Carol Emshwiller has been a sophisticated prose artist from, at latest, not long after first publication in 1954, and this fact became impossible to miss by the appearance of her first stories to gain widespread attention, such as "Hunting Machine" (1957), "Pelt" (1958). and "Day at the Beach" (1959); one might correctly gather she's had a keen interest in analyzing the expression of cruelty from the first two titles. This volume, from 1974, was her first collection, and with about half the contents published here for the first time, the book is among a number of other things partially autobiographical fiction (at times verging on essay) and not solely in those aspects a rumination on love, marriage, and the lives of women who are both artists and domestically wives and mothers. Emshwiller had begun publishing fiction with a short story in a regional general-interest magazine, then published nearly all of her next dozen or so stories in the crime fiction and science fiction magazines edited by the adventurous Robert Lowndes, to whom her husband had been steadily selling his illustrations (Emshwiller and Edward Hoch can be said to be Lowndes's chief writer discoveries in those years). By the mid/late 1960s, Emshwiller had begun placing notable stories with the likes of avant-garde anthology series New Directions and the little magazines such as TriQuarterly and Epoch, and so she would continue in these modes, though adding more fantasy and dropping crime fiction per se, and eventually writing highly unusual western novels in the 1990s, beginning with Ledoyt. This volume has only seen the Harper hardcover first edition; ridiculously, no paperback nor foreign editions...rather too much like another excellent collection I've reviewed here before, Wilma Shore's Women Should Be Allowed.The contents of this book are also included in (the previously cited here) The Collected Stories, Volume 1, but they are arranged here for desired effect rather than by date of publication in the later volume, and this furthers the effect of the often linked nature of the stories in Joy.
from the Contento/Locus indices, with a few added citations:
- Joy in Our Cause Carol Emshwiller (Harper & Row 0-06-011234-4, 1974, hc)
- 1 · Joy in Our Cause · ss
- 11 · The Queen of Sleep · ss New Directions Vol. 22; New Worlds 1970
- 16 · Strangers · ss Bad Moon Rising, ed. Thomas M. Disch, Harper & Row 1973
- 21 · Autobiography · ss
- 30 · Lib · ss New Worlds Mar 1968; TriQuarterly, 1968
- 36 · Eohippus · ss Transatlantic Review 1967
- 45 · Destinations, Premonitions and the Nature of Anxiety · ss
- 56 · To the Association · ss
- 60 · Biography of an Uncircumcised Man (Including Interview) · ss
- 72 · Yes, Virginia · ss Transatlantic Review 1971
- 78 · The Childhood of the Human Hero · ss Showcase, ed. Roger Elwood, Harper & Row 1973
- 84 · Animal · ss Orbit 4, ed. Damon Knight, G.P. Putnam’s 1968
- 96 · Sex and/or Mr. Morrison · ss Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison, Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1967
- 106 · Dog Is Dead · ss
- 111 · I Love You · ss Epoch Vol. XIX, No. 1, 1969
- 117 · Peninsula · ss The Richmond Review 1970
- 129 · Chicken Icarus · ss Cavalier Oct 1966, as “A Dream of Flying”
- 143 · Al · ss Orbit 10, ed. Damon Knight, G.P. Putnam’s 1972
- 155 · Methapyrilene Hydrochloride Sometimes Helps · ss New Worlds Jul 1968
- 161 · Maybe Another Long March Across China 80,000 Strong · ss
For more of today's books, please see Patti Abbott's blog.