Rape : A Love Story - Hardcover

Joyce Carol Oates

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1843544121 ISBN 13: 9781843544128

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2005

Synopsis

Teena Maguire should not have tried to shortcut her way home that Fourth of July. Not after midnight, not through Rocky Point Park. Not the way she was dressed: tank top, denim cut-offs, high-heeled sandals. Not with her twelve-year-old daughter, Bethie. Not with packs of local guys running loose on hormones, rage, and alco

About this title

About the Author:

Joyce Carol Oates, a National Book Award winner, is the author of numerous works of fiction including We Were the Mulvaneys which was an Oprah Book Club Choice and Blonde which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her books have been translated into many languages and her short stories widely anthologized. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. Atlantic Books published Rape: A Love Story in 2005.

From Publishers Weekly:

Prolific Oates (We Were the Mulvaneys; Beast; etc.) explores sexual violence and its aftermath in this taut, harrowing novella. Teena Maguire, a pretty, 30-something widow, is on her way home from a party when she is beaten, gang-raped and left for dead. She survives the attack, which her 12-year-old daughter Bethie witnesses, but as only a husk of her former self ("That pathetic woman," she thinks of herself, "they should have finished the job"). It is to Bethie, then, that the task of caring for her falls: "If Momma could sleep, that was good. It was your duty to let her sleep." Oates draws on shifting, often fragmentary points of view to tell the story of the days before and after the rape, including that of Teena's lover, Ray Casey, whose feelings have changed since the attack; Walt Pick, the father of two of the rapists; Harriet Diebenkorn, the deputy prosecutor who fails Teena in the preliminary hearing; and Bethie, whose affecting chapters are written in the second person. Redemption of a sort is offered in the form of John Dromoor, a young police officer whose concern for Teena is matched by his desire for justice. When a slick Buffalo defense lawyer devastates Teena on the witness stand, Dromoor takes matters into his own hands. This is where the story truly chills, as the attackers fret about their future and Dromoor slowly exacts a cool vengeance. The love story is Bethie's-a haunting affection born of a terrible crime. The effects linger, despite the book's brevity.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1843544121
• ISBN 13: 9781843544128
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 154