'Joyce Carol Oates is a writer who always takes your breath away.' Julie Myerson, Mail on Sunday 'Faithless: Tales of Transgression makes its brisk incisions into the themes of terror, female passion, collapsing male identity, loneliness, divorce, revenge ...Again and again [Oates] finds new language to describe the immensity of desire...She twists back against our assumptions, seeking always the gristly pop of revelation.' New York Times Book Review 'Oates is a massive literary heavyweight, and many earnestly believe she could knock the other contenders for the title of Great American Novelist - Updike, Roth, Wolfe, Mailer.' Helen Falconer, Guardian 'Oates is an inspired writer, and a formidable psychologist. She has a thrilling way of grasping an emotion, wasting no time in judicious rumination but launching herself straight at the aching heart of the matter.' Independent 'Oates's precise and inspired writing is close to witchcraft.' Jeanne Moreau 'Novelists such as John Updike, Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer slug it out for the title of the Great American Novelist. But maybe they're wrong. Maybe, just maybe, the Great American Novelist is a woman.' The Herald