Dang! (I'm being folksy 'cause we all know folksy is where it's at these days.) (Now I'm trying out a technique Joyce Carol Oates uses frequently in
My Sister, My Love, specifically parenthetical phrase after parenthetical phrase after etc.) (I found it quite annoying to read.) (Surprise. Not! It's just annoying to write.)
Anyway, you've probably figured out the book in question in Oates's latest,
My Sister, My Love. General impressions:
1) It's too long, WAY TOO LONG, clocking in at 562 pages. And, to add insult to injury, pages 429 through 479 are a YA novella about one character's adventures in boarding schools for psychologically challenged teens. But I did read it. Every dang word!
2) Then there's the subject matter itself.
My Sister, My Love is Oates's fictionalized version of the Jon Benet Ramsey murder. Oh, Oates made several changes. Bliss, Oates's answer to Jon Benet, is a child prodigy ice skater rather than a pint-sized beauty queen. Hey. At least it provides a better reason, IMHO, for her to be made-up like a miniature prostitute. The reader is, however, aware of what color ruffled panties are part of every costume she wears.
3) And there's the slant. The story is told through the eyes of Skyler Rampike, Bliss' older brother. I remember an older brother in the actual crime, but again details are changed. Skyler is nine when his six-year-old sister is killed. Oates tells his story through flashbacks and discoveries that occur he is actually nineteen.
4) On the plus side,
My Sister, My Love, works—and works well—as an out-and-out whodunit. The guilty are revealed at the end, and along the way credible red herrings abound.
5) I'm wondering when Oates really wrote this one. The mother is hands-down the least likeable character, and I find it interesting that
My Sister, My Love appears not that long after Mrs. Ramsey's death. Could Joyce Carol Oates actually be "nice"?
In spite of my dislike of the length, I did dog-ear several pages. Let's see which of them are worth discussing.
1) Bix Rampike takes his son Skyler to a gym in order to turn him into an athlete, first choice being a world-class gymnast. Once in the area for gymnastics, Sklyer notices the "floor-to-ceiling mirrors that seemed to shimmer with inaudible laughter. A cruel punishment it seemed to Skyler, that adults had not only to struggle so, but were made to watch themselves in mirrors." (page 73) Always wondered why gyms had mirrors. Now I know: to add to the torture.
2) A side comment: "(Did you know that the original 'balls' in field sports were human heads? Decapitated heads of enemies?)" (page 123) Anyone know if that's true? After over a week of reading and 562 pages, I'm too lazy to try to find out.
3) As Bliss' fame begins to grow, Skyler thinks, "
Popular! In America, what else matters?" (page 152) Talk about summing up the country in one line. Wow!
4) One complete chapter:
EVER AFTER
AND THEY ALL LIVED HORRIBLY AFTER. (page 311)
Cool!
5) Betsey Rampike is on a talk show promoting her first book. The hostess says, "If this doesn't break your hearts, and make you damn good and mad at left-wing legislatures and radical-liberal judges giving over-lenient sentences to vicious sex offenders proliferating in our midst, you can ask for your money back from me." (page 405) Love the wording. "… you can ask …" Think a lawyer wrote it?
6) Subtle and humorous are not words I associate with Oates, but I may start doing so. Betsey disagrees with a psychiatrist's diagnosis of Skyler. "That woman! With a degree from just Rutgers. I should have known better, a 'child trauma specialist' who is herself childless. And so overpriced, you'd think she was
a man." (page 416.)
7) "HSR (high suicide risk) means you have always the challenge of resisting your fate for a while longer." (page 487) And people consider Oates' writing a downer. Don't know why.
So is all the above a recommendation? Dunno. I do, however, think the final page and a half have the power to rip your heart out. They did mine.
