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The firs time I heard about the so-called Chappaquiddick incident was in college. It was right after Ted Kennedy died, and we were talking about it in one of my classes, and we got around to the various Kennedy scandals, and then my professor remarked, "you know, everyone on the news keeps talking about all the good things that Ted Kennedy did during his life - no one's mentioned how he was responsible for a woman's death."Here are the facts: on the night of July 18th 1969, Ted Kennedy left a pa...
Compelling and desperately sad, I read this in one sitting, and am now left feeling suffocated and horrified. It's an oppressive and repetitive book, which I think will stay with me for a long while.
A very long time ago in a distant land known as the 90's, I was working with a woman who also liked to read during her lunch. She asked me if I had any interest in going with her to hear an author she liked go speak. I had never heard of this Joyce Carol Oats woman. (Seriously.) So we went to this huge church in St. Paul and the place was packed. I was surprised - This many people for some author? Hu. Cool. (I know - I was young and pretty darn clueless.) We were all just sitting there and then
Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates’ fictional take on the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident, is a searing and poetic look at the final, desperate moments of a life and what is revealed when a human is cut to her very core.I did feel this novella was just a bit repetitive — as has been pointed out by other reviews on here — but maybe that’s the point. Maybe Oates is going for a spiraling free form: a feeling probably not unlike the sensation of drowning over a span of hours.This quick read cuts like a kni...
I appreciate the concept/conceit of this novel: giving a voice to the woman who died in the notorious Chappaquidick accident which briefly engulfed Ted Kennedy's life in scandal. A scandal, which largely sensationalized the life of Mary Jo Kopechne, who died in a car accident whose circumstances are reasonably suspect. But Oates' novel (or what I can recall, having read it in high school), seems less intent on realizing Kopechne's life as it is intent on villainizing Ted Kennedy or rather the ar...
Black Water, Joyce Carol OatesKelly Kelleher is an idealistic, twenty-six-year-old “good girl” when she meets the Senator at a Fourth of July party. In a brilliantly woven narrative, we enter her past and her present, her mind and her body as she is fatally attracted to this older man, this hero, this soon-to-be-lover. Kelly becomes the very embodiment of the vulnerable, romantic dreams of bright and brave women, drawn to the power that certain men command—at a party that takes on the quality of...
Impressive, poignant. At the top of her game, THIS is quintessential Joyce Carol Oates!The entire novel is about one single awful AWFUL moment, where everything that splinters from it & before it takes place. It's as short as her "Blonde" is long: both hit you viscerally hard. Crystallizing that dreadful moment impeccably.
Cautious interwinement of different time modes and perspectives held a lot of promise. Parts of the plot were carefully strung into a captivating, fight-for-breath whole. Along with the lack of misplaced words and clutter, it was what made the flow neat and tidy, but also what opened the possibility of its pitfall. By definition, stringing pieces in a sequence involves staying within the narrow line and connecting similar components. The same happened to the story - the auspicious start did not
Oates has taken the tragic story of Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick and novelized it. And she did a great job. Finally, we can see, at least in theory, the fear and pain that Mary Jo ('Kelly') went through while Ted Kennedy ('The Senator') worked to cover his deadly actions.For so long the incident at Chappaquiddick has focused on Kennedy and most people don't even recognize the name 'Mary Jo Kopechne'. With this work by Joyce Carol Oates we can finally get a glimpse of the st...
Short, gripping book, with an unusual composition, based on a real event (that I hadn't heard of but I guess it is well known to Americans). The book starts with a chapter that is just one paragraph long, describing a car going off the road and ending up in a river. The subsequent chapters are all short, often only a couple of pages. For each chapter we move slightly back in time, or slightly forward; we get a new or wider angle, slowly more insight into the thoughts and actions of the passenger...
Although the Chappaquiddick incident was before my time, Kennedy hagiography wasn't. Still isn't. That myth of Camelot stuff. I hate it. If I'd moved up to Massachusetts any earlier than I did, Ted Kennedy would have been my senator. Although I am a Democrat and agreed with a lot of the work he did, I don't know that I could have voted for him. I reflexively vote against all Kennedys, always. Because of stuff like Chappaquiddick and its aftermath.It's a case where there was probably never going
Spare, beautifully-written roman à clef about the Ted Kennedy Chappaquiddick incident. I love how Oates chose to frame the narration and though the book is short, the main character Kelly Kelleher is fully realized. Her actions, reactions, and decisions felt true. Loved this.
