Crossing the Border (short story collection)

Crossing the Border
First edition
AuthorJoyce Carol Oates
Cover artistElizabeth Woll
LanguageEnglish
PublisherVanguard Press
Publication date
1976
Publication placeUnited States, Canada
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages256 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN0-8149-0774-1 (first edition, hardback)
Preceded byThe Seduction and Other Stories (1975) 
Followed byNight-Side (1977) 

Crossing the Border: Fifteen Tales is a collection of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates written while the author was residing in Canada (1968 – 1978). Published simultaneously by Vanguard Press in the United States and by Cage Publishing Company, Agincourt, Canada in 1976. The stories had appeared previously (1974 – 1976) in different US and Canadian magazines, often in different versions. Seven of the stories, "Crossing the Border", "Hello Fine Day Isn’t It", "Natural Boundaries", "Customs", "The Scream", "An Incident in The Park", and "River Rising" depict conjugal life of an American couple, Reneé and Evan Maynard, in Canada. The characters in "The Transformation of Vincent Scoville" and "The Liberation of Jake Hanley" are instructors at the same Canadian college. The rest of the stories are not connected to each other.[1]

Stories

Those stories first appearing in literary journals are indicated.[2][3]

Critical Appraisal

The collection has drawn critical attention.[5] Anne Tyler observes, ‘… “Crossing the Border” revolves around borders, … but the borders, … are only nominally geographical. Although most of the stories concern Americans in Canada ― people whose private sense of disengagement is intensified by their life in a culture half foreign, half familiar ― the real borders are personal: the boundaries by which each individual defines himself and, rightly or wrongly, fends off other individuals.’[6] But of course these personal boundaries also have to be „crossed“, transcended, and therefore the stories are also concerned with transitions of the psychic boundaries which characterize the individual, with the development from one level of consciousness to another one.[7]

References

  1. ^ Wesley, 1994 p. 174
  2. ^ "The Glass Ark: A Joyce Carol Oates Bibliography".
  3. ^ Lercangee, 1986 See Short Stories and Tales, pp. 7-47
  4. ^ An extended space separates the two words in the title, indicating the distance between these two notions. ‘Everyone knows about love, no one knows about friendship. … it's easier to fall in love and even get married … than to establish a lasting relationship … with a friend,’ remarks Oates.
  5. ^ Contemporary American Women Writers: An A-to-Z Guide. Ed. by Ficby Laurie Champion and Rhonda Austin. Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 2002, p. 268.
  6. ^ Anne Tyler. "Crossing the Border". The New York Times, July 18, 1976.
  7. ^ Severin, Hermann (1986). The Image of the Intellectual in the Short Stories of Joyce Carol Oates. Frankfurt am Main, Bern, New York: Peter Lang. p. 138. ISBN 3-8204-9623-8.

Sources