The Massacre at Mount Pitcairn

Price range: $65.00 through $195.00

By Joyce Carol Oates

A dark, gripping tale that will carry you straight into the shadows of fall. Set in a remote mountain town haunted by its own secrets, Oates spins a story that’s as chilling as it is mesmerizing. Her sharp, lyrical prose and gift for psychological tension pull readers into a world where nothing—and no one—is quite what it seems.

Filled with mysterious characters, haunting imagery, and twists that will leave you breathless, The Massacre at Mount Pitcairn is both a spine-tingling thriller and a powerful reflection on guilt, fear, and the fragility of human nature. One of Oates’s own favorite stories, it’s a masterwork of suspense and storytelling from one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

 “I try to write books that can be read in one way by a literal-minded reader, and in quite another way by a reader alert to symbolic abbreviation and parodistic elements. And yet, it’s the same book—or nearly. A trompe l’oeil, a work of ‘as if.’” — Joyce Carol Oates

Originally published as the October 2025 Dispatch.

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Description

Joyce Carol Oates was born in Lockport, New York, and educated at Syracuse University, where she graduated valedictorian, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over the course of her remarkable career, she has distinguished herself as one of the most versatile and visionary voices in American letters. A novelist, essayist, poet, and critic, Oates has built a body of work that explores the hidden tensions of American life—its beauty, brutality, and moral ambiguities—with unflinching psychological insight and lyrical precision.

The author of more than seventy books, including Blonde, We Were the Mulvaneys, The Gravedigger’s Daughter, and The Book of American Martyrs, Oates has received the National Book Award, the National Humanities Medal, the PEN/Malamud Award, and the Jerusalem Prize, among many others. Her fiction and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Harper’s, and she has taught for decades at Princeton University. A master of the short story and one of the great chroniclers of the American imagination, Joyce Carol Oates continues to illuminate the dark and dazzling corners of the human experience.

Additional information

Weight 1 lbs
Binding

Classic, Patron