Triumph of the Spider Monkey

Book excerpt: New York Times–bestselling author Unavailable for 40 years, this seminal crime novel of madness and murder is a powerful trip into the mind of a maniac—and features a never-before-seen companion novella. “Oates’ tale of criminal psychosis draws on the druggy decadence, greed, sexism, and violence of Hollywood in the Charles Manson-Roman Polanski era.” —Booklist Abandoned as a baby in a bus station locker—shuttled from one abusive foster home and detention center to another—Bobbie Gotteson grew up angry, hurting, damaged. His hunger to succeed as a musician brought him across the country to Hollywood, but along with it came his seething rage, his paranoid delusions, and his capacity for acts of shocking violence. Unavailable for 40 years, The Triumph of the Spider Monkey is an eloquent, terrifying, heartbreaking exploration of madness by one of the most acclaimed authors of the past century. This definitive edition for the first time pairs the original novel with a never-before-collected companion novella by Joyce Carol Oates—unseen since its sole publication in a literary journal nearly half a century ago—which examines the impact of Gotteson’s killing spree on a woman who survived it, as seen through the eyes of the troubled young man hired by a private detective to surveil her...