Product Description
Three men wanted Elena Howe...and shaped her life.Her alcoholic, obsessive father.Her husband, a brilliant and successful lawyer twenty years her senior.And the dynamic young lover who tried to consume her.Do With Me What You Will is a drama of Elena's marriage and infidelity.It is also the story of her liberation through love. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Oates Bold Failure




The novel is not well structured.It contains great passages and descriptions butalso goes off into sideshows that are not integrated into the main thrust of the novel.Joyce Carol Oates is a great writer but this is not one of her better products. It seemed to go on and on without adding additional dramatic force.

Enduring view of the 60s - finding love in a time of turmoil
DO WITH ME WHAT YOU WILL is a wonderfully complex love story set in Detroit of the turbulent days of the late 60's and early 70's. Joyce Carol Oates says it is "a love story that concentrates upon the tension between two American 'pathways' : the way of tradition, or Law; and the way of spontaneous emotion-in this case, Love. In the synthesis of these two apparently contradictory forces lies the inevitable transformation of our culture.

"Romantic love is one of our Western religions and must be respected as such; it must be acknowledged as the violent, unstoppable, rather beautiful force it is. But the West is also a culture of Law : American society will never be transformed by stray acts of violence in the streets-it will be transformed only through the courts. And they, in turn, will not be transformed until the men who run them are changed, individual by individual. Ours is still a time of romantic love; the time of a more communal, transcendental love is not yet come. DO WITH ME WHAT YOU WILL suggests such a transformation.

"If what is available to an individual is romantic love, then it must be-it will be-this kind of love that liberates." In the "freeing" from the enchantment of her "self," Elena Howe lives a drama in which, by a continual process, she is raised to a higher aspect of her own being through involvement with a man-a drama of marriage and adultery that constructs an hour-by-hour, thought-by-thought experience both shattering and redemptive."

The critic Mary Ellmann says: "DO WITH ME WHAT YOU WILL combines the legal novel with the romantic triangle. Oates provocatively but not entirely successfully attempts to show the interconnections among the issues inherent in the two very different types of stories."

Another critic Rose Marie Burwell states: "Certain that the law will not save her, that the very concepts of innocence and guilt depend on the human propensities of those who define and dispense justice, the heroine of Joyce Carol Oates' sixth novel recognizes the truth that "Necessity Makes Law." Assuming moral self-responsibility in the final chapter, Elena Howe enters an unspoken plea of nolo contendre, the vulgate of which is the title of the novel, Do With Me What You Will ( 1973 ). The plea, in English common law and in most states, requires the court to proceed on an assumption of the defendant's innocence--even though he refuses to defend himself. Here the reader is the court and Elena Howe is both Everyman and many women. The dilemma she has been chosen to exemplify, the struggle to create and retain a tenable sense of self, is a universal one in which every individual who achieves emotional and moral maturity participates. For Elena a belated and violent sexual awakening sounds a warning signal, forcing upon her the realization that she must synthesize her personality or accede to her own disintegration. Elena's resistance and the Jungian stages of her individuation provide the narrative structure of Oates' most subtle and complex novel yet."

This novel also provides a timeless look at the counter-culture and it relationship to the dominant culture in the 60s and 70s. Long, but rewarding in its detail and richness, this is a novel that has a timeless appeal.

painful, haunting, good
Oates knows what happens to girls whose self-esteem has been shot to hell.Her depiction of such a girl and the pathologically passive woman she becomes made me ache.The hope-filled ending made me sigh. ... Read more

Product Description
One of the most powerful and original voices in contemporary American literature turns her remarkable skills in this new novel to the complex and compelling story of a serial killer and the people his crimes touch, and transform. Matt McBride, a seemingly happily married man, remembers his first victim. He was a boy when the mutilated body of the pretty, popular, outgoing teenager was found in the desolate New Jersey Pine Barrens. Matt's memory of the atrocity haunts him still; he has long felt guilty at not having been able to prevent it, although he'd hardly known the girl. Now another attractive young woman has disappeared. Matt knew this victim, too -- and just possibly he knew her more intimately than he can acknowledge. By degrees Matt becomes obsessed with guilt, and the police view his increasingly erratic behavior with a suspicion that draws official attention away from Name Unknown, an artist of limited talent but of fierce, demented vision. Under the spell of the missing woman, Matt sets out on a path that leads him to an inevitable confrontation with both Name Unknown and his own deepest, unacknowledged self. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

less than thrilling - from an otherwise fantastic author
This is the first JC Oates book that I didn't enjoy. Written under one of her pen names, Rosamond Smith, this less-than-engaging thriller centred on a thirty-something real estate agent Matt McBride, who is forced to confront his memories of the abduction and murder of his high school crush, when a young female artist disappears.

Matt's connection and attraction to this missing girl is never fully nor convincingly explained, which leaves the reader wondering about his obsession with her. Did he or did he not have a relationship with her? It appears even Oates did not quite know. His deteriorating relationship with his wife is also rather sketchily played out. Although there was some attempt to address Niezsche's quote 'Ultimately one loves one's desire, not the desired object', this was also rather hastily inserted with Matt's transference of attraction to the missing girl's twin.

Perhaps this novel was not written in Oates's name for good reason - it bore none of her incisive characterisation and breadth and depth of her other works. Definitely an off-day effort by an otherwise accomplished writer.

Obsession
Adults tend to see serial killers as replacements for the monsters of their childhoods.Something about how those mysterious killers strike time-after-time without being seen, often going years before being caught, if ever caught at all, reminds them of the monsters they imagined under their beds and in their closets.We never see them but they scare the hell out of us because we know they are out there somewhere.

Joyce Carol Oates, writing as Rosamond Smith in her 2001 book, "The Barrens," explores the long history of one New Jersey serial killer who, almost despite himself, gets away with murder for a very long time.Unbeknownst to the killer, this time, though, his snatch-and-murder of a young woman will also claim a male victim, a young family man who for the second time in his life becomes obsessed with one of the killer's victims.

Matt McBride has built a good life for his wife and two sons in wealthy Weymouth, New Jersey, where he is a hugely successful real estate agent.McBride, however, is unable to forget a high school classmate whose mutilated body was discovered in the swampy New Jersey Pine Barrens not far from the school they both attended.Though he barely knew the girl, McBride still feels guilty that he did not save her from her fate.

Twenty years later, this time in Weymouth, another young woman with whom he was barely acquainted disappears, and McBride's old nightmares return stronger than ever.Driven to find the killer, no matter the cost to his marriage, job or family, Matt McBride begins his own investigation into the woman's disappearance despite the fact that certain Weymouth detectives believe he himself might be her killer.

The suspense builds as Oates brings McBride and the killer closer and closer together in alternating chapters told from the points-of-view of the two men.As the official police investigation goes nowhere, a violent confrontation between McBride and the killer seems inevitable, the only question being which, if either of them, will survive the showdown.

"The Barrens" does not make for quick reading because of the rambling, at times almost incoherent, style Oates uses for the chapters written in the killer's voice.In fact, although the book is short of three hundred pages in length, it seems longer because of the extra effort it requires of its readers.Oates is not known for painting pretty pictures or crafting happy endings for her novels and here she fills Weymouth with flawed characters intent on making the most of their shallow lifestyles.Surprisingly, however, she has written an ending for "The Barrens" that can be characterized, for her, as a happy one - strange though it is.

Barren
Set in New Jersey's famous Pine Barrens, the story is about a man whose nightmares link two murders 20 years apart. His connection to the second murder destroys his marriage.Unfortunately, the wife is a cardboard character, and the hero's hallucinations get tedious. I skipped the middle 100 pages to jump to the denouement, but neither the story nor the writing had improved. Not what you might expect from a literary icon.

Knowing too much about Name Unknown
Joyce Carol Oates's ventures into genre writing often come with a twist. While the subtitle of this book is "A Novel of Suspense," it doesn't fall into the thriller side of the genre; instead, it's more creepy and troubling than suspenseful. (Similarly, her "Middle Age," subtitled "A Romance," is a satire of suburban lives linked by a dead man--hardly the stuff of romance.) In all her novels, Oates shatters our preconceptions about plot and genre and instead worms her way into the minds and lives of her characters.

In "The Barrens," she introduces us to two artists with lethally divergent tastes. Matt McBride doubles as real estate broker (his day job) and as Nighthawk, a photographer of the dark. He gradually realizes that it is his owl-like existence that gives him more satisfaction than his salaried profession or, for that matter, his wife and kids. Joseph Gavin is an artist by day (who goes by the rather silly alias, "Name Unknown"), but the impulse for his horrific "masterpiece" springs from his second career as a serial killer.

McBride's and Gavin's lives cross twice: with Gavin's first victim, a high school student whom McBride knew as a teenager, and with his latest victim, a local artist whom McBride met socially (and perhaps more?). The result is a perverse dance of hunted and hunter, and Oates alternates the perspective between Gavin, whose internal logic belies a poisonous madness, and McBride, who is flirting with the edge of sanity himself. Oates's investigation of McBride's descent into a psychological maelstrom is wholly convincing. The creepiness factor crawls in when McBride's obsessive pursuit turns into a bizarre and unsettling empathy for the murderer.

From the outset, we know who is innocent and who is guilty--of the murders, at least. But guilt is a messed-up emotion. The police, who don't even know about McBride's tenuous connection to the first murder, suspect him of the latest killing--in no small part because McBride becomes infatuated with the lives of the victims as well as of their killer. One of the scenes the author describes pitch-perfectly is McBride's interrogation by the detectives; he is torn by the absoluteness of his innocence, his unreliable memories, his fear of what his family and colleagues might think, and the feeling that he might be guilty of something.

Unfortunately, Oate's portrayal of Gavin borders on eye-rolling caricature; it's an incongruous, cartoonish portrayal right out of one of Thomas Harris's lesser novels. The language in these passages, filtered through the mind of a mad loner, seems often off-kilter: "In exactitude and patience he had taken her one morning." "These words were a girl's uttered in surprise and vexation." (Exactitude? Vexation?) Each of the killer's tirades, filled with biblical allusions and anatomical "exactitude," serves only to interrupt the compelling study of McBride's meltdown. The book would certainly have been much better (and, perhaps, filled with far more "suspense") if Oates had left Gavin's character the mystery.

Shallow Letdown
Not a very good novel. The characters were sketches (when Oates---writing here as "Rosamund Smith"---has the demonstrated capacity to bring fictional men and women to life) the plot was flat and far from original, the circumstances about which this book was concerned were uninteresting, the violence was neither repulsively shocking nor mentally interesting, and I felt no kinship for the main character, his plight, his inner demons, or his motivations, artistic and retributive. Since the identity of the killer active in the New Jersey pine barrens was revealed early on, there wasn't even room left for suspense or mystery, so one read The Barrens merely to...well...see what Oates did with this tale. And what she did was drag a potentially fine short story out to nearly three-hundred ultimately unfulfilling pages. It's hard to believe the same person who wrote Zombie only a decade ago could turn out another "murderer on the loose" book so inferior to its predecessor. As I said in my title, this time-killer is a letdown. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Rambling and occasionally fascinating
There are some great insights into writing and creativity here, mingled with mundane concerns that sometimes give insight into Oates herself, who is occasionally neurotic. I read it also to see if it shed light on her amazing creativity. It does, a bit, tho nothing is going to tell you where she gets her energy, I suppose. She's written so many books. As journals go, I gave it 4 stars, very much recommended if you like reading writers' journals.

Intimate and soul-baring
This is an intimate peek at the personal musings of an amazingly talented and prolific writer. It closely follows her career moves and family life for ten years with forays into her childhood and school years. It is a great privilege to witness the inspiration and thought processing of one of the great writers of our time about the dozens of books she worked on during that decade in which she was driven to produce continuously to prove her worth to herself, striving for perfection while fearing it was unattainable.
Embarrassed by her prolificacy after being criticized for it, Oates dives into other interests that happen along (piano lessons, playwriting, book reviews, etc.) to try to distract herself from her incessant writing. "My image is of someone obsessively writing and producing and publishing feverishly..." (p.99). She wants very much to write more slowly, to be more "normal," but once she gets going on an idea she is unable to pace herself. "...Notes on "Bellefleur." More from Raphael's point of view. But slowly. Slowly. I want to take months, years, with this..." (p.263). But despite her desire to write this 592 page novel slowly, her first draft would be completed in eight months and the revision completed in another month and a half.
By the time I reached the middle of the book I was fairly certain of her obsessive/compulsive tendency. Her urge/need to write has a stranglehold on her mind, except when she is obsessing on something else (like music). The hunger - so common in her early characters - is nowhere to be found in the Oates of the journal. What I do find is a marked lack of interest in food. Maybe the physical hunger and cravings for food, with which she endows her characters, is her way of exploring these emotions and feelings to find out what she is missing. In Oates, that hunger/longing is manifested in a powerful creative urge. Only when she is actively involved in classroom instruction or visiting with friends and colleagues, can she push her writing voice away from the forefront of her mind. But even then, the voice is not stilled - merely muffled. Her mind is always writing, writing, writing, the words tumbling over one and other, recording themselves, to spill out later at the slightest beckoning. "I have all I can do to contend with the images that rush forth, in the fullness and complexity of my ordinary days" (p251).
This journal is so intimate and soul-bearing, I am repeatedly struck by her generosity in sharing it with us. One wonders why, since she can't possibly need the money or the name recognition. Perhaps it is apologetics for her phenomenal prolificacy (she has written at least 70 books and probably closer to 100) - a need to convince her critics that she labors as hard over her work as any other writer does. Whatever her reason, as a longtime fan, I am grateful for a chance to get the story behind the writer. I closed the book reluctantly and with hope that more decades of her journaling will someday be published.

Pound for pound, the weightiest American writer
Yea, she writes more than anyone else, but looking into this--an era that some might argue is the best period of JCO's career--is just another reminder why this reader no longer reads her work: it's just not that interesting anymore.There's just so much material by her that's available that's second rate, it seems odd that she's publishing a volume that even she has admitted she has not read.My guess is that if you don't have enough of JCO's books on your bookshelf, you might want to add this one.Or you could ask yourself, "Which work by her do I most want to reread?"If there's an answer to that question, I'd take that book off the shelf, and then ask yourself if it was worth the second look.

HUMANIZING JOYCE CAROL OATES
REVIEW BY BARBARA LIPKIEN GERSHENBAUM SEE ALL MY REVIEWS

People write journals for different reasons which are usually not created for public consumption; at least not while the writer is still alive. Nevertheless, this phenomenon has been known to happen and THE JOURNAL OF JOYCE CAROL OATES 1973-1982 is one such book. Oates is considered the most prolific American writer to come out of the twentieth century and move seamlessly into the twenty-first. If nothing else, this journal humanizes her, which offers fans and readers further understanding of the woman, the writer, her love of teaching and the body of work.

In "A Note on the Text" editor Greg Johnson explains why the ten years between 1973 and 1982 make up the entries chosen to create "THE JOURNAL OF JOYCE CAROL OATES: the magnitude of Oates's "4,000 single-spaced typewritten pages" is too much of a project for an editor to complete in a timely fashion. With this in mind he chose one year of "the uniformly high quality ... the journal entries ... [which he] intended to provide an accurate view of Oates's primary concerns" at that time in her writing career. These pieces "focus on her work, her writing process, and philosophical concerns." However some of her very personal experiences and interactions with family, friends, colleagues and students have made their way into this truncated version of her journal.

In her Introduction Oates tells readers that she actually began to keep a journal from 1971-1972 when she was in London and feeling somewhat homesick. " ... This journal seemed to me at the start a haphazard and temporary comfort of sorts, that would not last beyond [that particular time,] yet, astonishingly, ... the journal has endured, and is now thousands of pages housed in the Syracuse University Library Special Collections. My understanding with myself [was] that the journal would remain haphazard and spontaneous ... never revised or rethought; it would be a place for stray impressions and thoughts that shift through our heads constantly; [it] would be a repository ... for experiences and notes for writing."

The Introduction goes on to explain how Oates rationalized, ruminated upon, questioned and analyzed the entire process of journaling. She wonders if she will be too exposed if her journal is published; will the public read it and somehow sense a blurring of her fiction and these entries? If a journal is considered a private place, it is transformed into something else when others read it ... [one] of "the risks of journal-keeping."

She continues her comments: "What I have seen of this edited/abridged journal, so capably presented by Greg Johnson, affects me too emotionally to make its perusal rewarding: revisiting the past is like biting into a sandwich in which you've been assured, there are only a few, really a very few, bits of ground glass." She goes on to opine upon the reasons why she feels this way: "Does the uncensored journal reveal too much of me? Does the journal of the 1970s/1980s return me to a time in which ... my parents were alive" for example. What? Joyce Oates has not read the published version of her journal ... or at least she has not read all of it. When she talks about a "glass sandwich" readers will have a visceral reaction that will provoke them into thinking about having themselves outed in what they had begun as private writing.

Every journal, regardless of its author, will be a collage of memories, dreams, desires, self-regard, internal turmoil, petty arguments ... warm reconciliation, satisfaction and a whole host of personal experiences seemingly of import only to the author. However, journals cannot help but offer readers a window into the writer's personality, a critique on her/his work so far, questions about her/his status in society: as a person, as a professional, as a careerist and in this case as a writer and teacher. Reputation alone is not enough to sustain the ego of talented people and this drives them to keep working. Their fans often want more ... they want to understand a body of work produced by the recipient of their ardor ... offered in a way different from formal biography or autobiography.

THE JOURNAL OF JOYCE CAROL OATES 1973-1982 is rich in personal and happy reminiscences about her husband, her parents, her joy in gardening, her passion for entertaining, her respect and great regard for fellow writers and other luminaries she has known and/or continues to see. She is generous and humble. In assessing her life in 1981 about eight months after completing ANGEL OF LIGHT and A BLOODSMOOR ROMANCE she writes: "How gracefully things are taking shape, financial, professional, otherwise. ... In all, a lovely day. Amen."

But not every entry is as bright as this one. An intruder invaded her office and "thrust something at me, a tiny package. A razor blade in it, I'm led to believe." Another encounter with violence occurs in the form of a tongue-lashing: "You're very anti-man, aren't you" ("must be confusing me with the feminists".) Oates writes in her journal: "The pointlessness of violence. ... Not simply for the criminal, but for the victim. I don't think I will, or could, learn anything from the experience. Or could I?"

Perhaps she did. Oates speaks in a very American voice and imbues her writing with myths, history, family, ideas and ideals associated with the suburban, urban, academic, political and street images of the landscape of the United States. Some of her books are overtly violent and others use violence as a device to make a larger statement about the culture we inhabit. Yet, she never preaches nor does she knock the reader over the head with potentially vile ideas.

As a matter of fact, when she talks about writing, the process of writing, the formation of characters, the flow of dialogue, the choice of setting, the pace of the plot and in what century or universe the book resides, she concludes: "If I wonder where my personality really exists, in what form it best expresses itself, the answer is obvious: in the books. Between hard covers. Hard covers. The rest is Life."

Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

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Customer Reviews (1)

Very good stuff.
Joyce Carol Oates, I Stand Before You Naked (Samuel French, 1991)

Joyce Carol Oates is, of course, best-known as a novelist, almost as well for her short stories. You'll find the occasional non-hardcore fan who's aware she writes criticism. But get to the level of the poetry or the drama, and the legions of Oprah zombies who joined the cult after the success of We Were the Mulvaneys will give you long blank stares. So be it.

I Stand Before You Naked is a play of sorts; it is better classed as a series of vignettes for the stage, tied (very, very loosely) together by the opening and closing scenes. If you've read a Joyce Carol Oates work previous to this, you're going to recognize the archetypes of the characters to be found here; Oates is not well-known for straying off in vastly different directions with the characters she examines. What makes each work fresh and immediate is that those characters always seem like they're new people suffering from the same ailments (which gives rise to a whole new analysis of Oates' work that is, obviously, well beyond the capacity of a one thousand word review to contain). As it has been so many times, so it is here. Oates gives us characters, puts them in situations, and then writes scenes that will mess with us. It's a formula, of course, but unlike such formula writers as Dame Barbara Cartland, Oates is never content to stick within the dead center; even formula has its boundaries, and Oates is intent on exploring them. I Stand Before You Naked is another entry that takes a few fine pokes. *** ½ ... Read more

Product Description
A new collection of twenty-five short stories from one of America's preeminent literary figures once again reveals the darkness, the violence, and the raw emotion lurking below the surfaces of everyday life. Reprint. PW. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Heat Is An Apt Title
In this 1991 collection of short stories, heat, both as a phenomenon of the weather and the metaphorical heat within the soul, is explored as a causative agent for human action. The title story has a woman, now old, telling of the brutal and inexplicable murder of her two best friends, red-headed eleven-year-old twin girls in the 1930's, on a blistering summer day, by a theretofore gentle retarded boy who worked at the local ice house. The twenty-four other tales in this collection prove equally gripping and contain an impact in ways longer prose, even epic novels, often do not. I read this anthology over the course of about a week, and spread the tales out so I was reading several in the course of each day. In my opinion this is not a good starting place for someone new to Oates' work, but it is beyond a doubt her best short story collection of the 1990's and one of her five best anthologies overall.

Oates's best collection yet!
I can't get enough of Joyce Carol Oates's clever short-story collections. Having read I Am No One You Know and The Assignation, I couldn't wait to read more of her short stories. Heat and Other Stories is the best Oates collection I've read thus far. Her writing is dark and disturbing, yet possesses a beautiful prose that makes her tales unforgettable. "Heat," "Why Don't You Come Live with Me It's Time," "Twins," "Passion," "Naked," and "The Boyfriend" enthralled me the most. Each story has a special brand of darkness, magic and quirkiness that make them irresistible. They're thought provoking and unforgettable. I agree with the reviewer that compared Oates's writing with the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. She's brilliant! I look forward to reading more of Oates. I shall give one of her novels a whirl next time.

Oates is a master of the short story!
I loved this book.It's been years since I read it, but several of the stories have stuck with me.My favorite is called "Why Don't You Come Live with Me It's Time," about a woman's recollections of her grandmother.It's an absolutely bizarre story, almost like an LSD trip, but the narration, the urgency of the words,many of them italicized, and the far-out imagery convey a poweful sense of aching for the loss of what may have been this woman's most significant relationship.To be frank, I'm not sure I understood it completely (I'd have to add this caveat to my impressions of most of Oates' works), but I know I felt it.A great, great story, as are many others in this collection.

A well builder book
Heat was the first Oates book that I had been read. The diferents points of views was able to build an credible story. The instincts forces whose live inside a very conservative society, explodes with a twins murder; this last is one of the motifs from the book principal short story: Heat. The atmospher of Heat is sexual and almost innocent. When I read this short story, had think in the Garcia Marques story: Cronica de una Muerte Anunciada. In both cases we could know who the murderer is. In the Oates work, the instinct is the cause; in the Garcia Marques, the cause is inside a cultural point of view. Both, Oates and Garcia Marquez, show us a richness of technic. (please, be patient with my English ... Read more

Product Description

Herein is the unexpurgated first-person narrative of nineteen-year-old Skyler Rampike, the only surviving child of an "infamous" American family destroyed a decade ago by the murder of Skyler’s six-year-old ice-skating champion sister, Bliss, and the media scrutiny that followed. Part investigation into the unsolved murder, part elegy for the lost Bliss and for his own lost childhood, Skyler’s narrative is an alternately harrowing and corrosively funny exposÉ of upper-middle-class American pretensions—and an unexpectedly subtle and sympathetic exploration of those who dwell in "Tabloid Hell."

Customer Reviews (39)

surviving childhood in suburbia
skyler rampike, recovering drug addict with a limp from a childhood accident, at 19, short of his 20th birthday, at the suggestion of a drug counselor, pastor bob, who runs an inner city church on the edge for the poor and offenders of drugs and alcohol, the mentally disturbed, the failed and the hopeless, mostly whites who have nowhere else to go, sets out to write his sister's story from his own point of view.

skyler rampike was the older brother of ice skating prodigy, bliss rampike, the ice princess. she was found murdered in the rampike house at the age of seven, when skyler was nine.

poor skyler was a klutz, his body and lack of interests sabotaged by the pushy parenting of his father, bruce (call him bix) rampike, to shape him into a white alpha male.in the jeep crusher xl on the way to the gym, where skyler did not want to go, `at the Great Road, Daddy swore under his breath having to swerve around a crew of dispirited-looking Hispanic laborers waiting in the rain to be picked up by a foreman.Daddy said, "That's something no white man need ever do, if he's educated."bix is successful, but one can never be too successful.bix moves from large corporation to larger corporation, traveling internationally on business, and, when home, seducing neighboring wives in the succession of escalating upper class suburbs, the type of women john updike has shown us to be as available as strolling prostitutes oninner city gritty streets.

skyler's mother, betsy rampike, herself once a young competitive skater, vicariously guided her infant daughter into the limelight after skyler let her hopes down. betsy rampike wanted to hear the voice of the american god speak to her, and she searched for the right church, rejecting the episcopalian church where the rampike family worshiped since the 18th century, for, after the death of her daughter, the assembly of god, and the religion of media celebrity after she becomes an author.

a black page, suspension of the main event for an exaggerated length of time, different type fonts, a hand written cursive scripted letter with grammatical and spelling errors, a survey with blank bullets to check, even a black page, what young skyler rampike, damaged narrator, calls his high strung document in shambles,`post modern'. but what oates has done isrewritten lawrence sterne's 18th century humorous novel, tristram shandy.

humor unexpectedly out of place, and for that, all the more macabre, for so somber a theme as infanticide. `...pain,' skyler writes, `is laughable, contemptible.Anthropologists might tell us that we can laugh at another's pain only if the `other' is sufficiently other and in no way us.'of himselfslipping into the third person, skyler writes: `skyler (is "other") ... `not me --"me" is a nineteen-year-old junkie in self-imposed exile in a rooming house on Pitts Street, New Brunswick, grimily barefoot in grungy underwear ...'

not her best story, but formally this is one of oates greatest literary accomplishments.

Good writing; questionable content
Having never been an Oates devotee (save for The Gravedigger's Daughter), I am unable to comment on reviewers that claim this to be a hapless regurgitation of her previous work, but I can say that this story, is, on its own, not one that you will want to put down - at first.

In essence the 'novel' is a chronologically structured soliloquoy which takes us through and beyond the murder of child ice skating prodigy 'Bliss Rampike' through the eyes of her elder brother Skylar.If you do not know it going into the novel, you will realize within pages that it is a very thinly disgused retelling of the JonBenet Ramsey saga - albeit with certain creative liberties taken.In certain ways this takes away from the tale - from the very onset, you anticipate all that comes afterwards: the death of six year old Bliss, the suspicion cast upon the 'Rampike' family, the inevitable disintegration of the gluttonous 'American dream' that Bix and Betsey Rampike, the ambition-intoxicated parents, so mindlessly drive toward.Whether Oates intended for this to affect the interpretation of her work is something I can't really decide on, though I will say that this book may have an entirely different appeal to those who will, some decades from now, delve into it without prior knowledge of JonBenet Ramsey.

As a literary piece, My Sister, My Love, is a decently engrossing tale - which is admirable considering that the average reader today will be aware of the ending.Oates makes no attempt to surprise here, for even without external knowledge the reader is equipped with a hefty trail of crumbs leading right to the apex of the novel (and thereby revealing exactly 'whodunnit').The footnotes and segmented chapters to make for a slightly more complicated read, as others have mentioned, but at the same time they do provide a sense of disjointed narration indicative of a troubled nineteen-year-old recalling the events of a life he can barely remember. In this Oates is brilliant; her ability to understand her narrator and thus put you inside his head alone redeems this book.

After finishing the novel, however, I felt rather at odds with the concept upon which Oates built this narrative - that is, the exploitation of an already media ravaged murder case.Despite that she appends the standard disclaimer noting all characters to be fictional, the closeness with which she aligns her story with the JonBenet Ramsey case invokes unease.While certainly I can understand the desire to explore the psyche of a child brutalized by scandal and celebrity (Oates had stated in an interview that she briefly entertained employing a recharacterization of one of OJ Simpson's children as her narrator), I don't think it was necessary to reimagine the story with so few differences - from the physical characteristics to the very name (Patsy Ramsey to Betsey Rampike - could she not have 'reimagined' a more distinct name?).In all, Oates paints a very pitiless picture of the Rampike/Ramsey parents, culminating with the revelation that the matriarch herself had committed the crime when in reality, after a decade or so of media scrutiny, the Ramsey family (including the late Patsy Ramsey) were officially absolved of blame.We are to recall, though, Oates' short paragraph preceding the novel reminding us that this is a 'work of fiction', no matter how glaringly identical certain details are.

Of course, the Ramseys may very well have been equally irresponsible parents, and certainly Oates is welcome to write about whomever and whatever she wants (so long as she change the names and provide the appropriate disclaimers, legally speaking); still, to take such an unsettling likeness of a real family - and then to twist their fate and motivations without so much a footnote, epilogue, or endnote to the outcome of the true incident - seems, at the very least, an unjust tribute.I think the discomfort of this novel could be assuaged if Oates had made a greater effort to disguise her inspiration - or even if she had been frank to acknowledge the Ramsey basis for her tale and dissuade the uninformed reader from misinterpreting her liberal interpretation.In the end, her commentary on the Rampike/Ramseys and their 'tabloid hell', however lyrical it may be, becomes an ironic contribution to the very 'hell' which she disparages.

Fascinating fantasy
Let me first make one thing clear; I am a big admirer of Joyce Carol Oates.

"Blonde" is a Masterpiece in my opinion, and so I fear, or, suspect rather, that I will never have the privilege of reading anything written by Joyce Carol Oates in the future that will resonate as deeply as that novel did with me. It was simply The Perfect Novel and The Perfect Reading Experience for me.

Having said that, my hope is always that her next novel will almost as good as "Blonde" because to me "almost as good as "Blonde"", is automatically a five star novel.

"My sister my love; the intimate story of Skylark Rampike" is based on a true story, described in detail by the other reviewers in this forum, but I preferred to read it as a novel and not compare notes with the tabloid version of a family tragedy.

As always I was deeply impressed with Joyce Carol Oates sensitivity and virtuosity as a writer, and at awe with the way she lets us perceive the world and a family from inside the mind and skin of a young boy through the formative years of his life and through the horrible time of his sister's death.

The description of him, his sister, his parents, their dysfunctional marriage, family life, and their social ambitions; and the events that lead up to the tragedy and the almost obscene media coverage that followed, is done with amazing insight, sympathy; spiced with a very dark sense of humor.

I strongly recommend this novel, even though I don't think it is one of her best.
I even managed to put this novel down for a few days, which I haven't been able to do with some of her other novels, like "Solstice" and "Middle Age".

L. Holm author of "Fairytales for Femmes" and "Clonehead; Once in Everland"

Prolific
If you're reading this review, then you probably already know the premise of this book (JonBenet Ramsay-esque murder).As told by victim Bliss Rampike's brother Skyler, it is his haunting recollection of his life and the fateful event.The thing I struggled with most was the stream of conscious narration from a confused and damaged boy, and the use of footnotes, while effective, were somewhat cumbersome.His memories are convoluted and often uncertain, but his honesty and desperation is laid bare.Oates delivers a derisive social commentary on vicious elitists, including Bliss and Skyler's parents, who manipulate their children in their quest to attain privilege and acceptance in their community.Their selfish motives make them easy to despise, and Mrs. Rampike's hysterics and Mr. Rampike's infidelities don't help.I could not help but sympathize with Skyler and Bliss, who were unfortunate victims.Overall, it was a very engaging and prolific story, but the length and style were a bit demanding.

Strictly three and half stars
JCO's psychologically plausible whodunit is based on the case of JonBenet Ramsey. Oates' strengths shine through - as a writer, she is adept at generating entirely believable characters and plots. The novel really is a study in anthropology, a little peek into the pathology that lurks beneath contemporary american suburbia. An informal introduction into adolescent psychopharmacology and suburban psychopathology. JCO's chief strength as a story teller, is her ability to come up with stories that are gripping in a creepy kinda way. The main flaws in this work, as I see them, are that it needsto be a third shorter. The last religious bit was over the top. Finally and most importantly, Skylar never really finds a voice of his own - as a confused little boy, bewildered adolescent or brawny teenager. Compared to Holden Caulfied, or Junot Diaz's Yunior, Skylar is poorly developed.

The narrator (MC) is strictly average. His task is not easy - Skylar's memoir traverses some 19 years, and include the stories / voices of a 4 year old, a la-di-dah grandmother, the charming cheating husband, sanctimonious church-types, vampish trophy wives... Anyhoo, on the whole, it was a strictly average experience - plenty of lurid details to keep me going, (I listened to the book while running) and continues at a pretty steady pace. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Striking Poems Within A Beautiful Cover
Used to own this collection in college but I let a professor borrow it and never saw it twice after. I think I'll buy it again. These poems from the 1970's and before are the sort of off-kilter intellectualism Joyce Carol Oates used to do so well. Two poems in here, "Promiscuity" and "Sinners in the Hands of a Righteous God" remain in memory after a decade as striking examples of Oates at her most inwardly powerful. Excellent mental imagery in this collection. ... Read more

Product Description
Big Mouth

No I did not. I did not, I did not. I did not say those things, and I did not plan those things. Won't It anyone believe me?

Customer Reviews (75)

Angieville: BIG MOUTH & UGLY GIRL
The first time I ever heard about BIG MOUTH & UGLY GIRL was on the lovely Shannon Hale's website a few years ago. I was browsing around and ran across a list of her book recommendations. This one was on the YA non-fantasy list and the title caught my eye. So I hunted down a copy at my local bookstore and went home with it. Something about her description of why she liked it made me certain it was worth buying sight unseen. I must have felt strongly because, let's be honest, I would never otherwise have purchased a book with this cover. I'm sorry, but it's horrendous. Sort of the definition of unappealing. Nothing that calls out to me in any way. And, as with so many other of my favorites, this story deserves a cover worthy of it. Not the drab, awkward ones it's gotten thus far. So I hope this review will appeal to some of you enough that you'll look past the puzzling, slightly garish cover and see the gold inside. Because it is most certainly gold and instantly went on my Beloved Bookshelf because of its honest and heartfelt approach to being a teen outsider and the often unfair and complicated ways in which others view you when you don't conform to their model of expectations.

***

It was an ordinary January afternoon, a Thursday, when they came for Matt Donaghy. They came for him during fifth period, which was Matt's study period, in room 220 of Rocky River High School, Westchester County.

***

These are the opening lines of the story of Matt Donaghy and Ursula Riggs. On that ordinary day in January the police come to arrest Matt Donaghy. To escort him from school and down to the station on charges that he was planning to blow up the school. Matt is speechless with confusion and fear. He had no such plans. He said no such thing. Or did he? It's impossible to remember. He might have joked about it. Not necessarily in so many words, but he might have. Matt is always joking. You might say he has a big mouth. Big enough, hopefully, to cover up for his shyness, his inability to blend in perfectly with his peers. Then there is Ursula Riggs. Tall, sturdy, with fierce eyes and an unyielding presence, she's on the edges of Rocky River High as well. Everybody knows of her but nobody really knows her. And in her head she is Ugly Girl. Too large and broad and forceful to be accepted, but sure of herself and determined not to be run over by anyone. But Ursula heard what Matt said that day in passing. And she decides she won't let him go to jail for a crime he didn't commit. But will the two outcasts together be able to stand against the fear and the mob mentality that arises in the wake of rumors of a crazy boy and a bomb?

First published in 2002, this is Joyce Carol Oates' first young adult novel and I was impressed to say the least. It reminded me of a more "American," if you will, version of Just in Case by Meg Rosoff. No less angst, but a little more hope. The two main characters, Matt and Ursula, develop alter egos (see title) which in turn enable them to cope with the shocking events of their junior year. The thing is you will like these two. You will like them from page one. Though skinny and geeky, and prone to skimming along under the radar, Matt is incredibly likable and funny. And Ursula. Well, as Matt would say, Ursula is "1 individual in 1 million." Often brash and abrupt and unconcerned with other people's feelings, she is actually an unusually straight arrow. And her insistence on justice and the perseverance of truth is doggone admirable. What these two accomplish together is heroic. Here is their first conversation:

***

Twice Matt dialed the number Ursula had given him and twice he hung up quickly before the phone could ring. So damned shy. The third time he dialed, he let the phone ring and it was answered at once. "Hello?" The girl's voice was husky, guarded.

"Hi, this is . . . Matt. Is this Ursula?"

"Yes."

"I . . . got your message."

Matt was speaking in a lowered, shaky voice. He was feeling a leap of irrational hope.

Ursula said, still guardedly, "You know me, I guess? From school?"

"Ursula, sure. Sure I know you."

As if they hadn't been going to the same schools most of their lives.

Ursula said, "This hasn't been such a . . . great day for you, I guess."

"No, but--" Matt paused. He wanted to say, At least I'm home, not in jail. But that wasn't much of a reason to be grateful, considering he hadn't done anything wrong. "--I'm alive, anyway."

Was that meant to be funny? Matt laughed, but Ursula remained silent.

Matt had begun to sweat, this conversation was so pained. He hated calling girls on the phone if he didn't know them really well and if it hadn't been understood, more or less, that he was going to call, and was expected. He was even uneasy sometimes calling his friends. Which was why he liked e-mail. Maybe Ursula Riggs was the same way? Her telephone voice was unexpectedly hesitant, diffident.

Or maybe she just didn't like Matt Donaghy, personally. But had to talk to him for some mysterious reason.

Ursula began speaking rapidly, as if her words were prepared. "Look, Matt. I heard what you said in the cafeteria today. I was walking past your table, and I heard. I know you were joking, and there's no way any intelligent person could misconstrue your words or gestures. If it's taken out of context, maybe, but there was a context. And I can be a witness for you. I'll go to Mr. Parrish first thing tomorrow and talk to him. Or the police, if necessary."

By the end of this speech, Ursula was speaking vehemently. Matt wasn't sure he'd heard right. Witness? He felt like a drowning swimmer whose flailing hand has been grabbed by someone, a stranger, whose face he can't see.

He said, stammering, "You . . . heard me? You know I didn't . . . wasn't . . ."

"A friend of mine, Eveann McDowd, was with me. She heard you, too. I'll talk to her."

"You'd--be a witness for me, Ursula? Gosh."

Ursula said quickly, "You've been falsely accused. I'd do it for anybody." She added," I mean--even somebody I didn't like."

Matt was too confused to absorb what Ursula Riggs seemed to be saying. That she liked him? All he could say was to repeat, "Thanks, Ursula. I--really appreciate it."

"You're the only person who's contacted me, Ursula," Matt added impulsively. "I'm a pariah, I guess--is that the word? Like leper. Outcast." When Ursula didn't reply, Matt said, "I've been suspended for 'at least three day.' Till they can investigate me."

"Investigate you? They're the ones who should be investigated."

Ursula Riggs spoke so heatedly, it was as if, suddenly, she was in Matt's room with him and Pumpkin.

***

Don't you want to stick with them and find out if she's right? If together they can face down The Man and win? This is a particularly timely tale, I think, with two painfully real protagonists that dare you to drift away and forget them after the story itself is over. Recommended for fans of Courtney Summers and Meg Rosoff.

Be yourself in High School
This book really explains a lot.You can relate it to some schools because there's always a girl who people believe is big and bad, but once you get to know her, she's very humane.
And then there's another kind of person you might find.A guy who's really smart, and never has been cruel to anybody, but gets misinterpreted at the wrong moment when he's just joking around with his friends.
The girl that takes this place is sort of a big jock.She's very bulky and plays sports, but doesn't bully anybody.But because of her size, people are so afraid of her.
The guy that takes the other place is just a regular, pretty slim student who loves writing his own plays.When he knows what's going on, he can comprehend that he was caught in the act of doing something that wasn't meant to be what came out of his mouth and actions.
As you read more and more into the book, you can glimpse on this friendship that has developed between this two different people and how they work together to make things the way they were before.But knowing all these teen stories, it never ends that way.No happily ever after.In this story though, I can tell you that this ending is one you will never forget.
If you read this book, you will find all of these people.I would say that you should be around 13-15 years old, or about to go into high school.It teaches you how high school can be sometimes, and it's okay to be yourself and stand up for other people and YOURSELF!

Pleasantly surprised
This was my first Oates book so I had no idea what to expect. What I got was a book with very well written characters and a good premise. Both main characters are completely believable and their friendship is described i a very good way. The parts focusing on "Ugly girl" are written in first person and Oates really manages to get the right voice for a teenage girl. Or at least it felt authentic to me, but I'm admittedly not a teenage girl.

The book also has its satirical moments and overall a good understanding of human nature. "Big Mouth and Ugly Girl" is a great read for kids and adults alike.

B MUG
Big Mouth and Ugly Girl is a book about a boy who is allegedly accused of stating that he is going to blow up the school. A girl named Ursula comes to his rescue when she testifies on the behalf that he didn't do it. This boy, Matt, and Ursula develop a special relationship that has its ups and downs throughout this book.
My favorite part of this book is when Ursula and Matt go to a kid's house to see if he took Matt's dog. I think this is a funny part. It shows a whole different side of the characters. I also liked it because the kid that they were "persecuting" had such a smart attitude towards them that it made it funny.
I would recommend this book to a few people. I would recommend it to people who are interested in teen life and drama and maybe people who like relationship stories. Other than that I wouldn't really recommend it. The book was a little slow moving, but once I got to a good part it was hard to put down. Also this book was kind of following the people involved in the plot but not enough about the plot.

big mouth and ugly girl
This book is about finding out what rumors could lead to. You always have to be careful with what you say, you might endup in a tight squeez like matt donaghy.
What you will find inside this book:
- respect
- support
- rumors
- truth
- friendship
- depression
- and a change of heart in the characters.
Have fun reading this book :D ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

No quarter for our enemies...
Politics. A failed marriage. The intricate world of Washington in the years of 1979-1980, without naming names, a gentle gloss over realities. The politics is just a backdrop, however, for the Halleck family. Maurice, the head of the family, leaves a drunken, convoluted confession and his car is found in a brackish swamp in a small Virginia town. His children, Owen and Kirsten, are convinced it is the doing of his wife and his long time friend (and wife's lover) Nick; everyone else is convinced it is a suicide due to his unscrupulous practices in D.C. The story follows the children and their plans to exact justice however they can.

The characters are well written and realistic, and, although it might seem to end on a rather simplified note, it is a satisfying read.

Confusing
The story line was simple, a murder, children trying to find out who murdered their father and a mother trying to keep everything a secret.

This family was so confused it would take a genius to figure out what was going on.The sister was crazy, she disgusted me in so many ways.She had strange, not every day, thoughts about every day things.The brother didn't know if he was straight ot gay.The mother was a what I considered a typical high class prostitute.The father you're not sure about, other people telling his story.The whole family was a little strange.

There was so a little too much back tracking in the book.As you read you traveled through too many avenues in the lives of these people.Too many times she went back in time and then jumped right back to the now, all on the same page.By the time you got one chapter figured out, you were once again confused about who was speaking or being spoke about in the next chapter (until about half way through it).I never knew from one chapter to the next what generation I was going to be in.

I judged this book by it's title, I had hoped for more.I would not recommened this book.

A Greek Tragedy Murder Mystery
Maurice Halleck, direct descendent of 1850's anti-slavery martyr John Brown, is accused of wrongdoing and then found dead w/ a suicide note. His kids suspect foul play involving their mother and her lover. This unusually involving book by Oates uses family, politics, and history to weave a tale of justice against those in power.

Hamlet -- inside out and upside down
This story of the American political scene is one of loyalty and betrayal, revenge and forgiveness. It's the old two-men-in- love-with-one-woman tale but this time with a twist: save a life and share a love.

When Maurice Halleck dies in disgrace his children vow to kill his betrayers -- their mother and her lover. It's a thriller that takes a good, hard look at the alienation of youth. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An excellent collection by a very diverse group of writers.
I begin by admitting some prejudice:I am one of the authors included, and the name of the volume was taken from my essay (publisher's choice, not my pushiness!)This is an excellent collection, including Mailer,Liebling, Oates, and many others.Not quite the wonderful cornucopia thatThe Fireside Book of Boxing was some 30 or 40 years ago (that was one ofthe great sports' anthologies of all time), but still well worth owning. (I don't get any royalties, honest!) ... Read more

Product Description

In 1975 Genna Hewett-Meade's college roommate died a mysterious, violent death partway through their freshman year. Minette Swift had been assertive, fiercely individualistic, and one of the few black girls at their exclusive, "enlightened" college—and Genna, daughter of a prominent civil defense lawyer, felt duty-bound to protect her at all costs. But fifteen years later, while reconstructing Minette's tragic death, Genna is forced to painfully confront her own past life and identity...and her deepest beliefs about social obligation in a morally gray world.

Customer Reviews (17)

A self-conscious effort
In this effort of JCO her writing has a pathetic, self-conscious air, as if she were not comfortable with the material, the characters, or the plot.She repeats herself in a number of parts, not only over-used words ("inveigle", names of people and places, "monkey" - the use of which in itself reeks of attempts to include a word that might shock and offend, but that's okay, I'm JCO), but entire sentences and ideas.There is only one likeable character in the entire book and he meets a bad end in the contrived last chapter and subsequent epilogue of the novel.Max is the only character true to himself and smacking of realism, the others are cardboard, forced personalities, particularly Minette Swift, the doomed "black girl". Minette is SO unlikeable and unsympathetic that I felt not one iota of regret knowing she would meet a bad end (we are told this in the opening paragraphs so no spoilers here) and only wished she would hurry up already and get it over with.Jenna is merely pathetic and two-dimensional in her whiny attempts to be the "white girl" who is color-blind.

There are a few lyrical and poignant pieces such as Jenna pulling herself along the corridors and stairs on her hands and knees with weighted, weakening legs, but even these JCO later feels compelled to explain and spell out to her reader as if we are not intelligent, critical, or intuitve enough to 'get it' on our own.

What coulda/shoulda been an exploration of how we react when confronted with our prejudices and those of others, of racial tension and a changing(?) society, ends up being an over-long, pleading, thou-doth-protest-too-much read.JCO can do better, and her editor should have told her so.

Genius in its Story-Building and Emotional Subtlety
I was absolutely fascinated by this book. Picking it up, I assumed it would be a somewhat obvious/maybe even a bit cliche story of racial inequality on a college campus. However it was SO much more. JCO masterfully uses each scene to further our knowledge the inner lives of Black Girl, Minette, and White Girl, Genna.

Rather than seeing these women as two different races with completely different struggles, the reader is led to discover that "though we were lying in separate beds a crude plasterboard wall between us to divide us by day we were divided in two separate skins of necessity for all life must be divided all consciousness must be separate otherwise we could not see each other, we could not love each other otherwise." As the fascinating past of each girl is unveiled, we realize how similar their struggles are...and the difference in skin color may be the one thing that allows them to differentiate themselves from each other and therefore take notice of each other.

This book is not an easy read, but it is definitely worth the effort put in!! Incredibly insightful account of human nature and living up to the expectations of our parents.

Okay
It wasn't one of her best books, but it was good. It arrived on time and it was in very good condition.

Roads to tragedy paved with good intentions
The year is 1974/5.Genna Meade comes from a liberal American family. Her father is a prominent radical lawyer, preachy in private as well as in public life, revered by some and hated by others, and has made a name for having helped draft-refusers from the recently ended Vietnam War.He is often away from home, his whereabouts not known even to his family.Genna's mother is an unhappy and lonely middle aged hippy with a drug problem.Genna herself is a fresher at Schuyler College, a liberal arts women's college in New York state, and in her application form had said she would like to share rooms with someone from an ethnic minority.Her room mate is a black scholarship student, Minette Swift.Minette is an unattractive, unhappy, touchy, fiercely private and intensely religious young woman who rejects friendly approaches, however hard Genna tries; and she is unpopular even with the other black girls in the dormitory of Haven House.

The first half of the novel has little plot development: settings are sharply observed, and it concentrates on bringing to life these people and their relationships with each other, very successfully, if perhaps by means of a little too much repetition.In particular, one begins to wonder how Genna can put up with Minette's repeated rebuffs.She feels protective of her and at the same time is afraid of her, and she feels guilt, inculcated by her father, about being white.

Then, half way through the book, the story becomes increasingly tense and sinister, as both racism and radicalism move more centre-stage.We have been told in the very first paragraph of the book that Minette will die;and yet her last day, graphically as it is described, is not the end of the book.There is an even more horrendous and quite unexpected tragedy to follow in the Epilogue.To say any more would be a spoiler.

A powerful and haunting book which draws you deeply into what it describes.

Not interesting at all
I was intrigued by the cover of the audio cover and disappointed in the story and reading of it. The reading is bland. No life whatsoever. I would not recommend this book, audio cd or cassette to anyone. The book should really be called Poor Genna I'm obsessed with trying to make my black roommate like me. The cover is very misleading. ... Read more

Product Description

Later, I would think of it as crossing over. From a known territory into an unknown. From a place where people know you to a place where people only think they know you.

It began with me a year ago this past July. A few weeks after my fourteenth birthday. When Freaky Green Eyes came into my heart.

When her parents separate, Franky Pierson has no trouble deciding whose side she's on. After all, her mother is the one who chose to leave. And when her mother is suddenly reported missing, Franky believes she's simply pulled a disappearing act and deserted their family for good. But a part of Franky, a part she calls Freaky Green Eyes, knows that something is wrong. And it's up to Freaky to open Franky's eyes to the truth.

Customer Reviews (19)

Why so much trauma?
Why, oh why is so much "young adult" literature filled with trauma?I am a middle school teacher who reads a lot of YA novels to find good ones to recommend to my students.I will not be recommending this one.I don't know anyone who has had a life like Oates' heroine Franky.In the first few pages, she narrowly escapes a rape. She then goes on to suffer an abusive father and then the forced estrangement from and eventual murder of her mother! I wonder what kind of world Oates lives in to make this be what she wants to communicate.A second factor in my strong reservations about this book is the very anti-male world Oates creates.From the near rapist at the beginning, to the abusive father throughout, to Franky's cruel older brother (who reamins a threat to her aunt even at the very end), to the boys who capture and terrorize wild animals in the middle, to the lying attorney towards the end, the males in this book are almost all dangerous and untrustworthy.One nice man, who is gay, is murdered, and one boy seems possibly nice at the very end of the novel.That was not enough to overcome what seemed too anti-male for me.I will put this on my classroom shelf without fanfare, and if I know someone who needs to see how to deal with abuse or know she's not alone, I will guide him or her to this book (as well as do much more, I would hope!).But for my average readers, who are all unique individuals and all have typical teenage lives, with their own angst and drama and struggle to figure out who they are, this is not enlightening, inspiring, moving, entertaining, or even very helpful.

Good read, but not as good as "Big mouth and Ugly Girl"
I got this book after reading "Big mouth and Ugly Girl", written by the same author, Joyce Carol Oates. I must say, "Big mouth and Ugly Girl" was better but i still liked this book a lot because i found it very well-written, although slightly slow-paced. I'm not much of a non-fiction reader, but I enjoyed this book and recommend it strongly to young teen or older pre-teen readers that like books that talk about difficult times that some young teenagers have to face.

Excellent writing, unrealistic resolution
As a fan of another of Oates young adult books, Big Mouth and Ugly Girl,I had high expectations for this one.The writing is superb, after all it is Joyce Carol Oates and the woman can write.I was somewhat disappointed in the plot.Essentially the book seems to me to be a meditation on what might have happened in the O.J. Simpson case.As far as that goes, it is a deep and textured reflection.It seemed to me the whole story was rather neatly wrapped up in the end, unlike in real life where there are still so many unanswered questions.Perhaps in young adult you can't leave things just hanging and all has to be neatly resolved. I think a young adult reader might be more satisfied with the conclusion and not as engaged by the psychologial journey to get there.

it's freakylicious!
"You have Freaky Green Eyes!" -Cameron
15 year old Francesca Pierson (Franky) sneaks out to a college party.When she gets there, she realizes that she is probably the youngest one there. She meets this college boy named Cameron. He leads her to a room and starts to make a moved on her. She kicks him in the target. "You have Freaky Green Eyes!" he yells at her and she runs away, proud of herself. That's how she got her nickname, Freaky. This book is filled with suspense and questions that will leave you hanging.

Freaky Green Eyes!!!!!
Francesca Pierson is a 15 year old girl.Franky is a great swimmer she has alot of good things going for her. Her father is famous. Her family has a nice house.She seems like a normal person. Franky has another side, after going to a big party and almost being raped she finds her inner self you could say and its name is Freaky Green Eyes. Freaky Green Eyes only comes out at times. The thing is Freaky knows whats really is going on with her parents. Franky's father has got a very short temper and always wants things his way. Everything really falls apart when Franky's mom Krista goes into her "own zone". Franky's mom goes to Skagit Harbor she is there for 3 or 4 day's on end. Then worse comes to worse Franky's mom disapears. Reid Pierson (Franky's Dad) gets suspisous and that's when Franky's life will change the most forever. Read Freaky Green Eyes by Joyce Carol Oates. This Book will want you to read on and on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Perhaps this is the Great American Novel
Yup, folks, it's all here.

I forget who it was that asked whether it was possible that The Great American Novel be written by a woman. I submit this as evidence.

Oates, who at her worst can be over-the-top, bombastic, and overly gothic for many tastes; is surely at her best here.

This remarkable novel tells a simple-enough story, one that has been told before and will be told again. But it is the way that it tells it - character details pitch-perfect, each description and meditation and psychological reaction drawing the reader further in - that makes it extraordinary. Because It Is Bitter... is set in 1954 in a racially and socially divided town-Hammond, NY, near where Oates lives-and follows the lives of a group of people connected in ways that they do not and cannot expect. It is divided into three parts: Body, Torsion, and Ceremony. The book opens with the murder of a semi-retarded local boy, "Little Red" Garlock. His family, the infamous Garlocks, are the "black sheep" of Hammond: rumors of physical and sexual abuse swirl around them, they are extremely racist, and they live in a garbage-ridden, filthy home in the bad part of town. As the police begin their investigation, they are approached by a young teen-aged girl, Iris Courtney, our main character, who tells them that the boy was killed by motorcyclists from out of town. We follow her home, and meet her parents and family. Persia Daiches Courtney, her mother, is a young beauty, alcoholic and nervous, but very practical-minded in certain ways. Her husband, Cornelius "Duke" Courtney, is a gambler and constantly risks the family's money on horse bets, occasionally winning but usually losing. Aunt Madelyn is a close friend of Persia's, not really an aunt but considered one. She is a bit racist, and owns a beauty salon. Duke's brother, Leslie, is a photographer and is quite sensitive to racial and other differences. He lives alone. We then flash back to the beginning of Iris' life, and follow her through her difficult girlhood, pained and violent adolescence, and ultimate pyrrhic victory over her hometown.

Oates has a psychological insight into characters a 51-year-old white woman would seem to have no business writing about. This is the book that I would take with me to a desert island forever. Yeah, it's that good.

Like All of Oates' Books, This One is Incredibly Haunting
This is an incredibly haunting book.It examines the complex
interactions and experiences that go into creating our core
selves.

Iris Courtney grows up in an emotionally impoverished and al-
coholic home where chaos looms in the wake of her mother's
drinking.Iris yearns for love and touch but her mother's
distance causes irrevocable pain, dissociation, and fuge-like
states that become Iris's primary coping skills.

Eary in the book, Iris becomes fatefully tied to a young black
man who innocently kills a boy who has been tormenting Iris.
Their lives become forever connected as they maintain the se-
cret of the killing forever.

Boring
This book gets one star for the development of certain characters in the story (Iris's mother, Jinx Fairchild). However, this was one of the most boring books I have ever read. Iris Courtney a dry stick of a girl drifting through life in a cold industrial town...blah....blash....blah. I could not get the point of this novel. If you are a JCO fan and must read this book, save some money and check it out at the library.

Still Waters...
The time is the decade between the mid-1950's and the mid-1960's, and the place is Oates's familiar setting, her native upstate New York. In some ways this never loud but hard-hitting book continues many of the threads common in a multitude of Oates' previous works (a young girl, bookish, intelligent, much like Oates herself was as a teen, from a crumbling home where alcoholism and gambling are the wedge cracking the solidity of daily life; struggling poor family dealt unfair circumstances living in a dying blue collar town; social discord flaring to violence) and yet in many other ways, this is virgin territory for America's greatest living writer.

This novel concerns Iris Courtney, a pretty, white, intellectual girl whose future success or failure is basically in her own hands because she cannot count on assistance from either her drunken, once-beautiful mother, or her gullible gambling-addict father. Her one possible ally seems to be an uncle, an affable, secretly-tormented photographer estranged from Iris' father, Duke, secretly in love with Iris' mother, Persia. It also is the story of a black man of roughly Iris' age, named Verlyn Fairchild, who lives in the same town at the same time. On the surface these two would seem to have nothing in common and yet their lives intersect completely by chance one night when Verlyn risks his own life to rescue Iris from a brutal attempted rape at the hands of a thuggish, perhaps retarded teenage bully, feared son of a migratory clan of mountain people who have settled in the factory town. This act of courage creates a bond between two teenagers from different avenues of life, and from that point on, though Iris and Verlyn are seldom in scenes together, the lives of these two characters are continually compared and contrasted, creating a study of the opportunities 1950's life opens--or does not open--depending on little more than the race of the person in question.

Iris and Verlyn at the time of their meeting come from roughly the same income levels, from the same broken homes, from the same school system, and were born the same year. But we watch as the tragedy of limited opportunity drags Verlyn into an inescapable existence of poverty, while Iris, through a few lucky breaks and hard work, rises from her beginnings and becomes closely tied to a family of wealthy art collectors called the Savage's. Verlyn's one hope is basketball, a sport at which he excels. His nickname is "Iceman" referring to his coolness on court when handling the ball. His prowess as a player on the school team momentarily earns him celebrity, high praise, and temporary esteem. But when an on-court accident wrecks Verlyn's future hopes of scholarships and college, it seems every door closes on him, even while Iris's fortunes have turned immeasurably brighter. In the end, Iris becomes engaged to the son of the Savage's and Verlyn takes the only way that is there for him out of his bleak hometown: the US Army during the beginnings of the Vietnam War.There is a tiny foreshadowing of Verlyn's fate in the military at about the 1/3 point of this novel, long before we learn of his enlistment, and it is there so quickly and at the time so innocuously stated that it might well be missed. Suffice it to say the future resolves itself as expected in the cases of Iris and Verlyn, and there is little justice in it.

I'd put this among Oates' top ten novels, which might not sound like a high ranking until one considers just how many novels this prolific woman has published. In other words, it's easily among her upper-third.

The title wasn't stolen
JCO was on a radio talk show promoting this book and I heard her read from the poem she got the title from. So there.

I read the book after hearing the interview, and I did enjoy it. It was not what I would call an easy read, but that's not from faulty writing. ... Read more

Product Description
A wealthy and notorious clan, the Bellefleurs live in a region not unlike the Adirondacks, in an enormous mansion on the shores of mythical Lake Noir. Written with a voluptuousness and immediacy unusual even for Oates, Bellefleur was hailed upon publication as the culmination of her work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

The Fall of the House of Bellefleur
The first of Oates's several "Gothic" sagas, "Bellefleur" is one of my favorite--perhaps the favorite--of her countless novels. A multi-generational chronicle of the rise and fall and aborted rise again of an upstate New York family, it borrows and develops devices from such American writers as Irving, Hawthorne, and Cooper and updates them with echoes of modern writers ranging from Faulkner to Garcia Marquez. Her story hops back and forth in time, revealing family secrets, legends, triumphs, and disappointments, as well as following the travails of a few truly tragic figures. (It's one of those novels that forces you to flip forward frequently to the family tree.) At its center is Leah, the ambitious "uncontested queen of the household" who endeavors to restore the Bellefleur holdings to a legendary and expansive splendor.

On one hand, Oates presents us with the utter zaniness of various members of the Bellefleur clan, including an ancestor who impulsively takes off to seek God's presence and live as an unwashed hermit in the mountains, a "troll" adopted by the family who becomes their most sycophantic servant, a child prodigy who shuts himself up in one of the castle's towers and pours out invention after brilliant invention, and a terrifyingly feral rat-like furball that turns out to be an enigmatically perceptive cat. On the other hand, as John Gardner points out in his review the novel, "What drives Miss Oates's fiction is her phobias: that is, her fear that normal life may suddenly turn monstrous." And the monstrous abounds. But the murders, the massacres, the disappearances, the illnesses, the tragedies--each of which is horrific enough--are still not as compelling and terrible as the effects these incidents have on the family as a whole and on each of its sons and daughters.

In spite of the realism of Oates's descriptions (most apparent in the passages describing the natural wonderland that comprises the estate and in the scenes outlining the family's social and political milieu), the novel abounds in the improbable and the magical: age is malleable, mountains change heights, coincidences pile up, a local vulture carries away babies, various characters have psychic powers--not to mention the gnomes (or dwarfs or trolls) playing in a nearby field. Perfectly pleasant children unexpectedly commit unconscionably evil acts, an elderly aunt hides herself away in her bedroom, a century's worth of neighbors plot revenge for the least perceived slights, a certain room remains locked for more than seventy-five years because of some unspoken past tragedy. (The domineering Leah aside, the novel's real center may well be the castle itself, a garish atrocity from the family's earliest beginnings in America.) Everything leads to the cataclysm of the finale, followed by a coda recounting the choice made 150 years earlier that saved the Bellefleurs from total extinction after a similarly devastating event. True to the Gothic tradition, the untold sequel is foretold by the family's haunted and tragic past.

American Gothic
Ah, beautiful, terrible Bellefleur, a manor (One mustn't call it a castle in the New World, though characters herein do so anyway.) nestled between Lake Noir below and Mount Blanc above containing the beautiful, terrible family of Bellefleurs: eccentric, depraved, aristocratic (if one is allowed to speak thus).If I had one adjective to choose to describe this novel it would be "lush." Of course, there are deeper, darker, more foetid, swampier things with which to contend here.Pay attention to the opening quote from the philosopher Heraclitus, most famous for his doctrine that, "Everything is change." And pay especial heed to lines like these from Jeremiah Bellefleur, "You talk of haunted things, but what of those of us who know themselves haunted things - haunted things in human form?" Aren't we all?

Ms. Oates herself calls this Gothic sprawl of a book "parodistic" in retort to the charge that it is a Gothic parody of some sort.After finishing it, I can't imagine the a discerning reader who fails to realise the distinction to which she adverts.What a strange yet familiar world we come upon here.As described by Jean-Pierre Bellefleur II, "The castle...the castle's grounds...the lightless choppy immensity of lake Noir...the thousands upon thousands of acres of wilderness land...the mountains in the distance: a terror to contemplate: and beyond them, sprawling out on all sides, a greater horror, that entity glibly referred to as the world.What maddened mind, deranged by an unspeakable lust, had imagined all this into being...?"

Step into the world, reader, the Bellefleur world, which you may find - to your delight and terror - is startlingly like your own.

Dreadful
Kudos to the reviewer who said he gave this book one star because he could not give it zero!In total, 684 pages wasted in telling the convoluted, confusing, overblown, and completely unbelievable story of a family you would hate to know, let alone read about. While it is the definitive thesis on how not to use the parenthetical phrase, surely this mess cannot be considered the culmination of the author's lifework.

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.
... Read more

Product Description

Joyce Carol Oates was the 2010 recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. She's also been honored with the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the National Book Award. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University. Her newest book, Sourland, will be available on eReaders in early September. Her memoir The Siege: A Widow’s Story, will be published early in 2011.

Customer Reviews (1)

Joyce Carol Oates gets shapeshifter story in AM
A fine story from one of the most prestigious writers there is.And it's a horror story of quality and worth, for she knows horror is as valid as any other. The 1st issue of ROD SERLING'S THE TWILIGHT ZONE MAGAZINE included a story by her. Much of her work explores dark fiction. One of the vastly many reasons to love her.
revision And His Eyes Be Blue As The Sea


You've Come to the Right Place

My Name is David ... Read more