Amazon.com
Penzler Pick, April 2000: It is surprising and shocking to realize that Joyce Carol Oates, one of the great writers living today, has never made The New York Times bestseller list (at least not in recent memory). Far less talented (and less famous) authors have made it while she, in all likelihood not caring much, has been shut out. That could easily change with her new novel, Blonde, which may be the masterpiece of a staggeringly distinguished career.

This 700-plus-page tome is based on the life of (you guessed it) Marilyn Monroe. In fictional form, with names changed (husband Joe DiMaggio is referred to as "The Ex-Athlete," Arthur Miller as "The Playwright," John F. Kennedy as "The President," for example), this may be the most accurate and compelling portrait of this beautiful and complex woman that one is ever likely to read.

But why discuss it on the mystery page, you might well be asking yourself. It was the author's intent to structure the book as a mystery, and of course she succeeds, as she seems to succeed at everything she attempts in the world of letters. And there is a murder, apparently arranged by a secret government bureau (FBI? CIA?), although that could be the victim's hallucination. Of course, it could also be both real and hallucinated (remember, even paranoids have enemies).

If you like biographies, you'll like Blonde. If you like novels, you'll like Blonde. If you like mysteries, you'll like Blonde. And if you fear that more than 700 pages by one of the greatest of living literary lions might be tough slogging, here's a little excerpt from the chapter titled "The President's Pimp:"

Sure he was a pimp.

But not just any pimp. Not him!

He was a pimp par excellence. A pimp nonpareil. A pimp sui generis. A pimp with a wardrobe, and a pimp with style. A pimp with a classy Brit accent. Posterity would honor him as the President's Pimp.

A man of pride and stature: the President's Pimp.

At Rancho Mirage in Palm Springs in March 1962 there was the President poking him in the ribs with a low whistle. "That blonde. That's Marilyn Monroe?"

He told the President yes it was. Monroe, a friend of his. Luscious, eh? But a little crazy.

Thoughtfully, the President asked, "Have I dated her yet?"

Nothing inaccessible about Joyce Carol Oates, especially in this most readable and relentlessly fascinating study of the lovely woman with whom the whole country was at least a little in love. --Otto PenzlerBook Description
In her most ambitious work to date, Joyce Carol Oates boldly reimagines the inner, poetic, and spiritual life of Norma Jeane Baker -- the child, the woman, the fated celebrity and idolized blonde the world came to know as Marilyn Monroe. In a voice startlingly intimate and rich, Norma Jeane tells her own story of an emblematic American artist -- intensely conflicted and driven -- who had lost her way. A powerful portrait of Hollywood's myth and an extraordinary woman's heartbreaking reality, Blonde is a sweeping epic that pays tribute to the elusive magic and devastation behind the creation of the great twentieth-century American star. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (172)

Potentially Oates's Best, But Too Tawdry, and Too Graphic
This novel by Oates includes many of Oates's strengths as a writer; and, who is not interested in Marilyn Monroe? All in all, it is one of Oates's most interesting novels from a research viewpoint and she tries to get into Marilyn's head and fill in the details - albeit fictional. I thought that she failed to do so. She spent a lot of time on the small sexual details. Do we really want to know "how" the head of a studio had sex with her, and what position they were in, etc., etc.... and you can fill in the details yourself or read the book for much graphic detail. And, remember it is part fictional so it is part guess work by Oates. Less is sometimes better in literature. In short, it is a bit over the top.

Joyce Carol Oates was born in 1938 in upstate New York State and is a distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton. She gained fame with her first novel With Shuddering Fall in 1964. Now four decades later, she is the author of scores of novels, many short stories, essays, plays, and poetry. The present novel from is somewhere near the end of the chronological order of her body of work and we see the polished prose of an experienced writer.

I have read a number of her works from different time periods in her career and set up a Guide to Joyce Carol Oates Listmania list. Compared to her early novels, this is a straight-forward and almost a "light" read. It contains some drama but there are a few intense scenes, but less than in some other works. The novel has a good story structure and easy prose, and the reader is spared the "too much prose" found in some early works such as The Assassins. The read is mostly compelling.

Oates is known for her emotional and dramatic stories, often with women or even poor women such as students or teachers caught up in stressful situations, and often set in her native upstate New York (Niagara River - Syracuse - Erie,PA. triangle). Actually, some of her best work is found in her 10 to 20 page short stories, which are often dramatic, sometimes very intense, and many involve off-beat characters, and they include rapes, murders, and people with serious mental health issues, etc. People who have not read her collections of short stories should take a look at those.

The present novel is a departure in location but not in spirit. Marilyn Monroe was a stressed young woman with a mentally ill mother. She had to make many sacrifices to follow her acting career. Oates gives a good step by step view of her teenage years, her first days as a model, and the career that followed, along with her marriages.

This is a relatively compelling read, but very graphic, and some will be turned off by the details of Marilyn's sex life. Again, as in other works, she mixes in the tawdry a little too much. Overall I did not like it. I still prefer You Must Remember This and We Were The Mulvaneys. Both are better works.

Neutral recommendations: 4 stars.

Tour de force
Don't believe the hype!Although widely panned, this book is superb.Less a meditation on Monroe herself, the book's real success is as a feminist critique of Hollywood.By focusing on the idea of Monroe the legend, it calls into question the entire Western project of deification and celebrity.It also works as a kalidescopic ride in and out of a multitude of literary styles and narrative voices, often operating as a brilliant piece of metafiction.

Sad but addictive reading
I enjoyed the book even though it was pretty bleak and mostly depressing but how could it be otherwise? Monroe's life wasn't exactly the happily ever fantasy what with her rough beginning, the abuse, the sex and the drugs. I thought Oates did an enviable job of recreating Monroe's voice, her motivation and getting to the heart of the woman behind the myth. It begins with Monroe as a young child and portrays the abuse she suffers at the hands of an unstable mother and sets the ground work for Marilyn's unsuccessful search for a normal life which clashes time and time again with her overwhelming drive to become a successful and important actress.

A cautionary tale based on the life of a silver screen goddess
I am a huge Marilyn Monroe fan; and I mean huge. My interest in her goes further than her ethereal image and numerous movie characters. I am constantly in search of any new information about her and continuously interested in her life. Needless to say, I was skeptical of Joyce Carol Oates' novel. However, Oates immediately informs the reader that this novel is not a true account of Marilyn Monroe's facinating and short life. This is a work of fiction that is based on facts, myths, and fodder that cling to the legend of Marilyn Monroe like cat hair clings to a sweater. This is an enthralling read and Oates' writing style is both poetic and beautifully post-modern. A warning to devoted Marilyn Monroe fans: This novel should be approached with an open-mind. Try to refrain from passing judgement on Oates. Try to realize that her creation may seem at times a little harsh, but she respects Marilyn Monroe and has created an absorbing piece of literature.

SO MONROE
THIS BOOK IS FABULOUS FOR A MARILYN FAN - PICK IT UP AND CHECK IT OUT!! ... Read more

Book Description

When The Sky Blue Ball comes soaring over the fence, a high-school girl is confronted with the haunting memory of childhood. A jealous teen lets her cousin go off alone with a dangerous Capricorn, aware of the terrifying possibilities. A vulnerable young girl cunningly outwits a menacing stranger and exults in her newfound power, surviving the first of many Small Avalanches.

In these twelve riveting tales, master storyteller Joyce Carol Oates visits the dark, enigmatic psyche of the teenage years. Intense and unnerving, uplifting and triumphant, the stories in this collection explore the fateful consequences of the choices we make in our everyday lives.

Customer Reviews (4)

Do adolescent teens like reading about stupid adolescent teens?
I was on a 7-hour train ride, and figured I'd give the book a shot. My first sign of trouble was the dedication of the first story to Bob "Lingerie" Dylan, but I pressed on. A lot of seemingly intelligent people are still under his spell, blissfully coasting on the remnants of his image from the days when he wasn't a Starbucks sellout.

Anyway, the first story is about a bad thing that happens to an innocent teen-aged girl. Throughout the story you feel like you're watching a bad horror movie, screaming "don't go into the attic." This feeling, I would learn, is the unifying theme of this book.

Exhausted after one story, I put the book down and looked at the bland countryside passing by. Boredom took over after 15 minutes, and after cursing myself for not bringing along a backup, I went back to the book.

I stopped reading the next story, "The Sky Blue Ball," after it looked like another horrible thing was going to happen to another stupid little girl. She may have turned out fine, but I just didn't have the emotional energy. I took another break and headed to "Small Avalanches." This one, again, is about a stupid teen girl and a horrible thing that could happen to her. This 13 year-old girl, incidentally, is the one portrayed on the cover. Maybe it's the hormones in the food, but the person on the cover looks a little too busty to be 13.

I skipped around a bit, figuring the stupid little girl theme was bound to run out. "Haunted" and "Capricorn" were, refreshingly, about TWO stupid teen girls hurtling blindly into certain doom. The book finally abandons the idiot theme in the last two stories, "The Visit," and "The Model." These are excellent stories about strong girls who, instead of being thrown to the wolves by their own ignorance, make their own decisions, explore their feelings, and are active participants in their lives.

Maybe this book was meant as a series of cautionary tales about how teens should avoid danger (it mostly boils down to "don't talk to slimy looking strangers"), but for anyone with half a brain, it's an extremely frustrating and annoying read.

4 stars for writing, 2 for teen appeal = 3
Oates, Joyce Carol.Small Avalanches and Other Stories. HarperTempest, 2003. lib ed 0-06-001218-8 $17.89

Oatesý collection of previously published short stories thought to have teen appeal is dedicated ýfor the bad girls.ý Quite fitting, for protagonists include sisters who deliberately destroy their twice-divorced motherýs relationship with a new potential mate, a is pursued by a stranger, Melissa, who willingly trades a friendýs life for her own; Sunny, whose refusal of a marriage proposal drives a boy to suicide; and Melanie, who lets her beautiful but naïve cousin Steff take off with a man met on the Internet. Stranger danger abounds in these stories as girls on the brink of womanhood lose their innocence through interaction with pedophiles, crazy neighbors, and other shady characters.
Oates adeptly portrays that tensions of wanting to be a grownup and a little girl all at once, and chronicles the way girls change sleekly change personas, depending on whom they are talking to. The literary merit of the collection is to be expected from the winner of the Pen/Malamud Lifetime Achievement Award in Short Fiction; the language feels surreal in most stories, and dialogue is not typical casual teenspeak. The stories are technically flawless, but wouldnýt be my first choice for a booktalk.

For the Bad Girls
Joyce Carol Oates dedicates her latest collection of short stories, ýSmall Avalanchesý to ýThe Bad Girls.ý Be it Ingrid in ýMan Crazy,ý or Anellia in ýIll Take you There,ý Oates has always been fascinated, really infatuated with the outcasts, the fringe dwellers, the lonely hearts. More to the point, Oates enjoys writing female characters that struggle and fight against what society considers ýnormalý behaviorýwhatever the heck normal means in the society of Oatesý world and in the world in general. It is the tension of this ambiguity that Oates revels in.
ýSmall Avalanchesý begins with the story, ýWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been?ý which was the basis for the film ýSmooth Talký starring Laura Dern as Connie and Treat Williams as Arnold Friend. Reading it again now, and even with the visuals of the film spinning around my head, I was struck by the smoldering sexuality of the story. Connie is 15 and she has one foot stuck in childhood and the other one, always ready to high-tail it to the highway roadhouses, in adulthood. Oates describes her: ýýEverything about her as two sides to it, one for home and for anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make someone thinking she was hearing music in here headýher laugh, which was cynical and drawling at home but high pitched and nervous anywhere else.ý
Arnold Friend becomes Connieýs ýfriend,ý stalker really. Arnold is older, handsome, drives a spiffy car and is definitely dangerous and what he offers Connie is a view of adulthood she cannot turn down: itýs glamour and attraction cannot be ignored. The denouement finds Connie more experienced in the adult world that she craves but is not ready for. The inevitability of the situation is decidedly sensual yet undeniably moralistic: Connieýs story is ultimately a cautionary tale. One in which a bad girl gets what she deserves or is asking for. But is she better for it?
Oates mines this particular subject matter again in the more up to date, computer savvy story ýCapricorný also included in this collection.
The title story of this collection, ýSmall Avalanchesý is cruel but slight: a young girl Nancy, through the unaffected, natural conceit and innocence of youth avoids the advances of an older man: ýHe looked so funny, bent over and clutching at his chest, pretending to have a heart attack or maybe having one, a little one, for all I knew. This will teach you a lesson, I thought.ý
It is this youthful innocence and lack of foresight that also imbues ýBad Girlsý a story about three daughters who set out to investigate their motherýs boyfriend: ýNor did we set out to destroy our motherýs man friend Isaak Drumm, exactlyý(but we) confirmed the neighborhoodýs and our relativesý judgment of us, that we were bad. And not only bad in ourselves but the cause of somebody else being bad, too.ý
Throughout ýSmall Avalanchesý we encounter writing of uncommon grace: ýHer eyes were like washed glass, her eyebrows and lashes were almost white, she had a snub nose and Slavic cheekbones and a mouth that could be sweet or twisty and smirky depending on her mood.ý Or razor sharp writing that cuts to the heart of a matter: ýItýs true, all you have heard of the vanity of the old. Believing ourselves young, still, behind our aged facesýmere children, and so very innocent!ý
ýSmall Avalanchesý was intended for the young peopleýs market as was Oatesý earlier ýBig Mouth and Ugly Girl.ý But Oatesý has not toned down her natural gift for revealing the underside and the emotional truth of her characters actions and words. Far from it, she pulls no punches in revealing her patented, twisted yet humanistic worldview. Be forewarned, though: a visit to Oatesiana will leave you a bit shocked and warm under the collar but startlingly as refreshed as having just stepped out of a cool shower on a hot day.

Adolescent Tales
Small Avalanches is a collection of short stories previously published by Joyce Carol Oates whose thematic link is that each centers around the life of an adolescent or teenage girl. The focus on this age group is appropriate for this extremely talented writer who has written in an incredible range of styles and voices, but has often focused on the lives of young woman especially in her novels such as Man Crazy, Blonde and I'll Take You There to name just a few.
Oates has said in an interview with Diane Rehm in 2002:

"I feel probably quintessentially very adolescent... I guess it's just that age of romance and yearning and some scepticism, sometimes a little bit of cynicism."

The temperament of this age group that Oates so readily identifies with is something that the author is able to ingeniously capture in this series of tales. She shows in her female characters those intense feelings she marks as emblematic of this age group from a variety of perspectives.

Despite the close ages of all these girls there is a tremendous diversity of voice within the stories. They are sometimes vulnerable as the girls are primarily perceived or surprisingly self-aware which gives them the ability to manipulate their own situation. This occurs in some of the stories like Capricorn where a girl named Melanie meets a man on the internet who begins obsessively watching her play tennis and Small Avalanches where a girl walking home is followed by a suspicious looking man she nearly escapes. Some of the girls from these stories are timid, naive and orbit danger with curious innocence. In others, like Bad Girls where three close sisters invade the privacy of their mother's new boyfriend and The Model where a girl meets a man in the park who starts paying her large sums to pose for sketches, the girls are defensive to a militant degree. These diverse perspectives give a refreshing perspective when contemplating an age group so heavily stereotyped. Oates also uses multifarious structures to tell the girls' stories producing a wide range of possible meanings and giving a unique accent to their particular situations. Some take on a creepy gothic tone as in The Sky Blue Ball where a girl begins throwing a ball back and forth with a faceless participant over a wall and Haunted in which a mysterious violent woman appears to two curious girls who were searching a house they thought was empty. The most experimental structure Oates uses is in the story How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again where you read a girl's notes for a school paper that descend into an intense disjointed personal deliberation about her past and future. However, all the stories are incredibly accessible to read while still challenging the reader to think complexly about growing up and the nature of identity. Each gives a deep focus on the consciousness of these girls and presents in some way a close perspective of their point of view. The stories also examine the process in which these girls become self conscious about how they are viewed by the rest of the world. It is an extremely emotional, varied and pleasurable read. ... Read more

Amazon.com
The central haunting of this collection of 16 tales is not anything so concrete as a building haunted by a ghost, but rather the interior haunting of a human being by their ever-shifting sense of self. As Joyce Carol Oates puts it (in a fascinating afterword on the nature and history of the grotesque), "The subjectivity that is the essence of the human is also the mystery that divides us irrevocably from others . . . all others are, in the deepest sense, strangers." These stories, while all dark, cover a range of styles and subjects. Some are vividly violent; several are subtle and/or ironic. The New York Times praised this collection for "pull[ing] off what this author does best: exploring the tricky juncture between tattered social fabric and shaky psyche, while serving up some choice macabre moments." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

No one does it like Joyce Carol Oates

The author's stories are always unsettling, and the fascinating part sometimes is trying to figure out just why you've gotten the creeps so badly. The horrors she writes about are almost never easily definable.

Bad First Experience With Oates
I really looked forward to reading this collection of short stories.I love well-crafted, gothic tales, and from what I'd heard, Oates, an author I'd never before read, is something of a master.Sadly, nothing about Haunted indicated as such.

First of all, I'm all for leaving a story off in such a manner that the reader has to work a bit to connect the dots.However, if the author does not give enough information for the reader to conceptualize a logical ending, well, what's the point?Oates started each of her stories interestingly enough, but then they trailed off into oblivion with the ending coming abruptly and disappointingly.

Secondly, I found Oates' style in this collection to be careless at best.Her sentences lacked punctuation to the point that they were sometimes indecipherable.There were moments when her sentences didn't even make sense.While this sort of thing is common in experimental writing, Haunted did not strike me as hoping to achieve an experimental tag.

I will say that the most enjoyable aspect of the book for me was the afterword.Here Oates went on an impressive, fascinating, and well-written explanation of what gothic writing is, who its masters are, and what purpose it serves.Really, really good stuff.

Haunted has not turned me off from Oates.I've heard too many good things about her to avoid giving her a second chance.However, for me, she's got a great deal of ground to make up.

~Scott William Foley, author of The Imagination's Provocation: Volume I: A Collection of Short Stories

Up and Down Your Spine I Shall Pace and Stomp Hyenas
Please permit me an introduction...this is my newest ally, the pink and fluffy malcontent known as DREAD. Wanna meet his momma? Her name is Joyce Carol Oates and she weaves ensnaring webs of dystopian mortal landscapes that cause me to raise an eyebrow towards the filthy gleaming curs of nightmarish origin that procreate and assimilate through our tenures like phantasmogorical mirthpots.

Yeah. I like the book. Read it.

Dark and Depressing
The tales in this collection are certainly grotesque, and if dark and depressing is the standard for what constitutes a horror tale, then these are definintely horror. (Oates has something to say about what defines horror in her Afterword.)

But I digress, and shouldn't be quibbling about whether these stories are or are not truly horror stories.Instead, I should be concentrating on whether or not they are entertaining.

My answer to that is that they are beautifully written (as is most of Oates' work), and technically well-crafted. Thus, the four-star rating.

But...entertaining? I'm sorry to say: not for this reader.
The psychological effects of the stories, was, for me, not "chillng", but depressing.

The characters droned, seemed hopeless, usually WERE hopeless (no discernable changes by the end of a story), and generally just plodded on, until the author abruptly ended their adventure.

Oates is a skilled writer, but less so in crafting horror fictionthan other genres.

Solid but inconsistent collection of JCO's dark side...
There are dozens of reviews here, so I'll tell you about my two favorite short stories and what I don't like about Oates, and you decide.

My two favorite books in this solid but inconsistent collection are "The Premonition" and especially "Thanksgiving."

"The Premonition": Whitney learns that his abusive brother Quinn has started drinking again, so shortly before Christmas he decides to check in with Quinn's wife and daughters to make sure they're alright. Without resorting to any cheap gimics or even spelling out for the reader exactly what's going on, Oates slowly builds a tension that can cut with a knife; a truly haunting story.

"Thanksgiving": By far my favorite story in the book. The young narrator's mother is sick, so she accompanies her father to the supermarket to buy food for the meal. Oates turns this ordinary setup into one of the most disturbing, carvinalesque nightmares I've ever read; a story that stayed with me for weeks afterward.

Fans of Clive Barker or Stephen King might find a limited payoff to JCO's stories -- instead of outright shocking the reader her stories typically lull them into an almost hypnotic sort of dread. She's a master storyteller and re-reading many of the stories in "Haunted," it's interesting to find the subtle clues and language play that Oates will use to trigger fear in her reader.

The two things that I found frustrating about this book: JCO often rights in the first person, and her narrators have a tendency to all come off as the same souless, damaged person. And second, JCO is clearly a writer in command of her craft, but sometimes she gets a little too clever for her own good and her writing style occassionally slips into an inappropriate pretentiousness. These are habits I've noticed in a LOT of Oates writing, so if you're a fan and it doesn't bother you already, maybe it's just me.

Overall though, you could do a lot worse than to start with this collection, or the (in my opinion) superior followup, "The Collector of Hearts: More Tales of the Grotesque." ... Read more

Book Description

Celebrated author Joshua Seigl, an idiosyncratic bachelor and confirmed recluse—young but in failing health—reluctantly admits to himself that he must hire a live-in assistant to help him with his increasingly complicated professional and personal affairs. Then one day at the bookstore he encounters Alma, a young woman covered with bizarre tattoos, who stirs something inside him. Unaware of her torturous past—the abuses she's suffered, the wrongs she's committed, the virulent hatred that seethes within her—Seigl decides that she is the one, and he has no idea that he is bringing an enemy into his home.

Customer Reviews (31)

Good, But a Little Long
Like many readers here, I first encountered Oates though her short stories which I have found to be compelling and wonderfully written.I found this book to be one of her best short stories.Unfortunately, it is a 307 page novel, not a short story.Oates had a great idea,interesting plot, realistic characters (especially, and sadly, Jet), subtle message, and, as usual, wonderful use of language (I have not read any of Oates' poems, but intend to now).

The story was just too damn long:Two-thirds of the way into the book, I kept thinking "get on with it, Carol!We get the idea!Appearances!Bigotry! Destiny!Move it on!"It was all I could do not to flip to the last chapter (a peach of an ending, I might add).

It all could have been said in 70 pages, to much greater effect, especially with the evocative language skills that Oates has at her disposal.

Well, on to my next Oates novel!

epic fail
Many people have described the plot so I will describe why I didn't like the book overall.

First, the character of Dmitri served no real purpose to me.Secondly, they made so much of the tattoos but never explained them and they never became important.Thirdly, Alma's slow realization that she didn't hate him and that he loved her happened too quickly with hardly any development.The fact that he converted to Christianity does not mean he's not culturally Jewish, either, so if Alma truly were an anti-Semite, for her, he still would've counted as a Jew.What was the significance of chess in the story?The moment of epiphany was rather weak.The character of Siegl was not at all good for his age.Her stupidity was something that Joyce Carol Oates used at whim...sometimes she was pretty smart other times, she was dumb as a rock.Not cool.Finally, the ending was rather random and a real let down.His relationship with his sister had a lot of potential but she failed all around in this book.

The 'Tattooed Girl:' where is she going, where has she been?
"Where do you live, I live in Hell.I am a child of Hell.I am an American and a child of Hell.Ask me if I am happy, I am" (p. 142).

I have been hooked on Joyce Carol Oates ever since reading her short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been," in a college literature class.In her 2003 novel, The Tattooed Girl, Oates tells the emotionally-affecting story (with erotic undertones) of Joshua Seigl, a reclusive, lifelong bachelor in failing health, who impulsively hires a nearly illiterate young woman as his personal assistant. Seigl is a celebrated, 38-year-old Jewish writer best known for his historical novel, The Shadows, which chronicles his grandparents' Holocaust experiences.He is a bookish intellectual who plays chess and translates Virgil's The Aeneid in his spare time.By contrast, Alma Busch is a tattooed, sensuous ("radiant-faced and sexy like like a big, slinky cat," p. 102) young woman Seigl meets by chance at a local bookstore in Carmel Heights, New York, where he abruptly offers her a position as his personal assistant.Unbeknownst to him, Alma is not only an anti-Semitite, but the emotionally-damaged victim of a group of abusive males.She has a worldly history of drugs and promiscuity.Although her abusive boyfriend, Dmitri, also hates Jews, ultimately both Alma and Siegl learn valuable lessons from each other in what it means to be human.In a sense, Alma and Siegl complete one another.

The Tattooed Girl, Oates says, "is about identity and anti-Semitism.The rise of anti-Semitism is alarming in America, and the novel is very much based on that--the hatred of people based on ignorance.The novel is based on what I see going on in the world after September 11, 2001."(Worth noting, according to the New York Times, the FBI reports that hate crimes are up 7.8 percent since 2005.)Alma, Oates observes, "is an American type.She's from a background that's very poor, uneducated, very bigoted, but her tattoos are an analogue to the Holocaust victims' prison-camp tattoos; her tattoos are ugly, defacing, like someone scribbling on the wall.They are acts of vandalism on her body.They're not works of art; she didn't elect to have them. She's in a cycle of abuse, too" (P.S. p. 9). As The Tattooed Girl demonstrates, Oates is at the top of her form as a prolific writer.Her novel is engrossing, and Oates' never allows her characters to fall into the clichés they might have become with the pen of a lesser writer. The plot is suspensful and never predictable.The ending is somewhat abrupt, which is why I have given this otherwise excellent novel four stars instead of five.

G. Merritt

really good
The themes in this novel are certainly controversial and most of the characters are unappealing, but I very much enjoyed it because it was well-written and interesting and it made me think. Actually, "enjoyed" isn't really the right word for a book with such a drab, cold tone - I was really engrossed in it and fascinated by it, I couldn't put it down.

This book it being marketed as if its main point was dealing with anti-Semitism and I think that was a mistake - this novel's main point seemed to me to be that the world can be a cold, cruel, detached place and that people can be very ignorant and harshly judgmental of one another. It also seemed to me that the main reason why Alma hated Seigl wasn't that he was Jewish - it was more because he's wealthy and takes everything for granted in order to avoid his guilt feelings about his mostly inherited, unearned wealth, and because he's male and Alma both adores and hates men. His Jewishness was mostly just something Alma could latch onto because that's what she does, she latches onto things and clings for dear life, and hating Seigl for his heritage was a way for her to bond with Dmitri and cling to him. I have no way of knowing whether or not Oates intended it this way or not, but anti-Semitism in this novel seemed almost incidental instead of being the primary theme. If it was supposed to be a novel primarily about anti-Semitism then Oates didn't quite accomplish her goal.

Also, if the book was intended to be about the redemption of Alma then the ending is a failure and makes the book pointless, but it fits in well with the novel being about the general random cruelty of life. I will agree with other reviewers though that the ending was a bit of a cop-out, like Oates just wanted to end the novel and couldn't think of another way to do it.

As I said before, I found this book to be fascinating and an engrossing read, and the characters, as odd as they were, seemed believable. It's probably not the novel for you if you want likable characters and a happy ending, but I don't regret reading it. Perhaps I'm more inclined to give Oates or authors in general a break, I don't know. This is all just my opinion, take it how you will.

Stunning!
A powerful, insightful, and intense novel with a plot unlike any other I've ever read (and I read a lot).The characters were so believable; every one of them came very much to life.I liked this book, and I think Joyce Carol Oates showed true genius in writing this. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Wish there'd been more
I wish this book had been a bit longer.The ending happens abruptly and while it can be interpreted many ways, I am sure somewill see it as a sign that Darren really is a guy's guy after all.Oates has written an interesting book about the effects a lie has on a teacher's reputation in a small town, but parts of it felt like other young adult novels and even teen-friendly shows like "The Facts of Life" (remember when Jo ruined her journalism teacher's reputation as an act of revenge?) have gone this way before.The character of Darren is wholly original, as is the narration but other aspects of the novel don't ring true.

There is, of course, the old cliche that any sport in a high school draws a crowd and is talked about by everybody.In many high schools, unless it's football or basketball, it really doesn't draw that much attention. I had a hard time accepting that small town went so crazy over swimming and diving. Secondly, we have the character of Mr. Tracy, a single man,who has been bringing his digital camera to the swim meets and taking pictures of the male swimmers and NOBODY ever said anything about that? I'm surprised the scandal, false as it was, took so long to ignite.

A Lie and it's Ripple Effects
Oats has written a thought provoking young adult book that leads to the questions of personal responsibility, as well as self identity and acceptance. Darryl Flynn is a beautiful and charismatic young man. He's popular with his peers and a rising athelete in the swim team. One evening after school one of the teachers gives him a ride home, and Darryl's mind races at the idea of what might happen, of what this teacher might be, and what that might mean Darryl is. Told is quick chapters that burst with angst, Oats puts the story in high gear, barreling towards a dramatic event that send shockwaves through the school and Darryl's questioning mind. Oats provides no easy answers, and instead simply presents an honest portrait of a young man in crisis. I'll admit the language in the beginning threw me for a young adult book, however it's not done in an exploitive way, and does add to the realism of the characters.

Provocative
If I were stuck on a desert island and could only bring one author with me, I would definitely bring something by Joyce Carol Oates.I've probably read about 15 of her books over the last several decades and she never fails to deliver.

Sexy is part of her young adult series.It is every bit as good as Big Mouth and Ugly Girl, although frankly, I felt that the endings in both cases left something to be desired.Perhaps Oates believes that adolescents need more cheer than adults and has skewed her endings to be slightly more positive for the teens.

At any rate, Sexy is about Darren, a 16-year-old pretty boy who is coming to terms with his sexual identity.It discusses ethical issues like loyalty and betrayal and how hard it is for Darren to take the high road and do the right and decent thing when he's placed in a moral dilemma.

As always, Joyce Carol Oates writes a character driven novel with incredibly well developed and believable main characters.
She also strives to address certain social issues -- for example, homosexuality and false accusations in this book and hysteria regarding school shootings or bomb threats in Big Mouth and Ugly Girl -- and never sounds preachy while doing so.

Highly recommended.

Sigrid Macdonald
Author of D'Amour Road

Ms. Oates Conquers Yet Another Genre
I am always delighted to find that a writer whose works I admire branches out into yet another genre, in this instance children's and young adult literature. Reynolds Price, Ian McEwan and Toni Morrison-- just to name three fantastic writers-- have done it; and now Ms. Oates, who apparently is capable of anything when it comes to writing, has written SEXY, the story of Darren Flynn: "Soon as he turned sixteen, put on weight and began to get attention for his looks, things began to turn weird." And weird they do. He becomes visible to both women and men, including his high school English teacher Mr. Tracy. Darren is on the swimming team, is from rural New Hampshire, is very shy-- he has a girl friend who is sort of just his best friend. He is still chaste as the New Hampshire snow when it comes to girls. He faces all the dilemmas of a teenage boy and certainly doesn't always make the better decision. Without giving away the plot of this short work, I refer to his handling of "the thing" with Mr. Tracy as well as his participation in the bashing of a gay kid at the mall.

Ms. Oates is ambiguous about the character Darren. Perhaps that is as it should be since heaven knows being sixteen has its own set of problems. It speaks multitudes I believe that this fine writer dedicates this volume "For All The Darrens."

This thoughtful book about teenage angst is a great read for adults. I'd love to know how it is received by high school students. I suspect they could relate completely to Darren.

Sexeptional!
Ideal for anyone who likes sex and bargain prices. ... Read more

Book Description
A stunning, major achievement from Joyce Carol Oates, "one of the great artistic forces of our time" (The Nation). A haunting story of the powerful spell Niagara Falls casts upon two generations of a family, leading to tragedy, love, loss, and, ultimately, redemption.

A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. A newlywed, he has left behind his wife, Ariah Erskine, in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. "The Widow Bride of The Falls," as Ariah comes to be known, begins a relentless, seven-day vigil in the mist, waiting for his body to be found. At her side throughout, confirmed bachelor and pillar of the community Dirk Burnaby is unexpectedly transfixed by the strange, otherworldly gaze of this plain, strange woman, falling in love with her though they barely exchange a word. What follows is their passionate love affair, marriage, and children -- a seemingly perfect existence.

But the tragedy by which their life together began shadows them, damaging their idyll with distrust, greed, and even murder. What unfurls is a drama of parents and their children; of secrets and sins; of lawsuits, murder, and, eventually, redemption. As Ariah's children learn that their past is enmeshed with a hushed-up scandal involving radioactive waste, they must confront not only their personal history but America's murky past: the despoiling of the landscape, and the corruption and greed of the massive industrial expansion of the 1950s and 1960s.

Set against the mythic-historic backdrop of Niagara Falls, Joyce Carol Oates explores the American family in crisis, but also America itself in the mid-twentieth century. As in We Were the Mulvaneys, a "darkly engrossing novel" (Washington Post Book World), she examines what happens when the richly interwoven relationships of parents and their children are challenged by circumstances outside the family.

The Falls is a love story gone wrong and righted, and it alone places Joyce Carol Oates definitively in the company of the great American novelists.Download Description
"

A stunning, major achievement from Joyce Carol Oates, ""one of the great artistic forces of our time"" (The Nation). A haunting story of the powerful spell Niagara Falls casts upon two generations of a family, leading to tragedy, love, loss, and, ultimately, redemption.

A man climbs over the railings and plungesinto Niagara Falls. A newlywed, he has left behind his wife, Ariah Erskine, in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. ""The Widow Bride of The Falls,"" as Ariah comes to be known, begins a relentless, seven-day vigil in the mist, waiting for his body to be found. At her side throughout, confirmed bachelor and pillar of the community Dirk Burnaby is unexpectedly transfixed by the strange, otherworldly gaze of this plain, strange woman, falling in love with her though they barely exchange a word. What follows is their passionate love affair, marriage, and children -- a seemingly perfect existence.

But the tragedy by which their life together began shadows them, damaging their idyll with distrust, greed, and even murder. What unfurls is a drama of parents and their children; of secrets and sins; of lawsuits, murder, and, eventually, redemption. As Ariah's children learn that their past is enmeshed with a hushed-up scandal involving radioactive waste, they must confront not only their personal history but America's murky past: the despoiling of the landscape, and the corruption and greed of the massive industrial expansion of the 1950s and 1960s.

Set against the mythic-historic backdrop of Niagara Falls, Joyce Carol Oates explores the American family in crisis, but also America itself in the mid-twentieth century. As in We Were the Mulvaneys, a ""darkly engrossing novel"" (Washington Post Book World), she examines what happens when the richly interwoven relationships of parents and their children are challenged by circumstances outside the family.

The Fallsis a love story gone wrong and righted, and it alone places Joyce Carol Oates definitively in the company of the great American novelists.

Customer Reviews (67)

Love and Loss:The Widow-Bride of Niagara Falls.
"Family is all there is on earth. Seeing there is no God on earth."

My appreciation for really great writing probably got its start in college around the time I first read Joyce Carol Oates' 1966 classic short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?". Years later Oates remains at the top of her form.Set in the 1950s, her psychological novel, The Falls (2004), tells the story of Ariah Littrell, a woman whose husband threw himself over Niagara Falls on their wedding night because of his sexual anxiety. Ariah, like her young husband Gilbert Erskine, has lived a sheltered life.She is a minister's daughter, he is a minister. In a scene reminiscent of Ian McEwan's more recent novel, On Chesil Beach: A Novel, both sexually naive characters are traumatized by "the hurt," "the humiliation," and "the unspeakable shame" of their first physical encounter together on their wedding night. The rest of the novel tells the story of Ariah's life and family, and how she finds love with Dirk Burnaby, an attorney, within a month of her first wedding, then loses it when Dirk becomes obsessed with working on what was to become the Love Canal case for a client (Nina Olshaker, the "Woman in Black"). Nina is a young mother whose daughter has died of leukemia as a result of her exposure to toxic pollution.After losing the case, Dirk, like Ariah's first husband, is drawn to self-destruction. "Half the world desperate to be loved," Oates writes; "Half the world desperate to be free of being loved."A highly recommended novel for the experience of reading a truly gifted writer.

G. Merritt

A little let down after a great beginning...
I really got caught up in this book immediately upon starting to read it.However it started to lag after Dirk was killed.She is a great writer but this one let me down a little.A lengthy read and really captures your attention.Great character development too.Read this one.I don't think you'll be sorry.

Environmental concerns
What is the lure of Niagra Falls and what is the cost of a Love Canal suit?Joyce Carol Oates is a fabulous and prolific novelist.If this book were written by anyone else, the person would be famous.

Six feet tall, twenty-one hours married, Gilbert Erskine throws himself into Horseshoe Falls and Ariah Gilbert becomes a widow.Gilbert had been a Presbyterian minister.The couple had driven to Niagra Falls from Troy, New York.

Joyce Carol Oates is a genius, superb at portraying the subjective states of her characters.She leads us, her readers, to identify with them.She doesn't observe boundaries.For her, in her writing, boundaries don't seem to exist.Intensity is derived, (and she is realistic here), from the shock of experiencing extremes, i.e. an ordinary person encounters something extraordinary.

It goes without saying that the widow-bride is alone.It is honeymoon season at Niagra Falls-- June.The Falls give normal people fantasies of heroic roles.Bereft, Ariah Erskine resembles a figure in a Winslow Homer painting.She keeps a vigil at The Falls, awaiting the discovery of Gilbert's body.Dirk Burnaby is a young lawyer who waits by The Falls with Ariah.

Later Dirk follows Ariah to Troy.They marry and go to live at Luna Park, Niagra Falls.A son, Chandler, is born.Seven years later another son, Royall, is born, and still later, a daughter, Juliet.

Dirk Burnaby has learned that his wife is excitable.He ends up taking on the Love Canal case.Locally it is known as the Olshaker case.Dirk learns to his horror that his own family has a connection to the Olshaker tragedy.The case consumes him, he feels as if he has entered an underworld.He is snubbed by colleagues.His mistake is that he has failed to gauge the moral rot of his adversaries.

Later, Ariah, a widow again, is a red-haired graying woman giving piano lessons.The children are one, four, and eleven when she moves to her current house.Subsequent events show in interesting detail the adroit control of the author in relating the Burnaby story used to illustrate her themes of compulsion and loss.

Compelling beginning.
"The Falls" is an excellent starting point for enjoying Oates fiction.It is relatively easy to read and has a compelling beginning, in its tale ofthe aftermath of a disastrous honeymoon night.Another particular strength of this novel is its portrayal of the deep emotional ties that bind mother and children despite a very flawed mother.The historical dimension is an added plus; the history of the city of Niagara Falls, while unique, is also a reflection of the history of many US industrial cities.At the same time, I wish I had read this novel before visiting the Falls.

No one would describe Oates' prose as elegant, but she provides an emotional wallop without being maudlin, some very effective images, and she can be wordy without being dull.One thing that bothered me is the apparent total dependence of Ariah's sexuality on alcohol.For a strikingly different novel abut a failed honeymoon night, in style as well story, see Ian McEwan's "On Chisel Beach".

Loved it - Haunting
I loved this book - listened to it on tape.
There were several storylines left undone....Royale's encounter with Nina, Chandler's parentage, Ariah's family, etc.
Those threads left many possible storylines. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Tales Of Revenge, Madness, Humiliation, Coming To Consiousness, Pain!
In Will You Always Love Me, the flawless Joyce Carol Oates reversed a decade-long trend of writing explorations of the many facets of love among late-century couples, by returning to the delightfully complicated sorts of tales she reveled in during the early 1980's. These dyed-in-the-wool Gothic stories, set amid the familiar miscellanae of modern life, compel the reader to see existence within American society from a point of view slanted toward the harsh secret mindscapes that are concealed within each and every one of us, no matter how shallow we might outwardly appear. By establishing us as concealed voyeurs who look on into the lives of the characters in these tales, and by stripping us of our acceptance of the mundane majority of daily goings-on, we pass with Oates' aid into a state of hyper-realization and see things in these stories better than those who dwell within them: we see things as they ARE. No other writer achieves this quite as skillfully as Joyce Carol Oates. My favorite among these stories was the one in which the still-attractive middle-aged neighbor woman plotted a sexual liaison with a teenage boy she believes she has seduced. The rather frightened boy timidly admits to his mother what the woman has planned, and the mother, with the strategic brilliance of a maternal warrior set on protecting her offspring,expertly arranges the other woman's abject humiliation and in the process no doubt crumbles the would-be temptress' self-image to its heavily made-up foundations. That is viciousness doled out with a minimalism that is an Oatesean trademark. This story and nearly two-dozen others await inside Will You Always Love Me, Joyce Carol Oates' finest collection in many years.

Joyce Carol Oates does it again!
Joyce Carol Oates's short-story collections get better and better each time I pick one up. This is one of the most beautiful, haunting, dark collections ever written. This time Oates tackles American life with unflinching honesty. The stories in this collection touched me to the core. Oates has such a vivid, incredible imagination. My favorite stories are "You Petted Me, and I Followed You Home," "The Missing Person," "The Girl Who Was to Die," "The Goose Girl," "The Brothers," and "The Vision." Some of the stories are poignant, others have a touch of humor and there are those that are all out sinister. One thing is certain: they are all dark and thought provoking. Joyce Carol Oates is one of my favorite authors. Her lurid tales haunt me long after reading them. I cannot wait to read one of her full-length novels. I cannot recommend Will You Always Love Me? enough.

Unexpected truths (Review contains a spoiler)
I enjoyed these stories, but the one I found most memorable, the one I could relate to was "The Goose Girl."It's amazing to me how life seems to know where we all are most vulnerable, and what some of us are most afraid of, that realization that "we ain't all of that."
I was in that room with the title female character of "The Goose Girl."I was there with her as she hung up the telephone with a stunned look on her face. Didn't she know?The person you most truly need, you most truly want, you ain't gon get.

Master Stories from a Master Storyteller
Joyce Carol Oates has really outdone herself with this collection.Thesestories are wonderful and are Oates at the top of her game.Each story isso well crafted and hauting, she gives you little slices of American life,each one revealing a different aspect of that life.She usually focuses onsome seamliness, something dark, something sinister, but manages to keepthe stories enjoyable to read.I highly recommend this collection.Oatesfans will not be disappointed and for those who are not familiar with herwork, it is the perfect introduction.

Excellent!
This is a superb collection from one of the greatest short-story writers. Stories like 'Handclasp' and 'Mark of Satan' are certainly on par with the best of Oates' more famous stories: 'In the region of Ice' or 'Heat'. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (63)

LEGS
Legs Sadovsky is one of the greatest characters that I've ever encountered.She is absolutely larger than life. I only wish she could have been "heroic" while still being entirely female. Her androgeny is mentioned several times. I understand she is a tomboy with no mother figure, but why can't a girly girly be a tough leader who holds her group together?

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is sick of standard chick lit. The improper grammar is not too horrendous. I'm not sure why it bothers people so much, as it's done very purposefully. The shifting narrative perspective is a bit confusing at times. Yet it is done quite purposefully as well.

The one qualm I have is that this novel is a bit too self conscious regarding the prominent literary themes contained within. For example, there is some discussion of language creating thought and vice versa. It sounded like a page out of my junior year critical theory book. I believe there was also some talk of existentialism and religion as well. Not everyone's cup of tea.

Not so good
I wanted to like this book. It started out good. As I read on, I started to get bored.Borrow it from a library if you can. Save your money.

Not as good as I expected
Reading some of the reviews for this book led me to believe that this book would be a good read.I was wrong.

One of my biggest pet peeves is authors who ignore good grammar and proper punctuation, and Joyce Carol Oates is one of those authors.This novel reads like it was written by a kid in junior high.All the switching between first and third person narrative left me confused.The book is written from the perspective of the adult Maddie, but tends to read like someone observing the girls of Foxfire from afar, rather than a member of the girl gang telling how things were.

The characters, with the exception of Legs, get very little development and come across as one-dimensional.As the narrator, Maddie should have gotten more character development, but instead, she is used as little more than the voice of and for Foxfire.

The concept of a girl gang like Foxfire in the 1950's is ridiculous.This book would have been more believable had it been set in a different time frame.

If you've seen the movie, stick with the movie.At least the idea of a girl gang in the 1990's isn't so far-fetched.

it gets 1 star for the cover of the book, which I liked
This book was so horrible. It was given to me by one of my friends for Christmas. I'm so glad I didn't actually part with legal tender for this putrid novel. I forced myself through the book, not caring what happened to any of the characters who were flat and boring. It was the biggest waste of time (like something you'd read in a WGS class). And why is it that the only story I ever come across in anthologies by this woman is "where are you going, where have you been"? Is this her best story? How pathetic...

Not a fan of Oates
I have tried to read the work of this amazing writer and more often than not find myself closing the book completely uninterested in the characters and/or the story.Technically,I can appreciate and even admit to the awe she inspires.But for some reason her writing leaves me cold.

This was only the second of her books which I managed to finish and I genuinely enjoyed this novel very much.The narrator is flawed and vulnerable, tough and offensive, and I wanted to know what would happen to her and to her gang.

I like this book.I will continue to try to read Oates whenever the impulse presents itself.But I will also forgive myself if I am unwilling to finish what I start. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Seriously??
I have to admit that I was shocked at the great reviews that some readers have given this book.I honestly thought it was the worst book I have ever read.I was even angry when I finished reading it because of the hours wasted that I can never get back!I kept waiting for the moment when the story would turn and start making sense. I absolutely hated how a chapter would start out following the story of one character (or set of characters) and then inexplicably switch to something or someone else, that may or may not have anything to do with what was going on previously.It was all just so aggravating.

This was the first book I've ever read by Joyce Carol Oates and because I hated it so much it will most likely will be my last.My advice to anyone who hasn't read it yet, is to walk on by.Don't waste your time or money.

FYI: The only reason I gave it one star is because I couldn't give it zero.

A curse narrative at its best
Oates' curse-laden Bellefleur is her way of seeing the world for what it really is; a dismal reality where women and the poor brackets of society are unjustifiably oppressed and unfairly put at a disadvantage . In Bellefleur, readers are caught in the grips of debates by the Bellefleur family members over their history as a family. Through the coiling and twisting of the narrative and "a dizzying profusion" of interlocking plots, readers are given glimpses about the white Bellefleur family in seven generations. The Bellefleur family history has been one of savagery and carnage. Because the sins of the fathers are visited on their offspring - a Biblical principle and a Gothic stipulate - members of the new generation of Bellefleur feel that some sense of doom or curse is lurking behind and is responsible for the miseries and misfortunes that befall them from time to time.
The curse, in its typically Gothic manifestations, ranging from people committing a sin or a number of sins to what follows in terms of suffering and retribution is there. However, for people especially the young generations to stave off the haunting curse, they have to admit and own up to the enormity of the crimes perpetrated by their forefathers and fathers against other races, women and the poor. What is not emblematic of the Gothic, however, is that those intuiting the nature of the Bellefleur curse and how it came about especially artistic characters and young people (Oates only hope for a different America) cannot redeem themselves and attain salvation until they extend their circle of passion to include all living things.

I've NEVER Had More Trouble Getting Thru An Oates Novel
I don't exactly mean my title up there as a slam, because Bellefleur rewards a reader who takes the extreme effort of stepping inside its strange, insular world, but it took me four tries to finish it. I had a friend who gave up after starting the novel twice and losing steam at the same point, roughly at page one-hundred. His attention span, I'll note, was at least an equal to my own. What is it about this daunting volume in JCO's original gothic trilogy that proves so kicking to the literary butt? I have no clue. It is not slow-moving, nor is it any more dense than many of her other works, but there is a force of willpower within this book that almost seems to repel a reader. Weird but it's almost like that. Oates' sweeping morality play about one inbred, gloriously accomplished family in upstate New York, their nation-sized estate, and the interlinking tales of the lives of these cousins, siblings, married couples and distant, mythic forebears, sweeps along with the force of a flood, but as one learns about the clan and how they came to possess all they do, living nearly as exiled lords and ladies in a forgotten corner of a democracy, the sensation becomes that of wading in freshly-poured cement. If anyone knows exactly why this thick novel is so hard to break open, I'm up for theories. I'll close off by saying Bellefleur is unique, even among Oates' canon, and it is probably the toughest expedition into a single volume of literature I can imagine.

This book bumps Marquez down a notch
Next to Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude, Bellefleur has been the most entertaining and absording book I have ever read.Forget the meandering chronology, forget the "plot":this book is like a prosaic photo album of an extraordinary and haunted family that will leave you entirely drawn in.I picked this book up on a whim and am so glad I did, I find myself thinking about the characters still many months after reading it.For everyone who loves 100 Years of Solitude (and everyone else!), this book is an absolute must read.

Haunting and Extraordinary
Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates is ranked as one of my most favorite novels of all time; I savored this gothic tale cover to cover and didn't want it to end. It possesses a life of it's own, the characters became ghosts that would haunt me after setting it aside after a short reading and I would look forward to picking it up again. After I finished it, I felt homesick in a peculiar way that no book has ever done to me before; it is very likely that I will revisit the pages of Bellefleur again.Each chapter is an opulent sliver of time that peers into the lives and thoughts of the residents of Bellefleur Manor, an American family of notorious distinction.Their history is rife with joys and sorrows deftly exposed by the astounding craft that is signature in JCO's prolific literary career. The mesmerizing shifts of time, like historical memories, travel from the heights of the imposing Mount Blanc, wind through the decadent rooms of Bellefleur Manor, and plunge into the depths of mysterious Lake Noir where disconcerting spirits dwell. The fanciful characters endear themselves because of their human vitality and cause despair because of their human flaws; they are very tangible and seductive in spite of the brief glimpses into their lives. This is not a book for the faint of heart for it isn't a serene walk in the walled garden of Bellefleur Manor. JCO reveals the grotesque that exists within the soul of the American dream, and with abrupt grace she divulges the unforeseen twists of fate that arise with incredible violence that will leave you reeling with astonishment.It is a unique and contemplative tale, not to be consumed in a few sittings; however, the temptation of the eloquent prose begs to be gorged until the reader is sated. Open this book and open your mind, and give your imagination a workout.If you read this book with a rigid, black and white mind-set you will come away frustrated by it. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who is looking for something out of the ordinary to read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Psyche of a Frustrated Singer-Songwriter
From what I've read of Joyce Carol Oate's fiction, it appears she has a predilection for wading into and exploring the darker shadows of her character's consciousness (and she's good at it too), but every once in awhile she'll dive head first into the deep end; hypothetically exploring the thoughts of a full blown psychotic. This book is similar to her 1995 novel, "Zombie" in that we enter the twisted perspective of a psychopathic murderer from the get go and therefore the narrative is a choppy, turbulent ride as the reader travels along strange digressions and bizarre rationalizations and beliefs. There is very little outside objective background storytelling, as in psycho murderer novels like Thomas Harris' "Red Dragon". While the story of Bobbie Gotterson is fiction, it's pretty safe to assume Oates was inspired by nutty, Chucky Manson and his adventures in L.A. during the late sixties, just as I suspect "Zombie" was inspired by Milwaukee serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. If you enjoyed "Zombie", or think perhaps it would be interesting to spend time with the thoughts of a murderous psychopath, you may wish to check this book out. A minor (non-psychotic) digression: Joyce Carol Oates has written numerous novels, countless short stories, essays, poetry, and I've even heard a few plays here and there. Stephen King mentioned he gets called prolific but he says it has more to do with the visibility of his work and, for example, Oates leaves him in the dust. In an interesting book, "Pieces of Work", showing rough drafts by various authors and poets, Oates rewrites her short story at least five times, and rewrites the beginning at least four times. On top of all this she is a professor at Princeton. The ultimate Joyce Carol Oates mystery should be titled, "How does this person manage to write so much?"

The life of Bobbie Gotteson, Maniac
This is a very interesting account of a maniac's life, from his birth to his life of unspeakable crime, showing his inner and outer struggles, first person account.I like how it really gets into his mind and how the readergrows to feel for him. Some may find it a little disturbing, but worthwhilereader, especially for Joyce Carol Oates fans. ... Read more

Book Description
Based on National Book Award-winner Joyce Carol Oates' novella about the Chappaquiddick scandal, this tragic and beautiful new opera enthralls as a handsome Senator used power to enchant, seduce and carelessly destroy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (58)

Joyce Carol Oates is at it again
I am a fan of Joyce Carol Oates and believe that even her worst work is better than most.She is a prolific writer and this "practice" is evident in all she does.No one can touch her ability to tell a good story.Black Water is just that- a good story.Not her best but very good.The focus on a girl's loyalty to an image is what propels the reader to keep going.This idealism, if understood by the reader, makes this an entertaining read.However, as with some of her writing, she repeats pharses or events for effect and in this book it comes through as being boring and kind of annoying.SUPER summer read.

Surprised
This book surprised me on several fronts.A book club choice I'd not heard of, I looked forward to it because I'd never read Oates (caveat: I'm not much into fiction), though I certainly am aware of her reputation.The subject was absolutely a surprise, especially given the publication date and an author of repute.I remember the event well and would sooner expect to see a story like this headlined in the rags next to the checkout counter at the supermarket.

Frankly I don't see the worth of it.It's a short read and easy enough, but I am seeing very little depth in it.The senator is a shadowy character seen only through the eyes of the girl, the girl's most important quality seemingly her sexual proclivities.We learn very little else about her in the book, even though it's written from her perspective.She had her (most recent?longest?most fulfilling?) sexual relationship with G----, as he is identified in the book.What, they think we might know him?Better than we know who The Senator is?Most of the book takes place in the car, in the water, the girl dies over and over and over again.

Not for me, however, soon or definitively enough.

Oates gives me more credit than I deserve.More, she, and the publisher of this little tome, think me more curious about such things than I am.

I've read several novels lately - McEwan's The Atonement, Puzo's The Family come to mind - and have been reconsidering my position.This one has reminded me why so much fiction leaves me so cold.

Suffocation by Manipulated Narrative Structure
"Black Water" is one of Joyce Carol Oates' masterpieces.Being predisposed to lean toward her short fiction, I was surprised to find myself so in love with this book.

To answer a few questions, yes it does bring to mind a certain senator who is a member of "America's Royal Family."And yes, it does completely abandon the traditional guidelines for storytelling.

Howecer, only a truly magnificent writer can take these rules and throw them out the window with such skill.This novel begins with its central character drowning in a car accident.In fact, every single chapter details the exact same event.Oates' tale is like a memory.We are looking at the same thing over and over until we finally understand its origin.

This is not the only truly amazing thing about "Black Water."Oates makes us drown too.This is something that is said all too often about way too many writers; however, in this case, it would be true.It brings to mind earlier work.I find myself reminiscing over the way I felt for Connie when I first read "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"I am excited to see how fast she will make my heart beat in the future.

Someone's little girl
Joyce Carol Oates has produced a relatively tasteful rendition of a tragedy filling U.S. headlines.She uses her imagination and writerly skills to reconstruct whatcould have happened.The story is told from the point of view of the young woman, victim, who catches the attention of the charismatic liberal political figure at a holiday party.Tellingly, the political figure and the accident victim share the same Irish-American identity.The young woman in Oates's story has an expectation the political figure will return to the scene of the accident and save her.

A True Look at Politicians
People say this novel is about Ted and Mary Jo which is correct to a degree. However, it is also about the extraordinary efforts elected representitives will go to save their own hides when things go badly for them both privately and publicly. We saw that in 1969 and are seeing that now in regard to Iraq. Joyce Carol Oates is not only a great writer but also a woman who has enormous prescience and perception of the troubled world we live in. ... Read more

Amazon.com
"Every book, every story, every sentence we read is a part of our preparation for our own writing," suggests Joyce Carol Oates in her introduction to Telling Stories, "so it's wise to choose our reading carefully." Easily said. But apart from sticking to the classics and canceling that subscription to People magazine, how does one go about choosing wisely? One way is to find a reliable anthologist, and in Oates we have just that. Prolific a writer as she is, Oates also teaches creative writing at Princeton, and she uses many of the stories, prose pieces, and poems collected in Telling Stories as material for her writing workshops. Among the nearly 100 authors included in the volume are Anton Chekhov and Lydia Davis, Ovid and Angela Carter, H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, Gish Jen and Thom Jones. A rich stew it is indeed, and a terrific jumping-off place for those writers who wish, as Oates recommends, "to read widely, to read with enthusiasm, to read for pleasure, to read with an eye for another's craft." --Jane SteinbergBook Description
This exciting anthology by one of America's finest storytellers provides over ninety works of narrative art. With the reading list for her writing seminar at Princeton University as a model, Joyce Carol Oates chose pieces that will inspire beginning and experienced writers alike. Here are classics and relative unknowns, short vignettes and long genre fiction, tragic tales and humorous character sketches--models for just about any writer. Section introductions and an Afterword on the writing workshop provide a glimpse of Oates's own understanding of the storyteller's craft. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Best reading assignments ever...
If you are looking to take a writing class, save your dollars and buy this book, read your eyeballs out, and turn yourself loose on the personal style you are going to be so amazingly aware of... A ton of great reccommendations, and as always she writes with an ease and flow that is bewildering...

A wide and incisive collection
I've used this text for my Writing Fiction 281 class, and it's fantastic!I especially like the "flash fiction" section in the beginning.If you're looking for a reader that includes cannonized authors as well as fresh young voices, this is a solid choice.

This is an excellent collection of stories but...
don't buy it if you're looking for guidance on writing-there is very little about craft here but there are some excellent examples of different types narratives and they're grouped in an interesting way.One section,for example, has stories that retell fairy tales, bible stories etc. usingmodern story lines.Other sections cover such genres as dramaticmonologues, miniature narratives and memoir.Useful if your looking forpositive examples, but be prepared to draw your own conclusions.

An excellent anthology for creative writers and readers.
Joyce Carol Oates combines the best of classic literature by Kafka and Faulkner with contemporaryworks by Garcia Marquez and King.Each story and poem exemplifies a writing technique or strategy. An example being the two versions of James Joyce's short story "Sister;" the first his original draft and the second a revision. "Telling Stories" is a wonderful anthology for anyone wishing to broaden their knowledge of literature from Homer to today. ... Read more

Book Description
Recognized as one of the most versatile contemporary writers, Joyce Carol Oates is noted for the violent themes of her art. In this volume, numerous critics examine her works, including Wonderland, Marriages and Infidelities, and With Shuddering Fall.

This title, Joyce Carol Oates, part of Chelsea House Publishers' Modern Critical Views series, examines the major works of Joyce Carol Oates through full-length critical essays by expert literary critics. In addition, this title features a short biography on Joyce Carol Oates, a chronology of the author's life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University. ... Read more