Oates paints a dark vision of America as a land where love of money is the root of everything and people are doomed to repeat their crimes. Oates, who rarely falters throughout this epic, does offer glimmers of justice and hope. But ultimately she has written an American tragedy.

So much more than the kind of standard-issue unreliable narrator, Georgene is a vastly complex character whose every word, every use of parentheses and italics, must be examined closely for intent. A thematically and stylistically ambitious novel that displays the author’s literary gifts to their maximum effect.

Oates paints an unflinching portrait of 1970s upper-middle-class America, touching on issues of racism, classism, and institutional abuse while exploring society’s tendency to value women solely in relation to the role they fill—be it wife, mother, or sexual object. A searing work of slow-burning domestic noir.

“Breathe” is a fever dream of a novel, and it’s as an allegory of grief that it most sparkles.

A Novel by Joyce Carol Oates The bonds of family are tested in the wake of a profound tragedy, providing a look at the darker side of our society. Night. […]

By Joyce Carol Oates When a bullet strikes a powerful political figure, when the burial rites are over and done with, when all that remains of that great promise is […]