I Am No One You Know

I Am No One You Know contains nineteen startling stories that bear witness to the remarkably varied lives of Americans of our time. In "e;Fire,"e; a troubled young wife discovers a rare, radiant happiness in an adulterous relationship. In "e;Curly Red,"e; a girl makes a decision to reveal a family secret, and changes her life irrevocably. In "e;The Girl with the Blackened Eye,"e; selected for The Best American Mystery Stories 2001, a girl pushed to an even greater extreme of courage and desperation manages to survive her abduction by a serial killer. And in "e;Three Girls,"e; two adventuresome NYU undergraduates seal their secret love by following, and protecting, Marilyn Monroe in disguise at Strand Used Books on a snowy evening in 1956. These vividly rendered portraits of women, men, and children testify to Oates's compassion for the mysterious and luminous resources of the human spirit.