Novels by Joyce Carol Oates (Study Guide) - Black Water, Middle Age: A Romance, Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, Blonde (Paperback)

This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Black Water, Middle Age: a Romance, Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, Blonde, the Gravedigger's Daughter, Them, We Were the Mulvaneys, I'll Take You There, Wonderland, Man Crazy, Sexy, the Falls, a Garden of Earthly Delights, Zombie, My Sister, My Love, Beasts, You Must Remember This, Bellefleur, My Heart Laid Bare, American Appetites, With Shuddering Fall, After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Black Water is a 1992 novella by Joyce Carol Oates. Kelly Kelleher, a twenty-six-year-old magazine writer, meets a United States Senator on whom she wrote her thesis at a Fourth of July party. "The Senator," as he is referred to in the novel (and transparently an analogue for Ted Kennedy at Chappaquiddick), plans to take her to his hotel for a romantic rendezvous, but a car accident plunges them into a swampy marsh. The story is primarily told in prolepsis. The book begins with Kelly Kelleher in a car that is plunging into mucky, swampy, "black water." We learn the events that led up to the accident in flashbacks as she is drowning: Kelly Kelleher attends a Fourth of July party hosted by her friend Buffy St. John and her (Buffy's) boyfriend/lover, Ray Annick. She is planning to stay with Buffy and Ray at their home for the entire weekend. Buffy is the "more worldly" of the two young women; the irony in this is that it is completely out of character for Kelly to get herself into such a situation. Ray has invited "The Senator" about whom Kelly wrote her graduate thesis. He immediately is interested in her sexually; he pays attention solely to her as the party drags on, and they discuss their common political beliefs. He follows her to the beach where he kisses h...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=744728