From the towering imagination of Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE, now a major motion picture, a powerful and controversial novel about every parent's worst nightmare.

Daddy Love, aka Reverend Chester Cash, has for years abducted, tortured, and raped young boys. His latest victim is Robbie, now renamed 'Gideon', and brainwashed into believing that he is Daddy Love's real son. Any time the boy resists or rebels he is met with punishment beyond his wildest nightmares.

As Robbie grows older he begins to realize that the longer he is locked in the shackles of this demon, the greater chance he'll end up like Daddy Love's other 'sons' who were never heard from again. Somewhere within this tortured boy lies a spark of rebellion . . . and soon he will see just what lengths he must go to in order to have any chance at survival.

Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates:

'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian

'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express

'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review

'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times

'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist