Black Water

"Black Water" is one of Joyce Carol Oates' masterpieces. Being predisposed to lean toward her short fiction, I was surprised to find myself so in love with this book. To answer a few questions, yes it does bring to mind a certain senator who is a member of "America's Royal Family." And yes, it does completely abandon the traditional guidelines for storytelling. Howecer, only a truly magnificent writer can take these rules... Read Full Review

Joyce Carol Oates presents the reader with a simple story in "black water" !!In every chapter, there are thrilling sentences that left this reader in awe of Oates's strength as a writer.„If you're looking for a book different from many others in the way it's written, I would Black Water." ...

This novel was one of extensive study by my part, and the more I read, the more I appreciated the fear, the possible real life correlation to a US senator, and the momentum in which Oates carries us through the scene of this horrible accident. The entire novel is barely a hundred and fifty pages, separated by thirty-two chapters. The speed and the brevity in which she writes makes it all the more believable, and is in my opinion... Read Full Review

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... Read Full Review

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... Read Full Review