Three people form the points of a twisted triangle of abduction, abuse and adultery in the simmering yet swollen Babysitter by Joyce Carol Oates (Hazards of Time Travel; The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror; The Man Without a Shadow). In 1977, a series of child abductions and killings rock the Detroit area. All the children are "not loved & not deserved," according to a mysterious note from the serial killer, whom the media dubs Babysitter. In the upscale suburb of Far Hills, 39-year-old Hannah Jarrett is a bored housewife to a successful businessman, whose interest in her declines daily. Hannah, despite her rambling home, designer clothes and live-in nanny, feels empty and insecure. After meeting an enigmatic stranger known only as Y.K. at a fundraiser, she immediately engages in an illicit affair that catastrophically unravels her.
Mikey Kushel, longing for love in a landscape without justice, is a street hustler and survivor who picks up odd (and always dirty) jobs from a man he knows only as "Hawkeye." When Babysitter abducts a child close to the Jarretts' home, these three strangers find themselves linked to each other in inexplicable ways and with horrific consequences.
Oates doesn't stint on her usual themes--sexual predation, violence and racism--which tend to disgust more than they educate. Indeed, the roll call of damaged, passive women and the all-men-as-monsters motif wears thin after a while. What saves this bloated tale is Oates's superb prose, a jagged stream-of-consciousness that gets into the dark, crawling places of her characters' minds. Readers will be engaged--and enraged--to the very surprising end. --Peggy Kurkowski, book reviewer and copywriter in Denver