About this item
Highlights
- Herein is the unexpurgated first-person narrative of nineteen-year-old Skyler Rampike, the only surviving child of an "infamous" American family destroyed a decade ago by the murder of Skyler's six-year-old ice-skating champion sister, Bliss, and the media scrutiny that followed.
- Author(s): Joyce Carol Oates
- 592 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Family Life
Description
About the Book
"New York Times"-bestselling author Oates is back with this dark, wry, captivating tale, inspired by an unsolved true-crime mystery.Book Synopsis
Herein is the unexpurgated first-person narrative of nineteen-year-old Skyler Rampike, the only surviving child of an "infamous" American family destroyed a decade ago by the murder of Skyler's six-year-old ice-skating champion sister, Bliss, and the media scrutiny that followed. Part investigation into the unsolved murder, part elegy for the lost Bliss and for his own lost childhood, Skyler's narrative is an alternately harrowing and corrosively funny exposé of upper-middle-class American pretensions--and an unexpectedly subtle and sympathetic exploration of those who dwell in "Tabloid Hell."
Review Quotes
"Employing her powerful imagination, the gifted Oates gets inside her fictional characters' tormented souls to solve the case...as a literary exercise, it deserves a rave...she brilliantly depicts status-obsessed parents who alternately push and ignore their deeply unhappy children." -- USA Today
"Oates is in top form as she creates a narrative voice that is bitter and humorous yet sympathetic, building to a dramatic and satisfying resolution." -- Library Journal
"Oates is just a fearless writer...[with] her brave heart and her impossibly lush and dead-on imaginative powers." -- Los Angeles Times
"Joyce Carol Oates's uncompromising prose illuminates the stark landscape of our times." -- Chicago Tribune
"The Gravedigger's Daughter is Joyce Carol Oates at her very best: mesmerizing, intense and unique in her vision and power." -- Scott Turow
"...Oates confidently delivers another very American saga of lurid misfortune." -- Entertainment Weekly
"...This book is easy to admire... my reaction was..."Wow: What a writer."" -- Seattle Times
"...there is much to admire in this bittersweet tale of one woman's triumph of the will...engaging..." -- New York Times
"...a writer of furious gifts..." -- New Jersey Star Ledger
"Oates' vivid descriptions fill the senses...what is strong is Oates' compassionate, disturbing portrayal of life in the troubled war years..." -- USA Today
"There is much to admire in this bittersweet tale of one woman's triumph of will." -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"Oates' vivid descriptions fill the senses...what is strong is Oates' compassionate, disturbing portrayal of life in the troubled war years..." -- Louisville Courier Journal
"...there is much to admire in this bittersweet tale of one woman's triumph of the will...engaging..." -- Contra Costa Times
"Joyce Carol Oates is one of the great writers of our time." -- John Gardner
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