Book review: Joyce Carol Oates explores zero-sum games in latest collection

Zero-Sum: Stories

By Joyce Carol Oates
Fiction/Knopf/Paperback/282 pages/$28/Amazon (

amzn.to/46Wlp3a

) 
4 stars

“A zero-sum game is one in which there is a winner and there is a loser and the spoils go to the winner and nothing to the loser,” author Joyce Carol Oates explains of the economic theory that undergirds her latest collection of short stories.

With 12 tales in this, her 47th collection, Oates delves into the intricacies of competition in human relationships and challenges the boundaries and limitations of a zero-sum game.

The titular story introduces readers to philosophy student K, whose quest to impress her esteemed professor is overshadowed by jealousy when she meets his disabled daughter, H, and finds herself outmanoeuvred by the latter.

This tale explores the intricacies of ambition and competition. It also examines the consequences of unchecked desire when K’s seemingly innocent request for her professor to relook her work turns into vengeance when the request is rejected and she is just shy of the highest grade.

Similarly, in Monstersister, the unnamed protagonist identifies a competitor – a growth on her head. It quickly develops into her twin and soon becomes the centre of her family’s attention. This “monstersister” becomes competition in a game where only one can emerge victorious. 

American writer Oates, now 85, is a literary icon who published her first book in 1963. Over the decades, she has authored 58 novels, along with numerous volumes of short stories, poetry and non-fiction, winning multiple prizes including the National Book Award and O. Henry Award along the way.

Her literary mastery shines here, where she fearlessly explores a diverse range of genres, from family drama to dystopian fiction. There is much to ponder in her profound writing.

Revenge tale Mr Stickum sees a group of high-school girls exacting their vengeance in a way that is both horrifying and entirely understandable as they capture and punish their community’s sexual predators on a homemade killing machine. 

“For always it is expected of girls, as of adult women, that we will be loving, forgiving, merciful. But Mr Stickum has taught us that is a zero-sum game,” Oates writes, challenging age-old expectations and spotlighting a reversal of traditional gender roles by asserting that women are no longer passive participants in the zero-sum game.  

The Suicide is the longest story here, taking readers on a harrowing, almost stream-of-consciousness journey. It centres on a renowned writer who experiments with writing about his own suicide. 

In other stories, Oates looks at the value of a human life through the lens of an abandoned child, and contemplates, in an artificial intelligence-dominated world, whether the last of the human species should be kept alive. She discusses the quantification of human life and how it often becomes measured through the relationships one has.

She seems to offer a solution in her last two stories. In a post-apocalyptic world, she emphasises the significance of human connection, delivering a resounding message: that the need to be seen, recognised and loved by another human being transcends the zero-sum game.

While the zero-sum game is bound by artificial rules of fixed resources and perfect competition, love is a human connection that knows no bounds.

She writes: “Life was not a game of who might win. Love was certainly not a game.”

Real-world interactions cannot be neatly defined or analysed using economic theories. Instead, the nuanced fabric of human relationships defies such limitations.  

There are dark and gruesome narratives in this book. Oates’ unyielding gaze and masterful erudition leave readers pondering unsettling truths long after the final page has been turned. 

If you like this, read: The Secret History by Donna Tartt (Vintage, 1992, $20.89, Amazon SG, go to

amzn.to/45Eotjl

), a dark academia novel that follows a group of gifted students at an elite college who become embroiled in intellectual obsession and a series of morally complex events.