving Cardiff, by the Sea by Joyce Carol Oates a rating of 4 stars out of 5 stars.
Until my next post, happy reading!!
P. S. I did have Google Gemini help me rewrite my summaries for each of the novellas to make them sound/flow better. The rest of this post is solely written by me without Google Gemini's assistance.
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