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Black Water, by Joyce Carol Oates
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The Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel from the author of the New York Times bestselling novel We Were the Mulvaneys
“Taut, powerfully imagined and beautifully written, Black Water ranks with the best of Joyce Carol Oates's already long list of distinguished achievements. It can be read in a single afternoon, but, like every good book, it continues to haunt us.”
- The New York Times
Joyce Carol Oates has taken a shocking story that has become an American myth and, from it, has created a novel of electrifying power and illumination. Kelly Kelleher is an idealistic, twenty-six-year-old “good girl” when she meets the Senator at a Fourth of July party. In a brilliantly woven narrative, we enter her past and her present, her mind and her body as she is fatally attracted to this older man, this hero, this soon-to-be-lover. Kelly becomes the very embodiment of the vulnerable, romantic dreams of bright and brave women, drawn to the power that certain men command—at a party that takes on the quality of a surreal nightmare; in a tragic car ride that we hope against hope will not end as we know it must end. One of the acknowledged masters of American fiction, Joyce Carol Oates has written a bold tour de force that parts the black water to reveal the profoundest depths of human truth.
- Sales Rank: #55384 in Books
- Brand: Plume
- Published on: 1993-05-01
- Released on: 1993-05-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.97" h x .43" w x 5.29" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 160 pages
Features
From Publishers Weekly
In a plot shocking for its blatant familiarity, a figure identified as The Senator tipsily drives a young woman away from a party and off of a dock.A two-week PW bestseller and a BOMC selection in cloth, this novella is gripping and hallucinatory.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
YA-- ``She was the one he had chosen.'' This is Kelly Kelleher's thought as she leaves the party with a senator, as much a symbol of her desire to change her life as it is the fulfillment of a romantic dream. She's a young woman struggling to assert herself, but this rash move ultimately ends in tragedy. Oates makes readers feel that they are along for the very frightening ride in the car with Kelly and her senator in this shocking, all-too-familiar story. It's fast paced, almost as if to compel readers to keep up with the speeding car. Although brief, the book develops Kelly's character so well that the loss of such a young and promising life is deeply felt. The man sharing the last moments of her life is known only as ``The Senator'' throughout. Even for readers unaware of the true incident that was catalyst for this story, the novel stands strongly on its own . -- Carolyn Koehler, Richard Byrd Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
It all began when Kelly Kelleher was introduced to The Senator, a man she had wanted to meet since selecting him as the topic of her senior honors thesis. Charmed and infatuated, Kelly eagerly accepts his invitation to leave the island party where they've met and ride back to Boothbay Harbor together on the late night ferry. Those who remember Chappaquiddick can predict Kelly's ultimate fate, but certainly not the horrors she must have suffered strapped to the seat of a car that would become an aqueous death chamber. Immense courage shines through the tangled streams of her thoughts, memories, and hallucinations. As witnesses to her plight, we can only keep vigil as she drifts in and out of consciousness, waiting for the reprieve that surely must be hers. Oates brilliantly redefines the meanings of guilt and innocence, vengeance and reward in this thought-provoking allegory of our life and times. Highly recommended for all fiction collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/92.
- Janet W. Reit, Univ. of Vermont Lib., Burlington
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
33 of 34 people found the following review helpful.
Beautifully written, it reads like poetry
By A Customer
The premise for Joyce Carol Oates' tiny novel "Black Water" is the scandalous Chippaquiddick incident that anyone over the age of 40 should be familiar with. But what's remarkable about it is that Oates has transformed this "faction" into a beautiful ballad. The happenings of that fateful night when the black Toyota plunged headlong into the swampy river is told through the eyes of the drowning girl. There's a sense of real pathos in the telling cos it's painfully obvious the girl's impressed with the Senator for the wrong reasons and that he's a cad. The manner of the Senator's escape from the capsized car and his cruel abandonment of her as she awaits hopelessly for her own rescue is a wrench to read. The novel reads like a poem in parts. Maybe there's a song in there somewhere, with a verse, a chorus and a middle eight. By using the drowning girl's vantage viewpoint, Oates has created a powerful masterpiece that's so wonderfully compelling it bears reading over and over again. Truly great stuff !
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
An American Psyche, an American Tragedy
By Katie Finn
The event itself is quite simple, and all too common. A drunken ride with a tragic ending. This is what Joyce Carol Oates gives us on the first page. From there her prose backpedals through Kelly Kelleher's childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood into the hours leading up to her death, which is described in nearly every chapter. The repeated death scene lends to the intensity of the novel. One would expect the book to go forward into the investigation of the accident, yet instead its narration goes backwards. Where, then, are the surprises? The surprises come in Oates's biting prose and in her portrayal of a female growing up in modern America with the ancient pressures of beauty and normalcy, as well as the more recent pressures of ambition and intellectual pursuits. In every chapter, there are thrilling sentences that left this reader in awe of Oates's strength as a writer. For example, this sentence leaves the reader feeling as thrown around as Kelly in the out of control Toyota: "In the jolting car they did seem immune to any harm, still less to a vehicular accident, for The Senator was driving in a way one might call recklessly, you might say his judgment was impaired by drink but not his skill as a driver for he did have skill, handling the compact car as if by instinct and with an air too of kingly contempt, so Kelly was thinking, though they were lost, though they would not make the 8:20 PM ferry after all, she was privileged to be here and no harm could come to her like a young princess in a fairy tale so recently begun but perhaps it would not end for some time, perhaps." The plot focuses on the interactions between Kelly and a never named Senator. They meet at a Fourth of July party, spend an afternoon filled with sexual tension together and decide to spend that night in a motel. It is the Senator's drunken haste that causes the accident, but this is not Oates's focus. Instead, it is the life forces contending within Kelly Kelleher that have made her make the decision to accompany a drunk man her father's age to a motel, out of part sexual desire, part political ambition. The plot is not the most gripping aspect of this novel. Instead, it is the character development. One chapter begins, "She did not believe in astrology, in the breathless admonitions and Ben Franklin-pep talks of the magazine horoscopes, nor did she believe in the Anglican God to Whom-in Whom?-for Whom?-she had long ago been confirmed." The reader glimpses into this woman's psyche and comes away feeling slightly disturbed. Not in the sense that one has seen into the inner workings of an imbalanced person, but because one has seen the inner workings of a completely `normal,' functioning person, whom we would herald in this society as a model of integrity and intelligence. These inner workings are rational and logical, yet at the same time damaging and frightening. The dichotomy between her outer self and her inner self is the most disturbing aspect of this book. What is most intriguing about this novel is its size. Not only is it short in length, but frequently its chapters are no more than a few pages, sometimes even a single paragraph. The effect is that one feels that before Kelly dies in each chapter, her life is flashed before her eyes and we are the witnesses to that event. I highly recommend this book. It is a quick, intense read.
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
American girls, politics, tragedy, deterrence.
By Tom Schmidlin
With her novel Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates has taken a sad occurrence in American political history, the Chappaquiddick incident, and explored it from the perspective that most of America and the media did not consider when the accident happened, that of the young woman who lost her life in the car crash. She then utilizes that perspective to put forth a compelling statement of the deterrent effect such an incident should have on other "American girls" who would follow in the footsteps of Mary Jo Kopenkney, whom Oates bases the main character, Kelly Kelleher, upon.
The book's most striking feature is its unconventional structure. Though it is only 154 pages long, it is divided into 32 chapters, some of which are only a page long, and two parts. The chapters often repeat sections of the story over and over, adding a little more information or changing the perspective just a bit, until ultimately the reader receives a fully constructed picture of the incident and the preceding events.
Oates chooses to delve deeply into the main character, Kelly Kelleher, and leave the would-be antagonist with just a vague descriptive title, The Senator. There are several reasons for this, among them a kind of ironic objectification of the political figure in a way similar to the media's treatment of Mary Jo Kopenkney, and to focus the reader's attention in such a way that he or she realizes that the identity of The Senator is not what is important. It is what he represents, a glossy, distinguished portrait of American political success that is most vital to Oates's thematic concerns. Oates is addressing the attraction that some young women in our society feel for that political success, and the resulting ways that cold and selfish men can manipulate that attraction. Black Water is a wake up call for those who would be Kelly Kelleher, an "American girl" who is led into a dangerous, even fatal, situation by letting herself be controlled by a man's esteem and political power. Oates wishes that those who would follow in Kelly's footsteps to see the incident as a deterrent, a warning, and she makes this absolutely clear with her inclusion of a detailed description of the death penalty in chapter 30. The death penalty is intended as a deterrent to would-be criminals, and Oates wishes Kelly Kelleher's "death penalty" to be seen in this way as well.
The novel's prose style is simple and pristine. Oates leaves aside complicated, dense language in order to better communicate her thematic concerns. At times the structure can be a bit confusing because of the repetition, but the average reader should have little trouble. Its subject matter is somewhat dark in tone, but that is simply the nature of the theme, which inherently requires a grave and serious approach. With this novel, Oates has achieved an excellent balance of pleasurable reading with the exploration of a vital issue. I highly recommend this book to any reader, regardless of your favorite genre.
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