Fourth Estate
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First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2015
First published in the United States by Ecco in 2015
Copyright © The Ontario Review 2015
Joyce Carol Oates asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Cover photograph © Nagib El Desouky / Arcangel Images.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780008114862
Ebook Edition © January 2015 ISBN: 9780008114879
Version: 2015-10-13
for Richard Levao
and for Charlie Gross
Contents
OCTOBER 6, 1987
PASCAYNE, NEW JERSEY
Seen my girl? My baby?
She came like a procession of voices though she was but a singular voice. She came along Camden Avenue in the Red Rock neighborhood of inner-city Pascayne, twelve tight-compressed blocks between the New Jersey Turnpike and the Passaic River. In the sinister shadow of the