"Here, in a stream of intimate correspondence with another writer, we witness the workings of Joyce Carol Oates's vast mind and great heart. We are the recipients of her frank opinions of current events, cultural tides, and writers in moral decline. We are privy to her daily life, her forays into different literary forms, her indignation over class injustice, and her in-the-moment impulse to write stories that contain the conflicted subconscious of our country. I am touched by her fondness for friends, her kindness toward new writers, her doubts about her work, and her criticism of her early writings. And, oh, what an abundance of wit and humor! Oates's letters are clearly among the best of the epistolatory canon, providing rare insight and surprising revelations that enable us to better understand what underlies her great body of work. For this writer, they are a touchstone of inspiration."
This rich compilation of Joyce Carol Oates's letters across four decades displays her warmth and generosity, her droll and sometimes wicked sense of humor, her phenomenal energy, and most of all, her mastery of the lost art of letter writing.
In this generous selection of Joyce Carol Oates's letters to her biographer and friend Greg Johnson, readers will discover a never-before-seen dimension of her phenomenal talent.
In 1975, when Johnson was a graduate student, he first wrote to Oates, already a world-famous author, and drew an appreciative, empathetic response. Soon the two began a fairly intense, largely epistolary friendship that would last until the present day. As time passed, letters became faxes, and faxes became emails, but the energy and vividness of Oates's writing never abated. Her letters were often sprinkled with the names of well-known public figures, from John Updike and Toni Morrison to Steve Martin and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. There are also descriptions of far-flung travels she undertook with her first husband, the scholar and editor Raymond Smith, and with her second, the distinguished Princeton neuroscientist Charlie Gross. But much of Oates's prose centered on the pleasures of her home life, including her pet cats and the wildlife outside her study window.
Whereas her academic essays and book reviews are eloquent in a formal manner, in these letters she is wholly relaxed, even when she is serious in her concerns. Like Johnson, she was always engaged in work, whether a long novel or a brief essay, and the letters give a fascinating glimpse into Oates's writing practice.
This rich compilation of Joyce Carol Oates's letters across four decades displays her warmth and generosity, her droll and sometimes wicked sense of humor, her phenomenal energy, and most of all, her mastery of the lost art of letter writing.
In this generous selection of Joyce Carol Oates's letters to her biographer and friend Greg Johnson, readers will discover a never-before-seen dimension of her phenomenal talent.
In 1975, when Johnson was a graduate student, he first wrote to Oates, already a world-famous author, and drew an appreciative, empathetic response. Soon the two began a fairly intense, largely epistolary friendship that would last until the present day. As time passed, letters became faxes, and faxes became emails, but the energy and vividness of Oates's writing never abated. Her letters were often sprinkled with the names of well-known public figures, from John Updike and Toni Morrison to Steve Martin and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. There are also descriptions of far-flung travels she undertook with her first husband, the scholar and editor Raymond Smith, and with her second, the distinguished Princeton neuroscientist Charlie Gross. But much of Oates's prose centered on the pleasures of her home life, including her pet cats and the wildlife outside her study window.
Whereas her academic essays and book reviews are eloquent in a formal manner, in these letters she is wholly relaxed, even when she is serious in her concerns. Like Johnson, she was always engaged in work, whether a long novel or a brief essay, and the letters give a fascinating glimpse into Oates's writing practice.
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940192867655 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Everand Productions |
| Publication date: | 05/27/2025 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Videos
