This week on The Easy Chair, I read the first half of Joyce Carol Oates's brilliant, twisted short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been.” Connie is a fifteen-year-old girl from a small town, newly aware of her beauty, newly boy-crazy, awakening to life and the pleasures it offers the young and, even more abundantly, the beautiful. It’s summer, and Connie is a regular at all the local hangouts...along with the mysterious Arnold Friend. Her parents and sister leave one Sunday afternoon for a family barbecue and Connie decides she will skip it. A familiar car rolls up the driveway. It would seem that Arnold Friend has had his eye on Connie.

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