Black Water: The Senator, The Girl, The Accident - Softcover

Oates, Joyce Carol

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451177916 ISBN 13: 9780451177919

Publisher: Penguin Group, 1993

Synopsis

The Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel from the author of the New York Times bestselling novel We Were the Mulvaneys

“Taut, powerfully imagined and beautifully written, Black Water ranks with the best of Joyce Carol Oates's already long list of distinguished achievements. It can be read in a single afternoon, but, like every good book, it continues to haunt us.”—The New York Times

Joyce Carol Oates has taken a shocking story that has become an American myth and, from it, has created a novel of electrifying power and illumination. Kelly 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 a surreal nightmare; in a tragic car ride that we hope against hope will not end as we know it must end. One of the acknowledged masters of American fiction, Joyce Carol Oates has written a bold tour de force that parts the black water to reveal the profoundest depths of human truth.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Based on National Book Award-winner Joyce Carol Oates' novella about the Chappaquiddick scandal, this tragic and beautiful opera enthralls as a handsome senator uses his power to enchant, seduce, and carelessly destroy. Composed by John Duffy with libretto by Joyce Carol Oates. An L.A. Theatre Works full cast performance featuring: David Lee Brewer as Lucius Smith Reid Bruton as Roy Annick Stephanie Buckley as Buffy St. John Karen Burlingame as Kelly Kelleher Kimberly Graham as Jenny O'Brien Linda Kerns as Michelle Ravel Erin Langston as Sarah O'Connor Patrick Mason as The Senator John Savarese as Dwight Murphy Rob Shacklett as Graeme Winthrop Original music performed by Alan Johnson on the piano, Linda Wang on the violin, and Stanley Sharp on the cello. Directed by Gordon Hunt. Recorded before a live audience at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles in July of 1998.

About the Author:

In addition to many prize-winning and bestselling novels, including We Were the Mulvaneys, Black Water, Because It Is Bitter and Because It Is My Heart, and Broke Heart Blues, Joyce Carol Oates is the author of a number of works of gothic fiction including Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque, a World Fantasy Award nominee; and Zombie, winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Novel, awarded by the Horror Writers' Association. In 1994, Oates received the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award in Horror Fiction. She is the editor of American Gothic Tales. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0451177916
• ISBN 13: 9780451177919
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1