I started reading Joyce Carol Oates in the 1970s. I liked her work but soon discovered that she, like Stephen King, could write 'em faster than I could read 'em—if I wanted to do anything else besides read her books. So I stopped. Then, nine or ten years ago, I picked her back up and have been keeping abreast of her writing ever since. (Either she's writing less or I'm reading more. Not sure which.)
The one thing about Oates' writing that impressed me in the 1970s and does so now is that in every book there's a section of around a hundred pages that grip me so strongly that I can't put the book down. I remember noticing that in an early book called them, and it's true in her latest, The Gravedigger's Daughter, which I just finished. In this one the hundred gripping pages occur when the protagonist, Rebecca (later Hazel), lives through a horrendous marriage. Sadly for the novel—if not for Rebecca/Hazel—is that she has the good sense to leave the marriage, an action which effectively ends the best part of the novel. IMHO.
The epilogue of The Gravedigger's Daughter surprised me when I recognized it as one of the short stories in Oates' High Lonesome, which I read a few months ago. The tale, a series of letters between a retired woman in Florida and a professor in California—was pretty unimpressive as a short story; it's a little better—but only a little—as an epilogue.
Fans of Joyce Carol Oates will probably like The Gravedigger's Daughter. Of the two of hers I've read recently, I'd recommend High Lonesome.
