Man Crazy. by Joyce Carol Oates

I have read many books by Joyce Carol Oates. She may be the first contemporary writer that I have accorded a special position in my mind. That's because she can create characters and situations that touch me, that I can recognize, identify. Characters whose lives sometimes make me cry. I don't usually leave a book behind if it was written by her.

This one differs from many of her others in that it is surprisingly short. The chapters are short and announced with full-page separators, making the number of words total even smaller than you'd think from hefting the book. She is capable of creating whole worlds full of intimate detail, thus drawing me in and captivating me. I can't say that about this one, although it does contain some elements of the others that have held my attention longer.

As most of her novels are, this one is set in upper New York state, and involves a young girl, then woman, whose origins are less than ideal. Oates herself grew up in a family of few means. Even if she did not herself experience the same kinds of pressures her characters do, she was undoubtedly close to those who did. The young woman in this story is naturally beautiful, similar to her striking mother, but she works hard to destroy that beauty.

Why? I think it all begins with her father. Something of a larger-than-life character, Ingrid Boone's father flits in and out of Ingrid's life, appearing out of the blue and then disappearing just as fast. A veteran of the Vietnam War, he learned how to pilot a plane and how to kill, and he uses both skills back in the "civilized" world. As a young girl Ingrid adores her father and can't understand why he keeps leaving her. Eventually it becomes clear and Ingrid's eyes are no longer clouded by her love. Yet there is always something there.

Ingrid's mother brings other men into their lives as a way of helping to stabilize their household. Usually she cares for them but we are not fooled into thinking she loves them unconditionally. Her presence represents a threat to married women in the different small towns where they live, and then move from. She has few women friends, many men.

As Ingrid grows and becomes more attractive, she becomes obsessed with friends. She takes to counting her friends in her mind, even as she suspects that none are true friends, that they talk behind her back. She finds popularity of different kinds, yet is always suspicious. An intelligent girl, she is nonetheless careless about her homework and thus is valued only by one teacher. This one sees the promise in Ingrid's poetry. When Ingrid wins a prize for one of her poems, she does not think the poem worth it, and when she is chosen to read it in front of the school the idea frightens her into committing a strange act. Poetry has not given her a way out.

Meanwhile, she digs at her face. Pimples, blackheads, mosquito bites, imagined or real. Her fingers cannot keep from seeking them out and digging, until her face is a moon surface. Yet it comes and goes: sometimes she looks like any other teen plagued with acne.

In this state she meets Enoch Skaggs, the leader of a strange cult of often-murderous followers who will do anything for him. Skaggs has three "wives" already when he takes on Ingrid as a lesser lover, to be loaned to other men from time to time. In spite of the dirty, unsanitary, often cruel conditions, Ingrid is drawn to Enoch like, as they say, a moth to the flame. She accepts his cruel treatment, the abuses and uses of others, until a time comes when she is thrown into the basement of the house where they all live, and left there with little food or other attention for many days, as punishment for some action of hers.

By then heavily into drugs, she has few resources. But she has some. Perhaps from memories of good times with her father, even perhaps memories of some small affection from her mother. Somehow, in spite of the hands she was dealt she has something inside her that wants to live. 

Rape: A Love Story, by Joyce Carol Oates

At times I like the spare, abrupt prose Oates sometimes uses. At other times I feel it distances me from the subjects. I had difficulty this time, not being able to connect closely to the rape victim, her daughter, or their unusual "benefactor". Nevertheless, I was compelled to keep reading.

This is a story of horrific violence, not only the rape itself but so far beyond. And not just violence that's physical, but perhaps the worst kind, the emotional kind, the type that separates people from a community that we'd hope would support them. The victim is from "the other side of the tracks", familiar ground for Oates, who grew up herself in poverty. She knows the ground well and at times forces us to look at our prejudices, as she does here. For this we can be grateful to this prolific and often deeply moving writer.

You Must Remember This, by Joyce Carol Oates

One of the good things about reading Joyce Carol Oates' novels, for me, is that she is so prolific and I have read so few of her books. I was taken by the first I read, I don't even remember which it was, and have scooped up those that have crossed my path since. Oddly I have not ordered them specifically, just found them on shelves in used book stores and in book boxes and in bookcrossing zones.

I had not heard of this particular book and it sat on my shelf for quite some time. Finally its time came.

Some of the critics' comments, on the cover and inside, suggest that this is one of her best, possibly her best. It may be. Written in the 1980s, though, probably not. There have been so many since.

The main character is Enid Marie. She is young, growing up in the 1950s in a small town in upstate New York. The 1950s she lives through certainly remind me of those I lived through as well, although I am eight years younger than she. Small towns in this country perhaps resembled each other, wherever they were, in that time. In the fifties television was just catching on and larger incidents and political decisions were reaching the general public as never before. It was the time after the Atomic bomb and there was no escaping the speculation and the fear. I remember my own nightmares of that time. Much of this time in this novel is familiar, and not in a warm and fuzzy way.

Thus we have Enid, a bright and curious and strong child, growing up Catholic in a world when certain things were not spoken about, a cloud covered certain topics. She is a quiet child, a good child, except for a part of her known as "Angel Face", a part of her willing to take risks, a part that laughs at the world. Is it this part that finds a certain attraction to her young uncle?

Bit by bit, through her eyes and through his, we see Enid and her uncle Felix find each other, resist the pull and finally we see Felix break through when drunk and - what word do we use? molest? rape? These are true, this is what happened, yet as in Lolita it isn't necessarily simple. Yes, I blame him for not holding back, but I also see her forwardness and understand it as well.

Fifteen-year-old Enid has an affair with her uncle, twice her age. She hides it well, she feels the emotional pull as strongly as perhaps only a teen can. The two are discreet, finding places to be together where nobody cares. And so it continues. The scenes are so real as to be breathtaking. I am there when I read them, I am Enid. I know her although she is not me, not really.

We meet not only Enid but her uncle, and we follow him around on his business dealings. We meet her father Lyle, owner of a used furniture store, scraping by, and we meet, less closely, her mother, her sisters, and a bit more closely we see her brother Warren. Each is affected by the time, the events, the possibilities and the problems. Each springs to life here, genuine, accurate.

It may be that because I lived through the fifties I felt this novel deeply. I think, too, though, that I felt it because of my own character and experiences, some of which might well have been shared by others not my age. Enid's experiences reminded me of some of my own, different yet of the same intensity and with the same shame. A book that brings part of me back to myself is a book I consider great.

The Gravedigger's Daughter, by Joyce Carol Oates

The gravedigger's daughter takes on several names over her lifetime in her attempts to escape her past. The effort is a strain that she is willing to bear until near the end, when she tries to recover a bit of what was lost.

Rebecca Schwart grows up in a cemetery, the daughter of a European immigrant who had to escape Germany to save his family's life. Rebecca is born on the ship in the New York harbor, the first of the family to become an American citizen. The event brings additional hardship to the small family, however, as her father Jacob can only find work digging graves for miserly wages. His employers give him a run-down stone house on the cemetery grounds to live in and seem to believe they are doing him a favor.

While Jacob is careful to express his gratitude and subservience to his employers, inside he seethes with resentment. In Europe he had held respectable jobs and was able to provide well for his family. He tells his wife Anna that he will get them out of there within a year, that they will save and better themselves. To that end he starts a private savings account and carefully puts away bits of his wages regularly.

Because they are no longer in the "old country" Jacob insists that Anna speak only English. She is embarrassed at her speech and does not make friends easily. As time goes on she becomes more and more insulated from the outside world and cares less and less about her house and her family.

There is one time when she regains her hope and excitement: when her sister's family is expected to arrive from Europe and to live with them. Rebecca joins in the excitement and fantasizes about the "new sister" she hopes will share her bed.

Rebecca determines to learn her way out of the graveyard. She suffers from the verbal and physical abuse of her classmates, who look down on her torn and dirty clothes and laugh at her name.

It is perhaps not surprising that a difficult childhood like this one might make a woman strong, untrusting, and wary of others. Yet yearning for intimacy. And so it does with Rebecca. As an adult she makes her way determinedly out of the shade of her childhood. This determination leads to some decisions that later cause further pain and isolate her even more.

The events in the book take place over many years, and the story is developed by several steps into different periods of Rebecca's life and the life of her son. The characters in this story are beautifully constructed. The voices are true, and reflect almost too well the time and place and circumstances. There is no holding back, no softening of the edges. While we may root for Rebecca we don't always love her. We certainly don't love some of the men in her life. Mostly, though, we can't help but feel her pain in wanting a past she could not have.