Cardiff, by the Sea is a book of four novellas by Joyce Carol Oates. The first one (which comes in at 170 pages, so I would call it a novel) is the title story about an adopted woman who inherits a house from her unknown biological grandmother in Maine. She goes there to claim her inheritance and is sucked into a dreamy nightmarish world and learns her biological father killed his spouse and children (except her) – or did he? The second one (my favorite), Miao Dao, focuses on a feral cat who becomes a ghost that intervenes to protect the young girl protagonist from abusive males – or did it? The third one, Phantomwise: 1972, concerns a young female graduate student who becomes entangled with predatory male professors. The final story, The Surviving Child, concerns a female protagonist who marries the widow of a famous woman poet who killed herself – or did she? In all the stories, characters behave in improbable ways that are jarring and there are strong gothic elements. Here’s what New York Journal of Books says:
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/cardiff-sea-four-novellas
