by the incomparable Joyce Carol Oates. What a beautiful, gritty book! The characters were so dull at first - at times -- that I wondered why I continued to read. there was a tabloid fascination quality that drew me along. Oates has rendered the NYS landscape unerringly -- I wonder how I know that this is an unerring depiction. I don't know the area well enough to decide. But there is a ring of veracity in every word. This caused me to puzzle about the meth thing. How much does Oates actually now about it? But that's none of my business.
The "problems" of the novel are the events -- the seeming inevitables of working, poor, struggling, carelessly educated individuals. These people are limited/trapped -- not aspirational in my view - not people I would want to love or care for. Oates serves up these dullards in agonizingly necessary details -- very necessary.
Twenty-four hours after finishing I read the last five or so pages again -- not wanting the end, but agreeing that this is where the end comes for this story. I like that she left the way she did. It satisfied. I want to read something, but am relectant to start another novel until I have digested this one. I think I'd like to begin it again -- right away.
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