About this item
Highlights
- New York Times Bestselling AuthorFinally returned to print in a beautiful trade paperback edition, a haunting gothic tale that illuminates the fortunes and misfortunes of a 19th-century immigrant family of confidence artists--a story of morality, duplicity, and retribution that explores the depths of human manipulation and vulnerability “Oates . . . rarely falters throughout this epic. . . .
- Author(s): Joyce Carol Oates
- 624 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Historical
Description
About the Book
Mythic in scope and ballad-like in the telling, "My Heart Laid Bare" is the sweeping saga of the fortunes and misfortunes of a family of enterprising confidence artists in 19th-century America.Book Synopsis
New York Times Bestselling Author
Finally returned to print in a beautiful trade paperback edition, a haunting gothic tale that illuminates the fortunes and misfortunes of a 19th-century immigrant family of confidence artists--a story of morality, duplicity, and retribution that explores the depths of human manipulation and vulnerability
“Oates . . . rarely falters throughout this epic. . . . An American tragedy.”--People
“My Heart Laid Bare shows Oates at her most playful, extravagant and inventive.”--The San Francisco Chronicle
The patriarch of the Licht family, Abraham has raised a brood of talented con artists, children molded in his image, and experts in The Game, his calling and philosophy of life. Traveling from one small town to the next across the continent, from the Northeast to the frontier West, they skillfully swindle unsuspecting victims, playing on their greed, lust, pride, and small-mindedness. Despite their success, Abraham cannot banish a past that haunts him: the ghost of his ancestor Sarah Licht, a former con woman who met with a gruesome fate.
As Abraham moves his family from town to town, involving them in more and more complex and impressive schemes, he finds himself caught between the specter of Sarah and the growing terrors of his present. As his carefully crafted lies and schemes begin to fracture and disintegrate before his eyes, Abraham discovers that the bond of family is as tenuous and treacherous as the tricks he perpetrates upon unsuspecting strangers.
From the Back Cover
Finally returned to print in a beautiful paperback edition, a haunting gothic tale of a nineteenth-century immigrant family of confidence artists--a story of morality, duplicity, and retribution that explores the depths of human manipulation and vulnerability
The patriarch of the Licht family, Abraham has raised a brood of talented con artists, children molded in his image, and experts in The Game, his calling and philosophy of life. Traveling from one small town to the next across the continent, from the Northeast to the frontier West, they skillfully swindle unsuspecting victims, playing on their greed, lust, pride, and small-mindedness. Despite their success, Abraham cannot banish a past that haunts him: the ghost of his ancestor Sarah Licht, a former con woman who met with a gruesome fate.
As Abraham involves his family in more and more complex and impressive schemes, he finds himself caught between the specter of Sarah and the growing terrors of his present. While his carefully crafted lies and schemes begin to fracture and disintegrate before his eyes, Abraham discovers that the bond of family is as tenuous and treacherous as the tricks he perpetrates upon unsuspecting strangers.
Review Quotes
Praise for Joyce Carol Oates: "Novels of a size and scope this ambitious can easily collapse under their own weight, unless constructed by a skilled architect of tone and narrative. Fortunately, the author's instinct is sure and solid, audaciously original but rooted in an idiom linking it with the towering influences of past generations." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Frisky and bitingly ironic. . . . It's impossible to resist the pull of Oates's lush narrative. Abraham Licht is unforgettable. As chief orchestrator of a family's misbehaviors, he becomes the quintessential silver fox, a rogue to remember." -- Publishers Weekly
"Following her early historical Gothic novels such as Bellefleur, Oates explores America's meeting the Fricks, Morgans, and Rockefellers while facing the Great War, the roaring Twenties, and the stock market crash. With a smooth, stylish narrative, she investigates the relationship between deception and morality and in the process paints an alternative vision of that period. Highly recommended." -- Library Journal
"One of her most inventive and entertaining yet. The story is a surprisingly deft allegory of the formation and fortunes of the American republic, spanning three centuries and the history of a family of resourceful scalawags who embody the seductive charm and adroit criminality of their inchoate country as it shapes its own destiny. . . . Oates juggles all this high-concept hugger-mugger expertly, springing one amusing narrative surprise after another while also working an impressive amount of US history into the fabric of her extravagantly colorful characters' adventures. Nor is her manifest (though never obtrusive) theme neglected: This being a persuasive vision of an America founded on violence, miscegenation, and rapacious self-interest. That the result is also irresistibly comic is so much frosting on a sumptuous cake and one of the most inviting products of Oates's incomparably rich imagination." -- Kirkus Reviews