Much more than a "woman writer"
by Andrea Fineman
Arts Editor
Arts | 5/22/07
Posted online at 1:42 AM EST on 5/22/07
/ Last updated at 10:21 AM EST on 5/22/07
Many female authors find themselves pigeonholed as "women writers," especially when their novels and short stories are generally focused on female protaganists and their perspectives. Fortunately, Joyce Carol Oates does not find herself in such a position. Oates' works have garnered much critical praise throughout her prolific, decade-spanning career, saving her from being grouped with other female writers whose work is considered less universal. Over the past 50 years, Oates has received Pulitzer Prizes, a National Book Award and a spot in Oprah's book club. Sunday she received an honorary degree from Brandeis at commencement. Other recipients included biologist Judah Folkman, former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler and architect Daniel Libeskind.
Oates, a professor of creative writing at Princeton Unversity, spoke with the Justice about her current work, an autobiographical novel titled The Gravedigger's Daughter. The book is "the story of a young woman whose parents flee Nazi Germany to settle in upstate New York, in the area south of Lake Ontario where my father's grandparents settled," Oats says. "My father's grandfather was a 'gravedigger'-and the novel is a fictitious account of the harrowing drama of that life, which spans the years 1936 to the near-present."
"It is a coincidence that I will be receiving a distinguished degree from Brandeis at about the time that my novel of melancholy and loss of my 'Jewish' heritage has been published. Since my great-grandparents chose to live without religion or any acknowledgment of their background, my grandmother had no religion, no tradition and no 'history;' her own son did not know of his Jewish background, nor did anyone else in our family. Yet I had long been intrigued by the seeming mystery of both my parents' backgrounds, so, typically, given that time in our American history, the early 1900s, shrouded in obscurity and the upheaval of families."
Although Oates is known for her captivating novels and short fiction, she has also published works of poetry, young adult fiction, drama, essays and criticism. Besides The Gravedigger's Daughter, the ever-prolific writer is also currently working two other books in less specific genres. One is what she calls the first installment of her journal, covering the years 1972 through 1983, to be published next October. Oates' other upcoming work is "a difficult-to-classify book titled WILD NIGHTS! Five Gothic Portraits." Oates described it as consisting of "prose pieces imagining the 'last days' in the lives of Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway."
Oates, a professor of creative writing at Princeton Unversity, spoke with the Justice about her current work, an autobiographical novel titled The Gravedigger's Daughter. The book is "the story of a young woman whose parents flee Nazi Germany to settle in upstate New York, in the area south of Lake Ontario where my father's grandparents settled," Oats says. "My father's grandfather was a 'gravedigger'-and the novel is a fictitious account of the harrowing drama of that life, which spans the years 1936 to the near-present."
"It is a coincidence that I will be receiving a distinguished degree from Brandeis at about the time that my novel of melancholy and loss of my 'Jewish' heritage has been published. Since my great-grandparents chose to live without religion or any acknowledgment of their background, my grandmother had no religion, no tradition and no 'history;' her own son did not know of his Jewish background, nor did anyone else in our family. Yet I had long been intrigued by the seeming mystery of both my parents' backgrounds, so, typically, given that time in our American history, the early 1900s, shrouded in obscurity and the upheaval of families."
Although Oates is known for her captivating novels and short fiction, she has also published works of poetry, young adult fiction, drama, essays and criticism. Besides The Gravedigger's Daughter, the ever-prolific writer is also currently working two other books in less specific genres. One is what she calls the first installment of her journal, covering the years 1972 through 1983, to be published next October. Oates' other upcoming work is "a difficult-to-classify book titled WILD NIGHTS! Five Gothic Portraits." Oates described it as consisting of "prose pieces imagining the 'last days' in the lives of Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway."
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Gavarappan Baskaran
posted 8/07/07 @ 7:15 AM EST
I understand the the contribution of Oates to gothic writing is enormous and she creats a very rich traditon in it. Way back from her first novel, she has been tracing the hoorror in the mind of her characters and the themes. (Continued…)
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