Broke Heart Blues: A Novel

The much-anticipated reissue of a novel that is one of Joyce Carol Oates’s personal favorites among her oeuvre; featuring a new afterword by Oates

IN THE HEART OF A LANGUID JULY, ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD JOHN REDDY HEART drives a traffic-stopping, salmon-colored Cadillac into the quiet upstate town of Willowsville, New York. His mother, Dahlia Heart, a blackjack dealer, has brought her family east from Las Vegas to claim the rambling mansion left to her by a wealthy suitor.

But it is John Reddy—alread...