Joyce Carol Oates: where to start?

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she's so prolific, it's rather intimidating. and reading the wrong book first can spoil one's impression of an author. so help me out, please: where's a good place to dive in? or avoid diving in? what kinds of different "eras" has she gone through?

― j. pantsman, Sunday, 5 October 2003 00:20 (twenty-one years ago)

A former research assistant to Professor Harold Bloom reports to me this overheard exchange between Vidal and Bloom: "Harold, what are the three ugliest words in the English language?"
Bloom, "I don't know, what?"
Vidal, "Joyce Carol Oates."

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 5 October 2003 00:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Good question -- I've been curious myself, for the same reasons. The only thing I've read is that much-anthologized short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" -- or whatever it's called.

― jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, 5 October 2003 01:46 (twenty-one years ago)

The only of hers I can remember reading is "Heat," the short story she included in the Oxford American short stories collection. so presumably that's one of her own that she is proud of, and I can sort of vaguely remember that it was about a young girl, and her dead mother, and a visiting young man, I think? or maybe I'm confusing it with another story in that volume...it's quite a tome. so I'd like to sample something a little more memorable...

― j. pantsman, Sunday, 5 October 2003 04:43 (twenty-one years ago)

'Because It Is Bitter, And Because It Is My Heart'

and/or

'You Must Remember This'

I read them a long time ago and I can't remember which one has a boxing element in it, but that's the one I'd go for. The other one has a basketball element.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Sunday, 5 October 2003 19:58 (twenty-one years ago)

PJ's first suggestion is a good one, but I'd recommend the short, very intense and pretty characteristic (in some ways - she's a varied writer) Dark Water, unless it's called Black Water. I think she's a great writer, certainly one of my top ten favourite living authors, though I've only read a fraction of her insanely huge output - she's surely the most productive serious literary writer ever, by a good margin. What is it now, nearly 90 books in just over 40 years? Lots of fat ones in there too.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 5 October 2003 20:43 (twenty-one years ago)

She's the most varied writer I can think of. So I think rather than trying to pick the absolutely right one first off you might be better to recognise that if the first you read doesn't grab you it would be worth trying another. I quite liked Foxfire, for what it's worth. Which is about a girl gang in the fifties.

Sometimes I think she is suspect for deliberately messing around with genres. It seems know it all, like she thinks she's above every other writer. And I don't like the grotesque element too much.

― isadora (isadora), Monday, 6 October 2003 02:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh... I thought this was a "How can we get rid of this driveling cancerous pest?" thread and I was going to suggest we sew her fingers together, then head for her mouth, but I see... OK, I'm going back to the "Sensitive People Are Bastards etc." thread.

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Monday, 6 October 2003 02:40 (twenty-one years ago)

foxfire

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 6 October 2003 02:42 (twenty-one years ago)

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