‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ by Joyce Carol Oates

Crafted with sharp, simmering tension and a relentless, dread-like momentum, Joyce Carol Oates’ 1966 story has become a contemporary classic. Fifteen-year-old Connie is a typical teenage girl: concerned with her looks, self-conscious, struggling with strained parental relationships. When a stranger arrives, who may not be exactly who he says he is, the story’s conclusion begins to feel inevitable, even pre-ordained. The story has a dreamlike quality that verges horrifyingly into nightmare as it illuminates the specific vulnerabilities of the teenage girl.

First published in the Fall 1966 edition of Epoch magazine, collected in The Wheel of Love and Other Stories, Vanguard, 1970 and widely anthologised