In the market for a book that will leave you feeling as if you’ve witnessed something dreadfully revealing about humans as a species—something taboo and dark, something that lurks both behind corners and perceived innocence; something that will make you bite a nail, flush with heat (embarrassment? rage? recognition?), and want to scrub yourself clean afterwards?

Beasts is your book.

Psychological thrillers aren’t abundant in number, let alone in effectiveness; in my experience, Joyce Carol Oates defies the status quo with most of her work, far surpassing the believability and disturbing nature of humanity only glimpsed at in many a read. She’s not afraid to show the basest parts of us—the rutting, ape-like (or more depraved than ape?) nature of primal humans and what they will or won’t do to each other.

In Beasts, you’ll meet Gillian, a young college student who becomes infatuated with her nonconformist poetry teacher. It’s probably safe to say that most people have experienced the attraction that she has for her charismatic professor. However, unlike most of those experiences—which result in nothing more than an unusual giddiness when coming to class or the occasional fling—Gillian, while even knowing a bit about the danger beforehand, succumbs to a web of lust and depravation between her teacher and his wife, along with most of the other girls in her class.

Oates’ gothic novella depicts several eerie characters who revel in their own sadism and sexual tastes; the professor’s wife, a sculptress of grotesque creations, lives by the motto she has left inscribed on one particular piece: “We are beasts and this is our consolation.” As if by believing that mankind is nothing more than a self-gratifying animal of extreme indifference for others she and her husband can guiltlessly manipulate, seduce, and abuse young college women, the pair embark on a spree of violent debasement.

Though the instances of drugging, abusing, and sleeping with young women—and the effects it leaves on some, the violent retaliation it urges from others—may turn you off this book completely—and perhaps rightfully so; some people will definitely not want to experience it—be warned that it is quite a masterpiece, and portrays something that you might be able to find in all of us, even in the tiniest amounts.

Are we all beasts? On some level, I’d have to agree with the good professor’s lascivious wife. Is it an excuse to prey on others—especially those who are most impressionable, most vulnerable? I would disagree, as well as with the notion that it’s a consolation in any form. Our consolation is that we can choose to not act like beasts—that we can respect our fellow “beasts” in ways that wild animals may not.