Stephen Dobyns
Author of The Church of Dead Girls
About the Author
Stephen Dobyns was born on February 19, 1941, in Orange, New Jersey. He received a B.A. in 1964 from Wayne State University and an M.F.A. in 1967 from the University of Iowa. He was a reporter for the Detroit News and has taught at several colleges and universities including Sarah Lawrence College, show more Warren Wilson College, the University of Iowa, Syracuse University, and Boston University. He has written about ten books of poetry and twenty novels. His books of poetry include Concurring Beasts, Heat Death, Common Carnage, Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides, The Porcupine's Kisses, and Winter's Journey. He has received several awards including the Melville Cane Award for Cemetery Nights. His novels include Saratoga Haunting, The Wrestler's Cruel Study, Saratoga Fleshpot, The Church of Dead Girls, and Boy in the Water. He is also the author of a collection of short stories, Eating Naked and a book of essays, Best Words, Best Order. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Courtesy of Allison & Busby
Series
Works by Stephen Dobyns
Skin Deep 1 copy
Associated Works
Hebbes 1 — Contributor — 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Dobyns, Stephen J.
- Birthdate
- 1941-02-19
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA (birth)
- Birthplace
- Orange, New Jersey, USA
- Places of residence
- Orange, New Jersey, USA (birth)
Boston, Massachusetts, USA - Education
- Wayne State University
University of Iowa (MFA)
Shimer College - Occupations
- poet
novelist - Agent
- Anthony Goff (David Higham Associates)
Members
Reviews
Lists
Nineties (1)
1990s (1)
MysteryCAT 2014 (1)
Fiction on Fire (1)
USA Road Trip (1)
Missing! (1)
Five star books (2)
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 45
- Also by
- 16
- Members
- 3,489
- Popularity
- #7,289
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 80
- ISBNs
- 232
- Languages
- 9
- Favorited
- 7
Ostensibly, The Church of Dead Girls is about the disappearance of three girls in a small New York town above the Finger Lakes. Told from the outsider perspective of a high school science teacher, the lives and secrets of his fellow citizens are revealed slowly, their layers peeled away as the tension between friends and neighbours ratchets up. The abduction of the girls is both horrific and a catalyst, the townfolk growing increasingly mad with frustration and suspicion, and fear. Not only fear of their daughter being taken next, but of their secret desires, their illicit actions being exposed and revealed to the cruel eye of the town's populace, the only judge that matters.
As I was reading I was often reminded of Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects, to which The Church of Dead Girls seems to be a spiritual precursor. There's a creeping, unsettling feeling that only grows as you advance in the story. Like Sharp Objects the disappearance and probable murders of the missing girls, barely in their teenage years, is only part of a larger whole. The narrator relates decades worth of information, gleaned from years of personal interactions or heard secondhand from his friends, piecing together the story from what he's been told into a rich, meaty narrative.
The real story that lurks behind the abduction of the three teenage girls is the unknowable nature of the other. Even those closest to us have their secrets, the thoughts they keep to themselves, a persona they show the world that reflects only a portion of their true self. The mercurial nature of a community influenced by gossip and speculation, suspicion and fear, is as fascinating as it is frustrating. The 'other' is always targeted, the African college professor and his Marxist reading group, gay men, anyone who stands out from the 'norm' suffering from hysterical scapegoating.
Overall, The Church of Dead Girls is slow, but taut, deftly portraying the way a small community operates, the way lives intersect and affect each other. The way the town reacts to the missing girls as scarring and long-lasting as the abductions themselves, mob mentality showing the unintended dark sides of even the innocent.… (more)