Beasts

Joyce Carol Oates

The obsessive relationship between a young person and two authority figures set among the enclosed lives of the female students at a college in the 1970s. This is powerful stuff as Gillian, mesmerised by her tutor, becomes addicted to his bohemian lifestyle and when betrayed takes a revenge that haunts her for the rest of her life.

Extract

But I knew I must not tell anyone. For this man, who was one of my professors, could not love his other students as he loved me, and so it was unfair, it was wrong. I must never tell of his love for me or his love would vanish. I was crying now, I will never tell anyone, Mr Harrow. And he lifted me in his arms, as my father had not lifted me in fifteen years; he kissed me gently on the lips, and a great happiness suffused me like a blessing.

Parallels