A haunting new novel from one of America's most prolific and respected novelists. Mudgirl is a child abandoned by her mother in the silty flats of the Black Snake River. Cast aside, Mudgirl survives by an accident of fate - or destiny. After her rescue, she will slowly forget her own origin, her past erased, her future uncertain. The well-meaning couple who adopt Mudgirl quarantine her poisonous history behind the barrier of their Quaker values: compassion, modesty, and hard work - seemingly sealing it off forever. But the bulwark of the present proves surprisingly vulnerable to the agents of the past. Meredith 'M.R.' Neukirchen is the first woman president of a prestigious Ivy League university whose commitment to her career and moral fervor for her role are all-consuming.
Praise for 'Mudwoman': 'Oates is the most agile and effective of poets, able to pin down a moment while never compromising on pacing or atmosphere ! Oates is a dangerous writer in the best sense of the word, one who takes risks almost obsessively with energy and relish. For a writer in her early 70s, she continues to be wonderfully, unnervingly anarchic, experimental, angry. As if her aim were not to satisfy or entertain -- though she always does both -- but to do the vandalistic prose equivalent of spray-painting or setting fire to bins in public parks.' New York Times 'There is no mistaking a Joyce Carol Oates story for anyone else's! Not just their virtuosity, but also their aura of menace makes them hers! We think of Oates, like Poe, as a master of terror, but her real mastery is in almost never depicting a strong emotion in isolation! Oates [is]! a fearless experimenter forcing the reader ahead of her at knifepoint' Los Angeles Times Praise for Joyce Carol Oates: 'Joyce Carol Oates is a writer who always takes your breath away' Mail on Sunday 'Oates is a writer of extraordinary strengths. Her great subject, naturally, is love' Guardian 'Oates is an inspired writer, and a formidable psychologist. She has a thrilling way of grasping an emotion, wasting no time and launching herself straight at the aching heart of the matter' Independent 'Oates's prose contains a deep felt rawness which hovers between hope, despair and love' Guardian
Title: Mudwoman
Subtitle:
Contributors:
By (author)
Joyce Carol Oates
ISBN 13: 9780007467655
ISBN 10: 0007467656
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Imprint: Fourth Estate Ltd
Publication Date: 1/04/2012
Place of Publication:
London,
United Kingdom
Edition:
BIC Subjects:
Modern fiction
NBS Classification: General & Literary Fiction
Dewey Classification:
813.54
(DC23)
Format: Hardback
Pages: 448
Height: 240mm
Width: 159mm
Weight: 806g