Originally published in 1976, Joyce Carol Oates's The Triumph of the Spider Monkey reveals the mind of a serial killer in the aftermath of his capture. Bobbie Gotteson, abandoned in a bus station as an infant, grew up in foster care, persistently and systematically abused by almost everyone he encountered. Now, after having been convicted of hacking to death nine stewardesses, Gotteson retraces the steps of his miserable life as a wannabe entertainer and ladies' man, up through his final attack. In this reprint, the novel is paired with the novella "Love, Careless Love," which focuses on a down-and-out detective who becomes slowly and violently obsessed with the lone survivor of Gotteson's attack.
The definition of an unreliable narrator, Gotteson drags the reader into his consciousness, starting from the moment of his own imagined infancy, a corrupted version of a hero's origin story that shows him being birthed from a bus station locker. His reality is a fragmented, sweaty, clamorous, paranoid fantasy and Oates's frenetic prose brings a new understanding to the concept of mania. The women who slip in and out of Gotteson's life and subconscious guide his story, despite his insistence that he hates them. These women--who are depicted by Gotteson as every conceivable female stereotype from virgin mother to sexual trash--fight against the confines of Gotteson's perspective. Meanwhile, the anxious, neon-lit world of '60s and '70s American culture eggs them all on, urging the novel's characters toward one bloody climax after another. The accompanying novella continues the novel's exploration of a world turned nightmare because of capitalist misogyny by delving into the viciousness inherent in even a seemingly ordinary man. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor