Joyce Carol Oates' ''Heat''--Narrator?

Cafe Society
1

You guys are my last hope.

In my Fiction class we had our Final Exam today. One of the questions was, “What was the name of the narrator? How do you know?” for the short story Heat by Joyce Carol Oates. Now, we could answer 10 questions out of 15 so I left this question alone since I had no idea. I’ve read the short story four times so far, and I cannot figure it out. I’ve come up with some weird theories, like she has multiple personality disorder or she dreamed about the whole thing. But those can’t be right. How does she know about the very minute details of the twins’ last moments?

This isn’t for school, mind you, as I’m through with that class. I figured, though, that someone here had to have an idea. I’ve tried looking it up online, but all I get are a bunch of reviews.

2

Can you remind me a bit about this short story – especially which collection it’s in? I’ve read a bunch of her stuff, but it’s been awhile.

Daniel

3

I think it’s in a variety of collections, but she had a short story book called Heat–And Other Short Stories, I believe. It’s the story of twin girls who are brutally raped and murdered by the town idiot. The narrator was the girls’ friend.