Bellefleur, along with A Bloodsmoor Romance (1982) and Mysteries of Winterthurn (1986), mark a distinct trend in Oates's fiction, which she has since abandoned: the huge, Gothic romance with naturalistic elements. While in her more naturalistic novels, the events are almost unbelievably violent, they are almost comically improbable in Bellefleur: a spider that nestles on the bare back of his beautiful mistress, a girl that is born after the male parts of her twin are cut away, a slavish dwarf that is found in the Bellefleur woods, a man that disappears in a room and is never heard or seen again, a vampire that comes from Sweden to claim a bride. The narrator is omniscient, but subtly sympathetic. The lake and the setting of Bellefleur castle, in the wilds of the Adirondack Mountains, are suitably frightening and Gothic, but the fictional lives of the Bellefleurs are playe d out against...