Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Shields, Carol (Vol. 193) - Joyce Carol Oates (review date 29 June 2000)

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Joyce Carol Oates (review date 29 June 2000)

SOURCE: Oates, Joyce Carol. “An Endangered Species.” New York Review of Books 47, no. 11 (29 June 2000): 38-41.

[In the following review, Oates discusses Shields's Dressing Up for the Carnival along with several other recent story collections by various authors. Oates comments that Shields's stories are intelligent, provocative, and entertaining.]

The short story is a minor art form that, in the hands of a very few practitioners, becomes major art. Its effect is rarely isolated or singular, but accumulative; a distinguished story collection is one that is greater than the mere sum of its disparate parts. In isolation, striking and original as individual stories might be, it's likely that they would quickly fade from literary memory, as a few scattered poems of Emily Dickinson, separated from the poet's great body of work, would have long since faded into oblivion.

Yet one...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Kate Grimond (review date 12 February 2000)
   2. Margaret Walters (review date 25 February 2000)
   3. Ruth Scurr (review date 28 February 2000)
   4. Abby Frucht (review date 21 May 2000)
   5. Lynne Sharon Schwartz (review date May/June 2000)
   6. Joyce Carol Oates (review date 29 June 2000)
   7. Donna Coates (review date spring 2000)
   8. Douglas Glover (review date July/August 2000)
   9. Olivia Glazebrook (review date 2 September 2000)
   10. Candice Rodd (review date 15 September 2000)
   11. Lisa Allardice (review date 5 February 2001)
   12. Jonathan Keates (review date 3 March 2001)
   13. Coral Ann Howells (essay date 2001)
   14. Rachel Cusk (review date 29 April 2002)
   15. Sophie Ratcliffe (review date 3 May 2002)
   16. Anita Brookner (review date 4 May 2002)
   17. Ron Charles (review date 9 May 2002)
   18. Jane Ciabattari (review date 12 May 2002)
   19. Faye Hammill (review date spring 2002)
   20. Laura Moss (review date spring 2002)
   21. Nino Ricci (essay date spring 2002)
   22. Barbara Frey Waxman (essay date spring 2002)
   23. Elaine Showalter (review date 11 July 2002)
   24. Kate Sterns (review date summer 2002)
   25. Sue Bond (review date 2002)
   26. Mary Eagleton (essay date spring 2003)
   27. Clare Colvin (essay date 18 July 2003)
   28. Claudia Levy (essay date 18 July 2003)
   29. Dennis McLellan (essay date 18 July 2003)
   30. W. M. Hagen (review date October-December 2003)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Joyce Carol Oates