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Black Water

3.5 of 5 stars 3.50 · rating details · 2,721 ratings · 251 reviews

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...more

Paperback, 160 pages

Published May 1st 1993 by Plume (first published January 1st 1992)

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Jul 05, 2011 mark monday rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: z-joyce-carol-oates

Oates inexplicably squanders her gifts in this dream-like, stream-of-conscious exploration of a young woman’s state of mind, her attraction to a powerful older man, and her eventual doom. The writing is poetic, evocative, and certainly challenging – which is to be expected from a novelist of Oates’ caliber. Unfortunately, despite the attempt to give the characters an almost mythic stature, the ideas on display are rather pedestrian – and are certainly not helped by the very basic, near-formulaic...more

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Feb 08, 2008 Christopher Hong rated it 1 of 5 stars

I appreciate the concept/conceit of this novel: giving a voice to the woman who died in the notorious Chappaquidick accident which briefly engulfed Ted Kennedy's life in scandal. A scandal, which largely sensationalized the life of Mary Jo Kopechne, who died in a car accident whose circumstances are reasonably suspect. But Oates' novel (or what I can recall, having read it in high school), seems less intent on realizing Kopechne's life as it is intent on villainizing Ted Kennedy or rather the ar...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Suzanne Auckerman rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a fictionalized version of the accident that Ted Kennedy had where the woman died. It is told from the point of view of the woman and the two –-three hours that she spent trapped before she died. I remember being horrified by how he acted and yet time blurred that. I know it was mentioned briefly when he died, but she was really a forgotten person.

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Aug 11, 2011 Lisa Rathbun added it

How do you keep a reader interested in a story that everyone already knows the ending to? The Senator crasges the car into the water; the girl drowns. The only way is to get into the girl's mind. Certain phrases or ideas are repeated in the way one's thoughts continually dwell on a certain subject. In that way it's stream-of-consciousness, but I found it easier to follow than some writing in that style. The girl's life in a sense flashes before your eyes, but not in order from birth to death, bu...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Jesse Giles Christiansen author rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you don't understand why Joyce Carol Oates is a literary pillar of our times, then you obviously have not read "Black Water." Go, right now, run to your computer, sink your literature-impoverished fingertips into its keys. Now! Before it's too late! If you don't, then you only have yourself to blame, and, the haggard, wrinkled figures that you see in your final thoughts, just may be attending angels in disguise.

There are great books and there are legendary books.

The poetry of the inner world....more

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Nov 10, 2012 Romie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Although the Chappaquiddick incident was before my time, Kennedy hagiography wasn't. Still isn't. That myth of Camelot stuff. I hate it. If I'd moved up to Massachusetts any earlier than I did, Ted Kennedy would have been my senator. Although I am a Democrat and agreed with a lot of the work he did, I don't know that I could have voted for him. I reflexively vote against all Kennedys, always. Because of stuff like Chappaquiddick and its aftermath.

It's a case where there was probably never going...more Although the Chappaquiddick incident was before my time, Kennedy hagiography wasn't. Still isn't. That myth of Camelot stuff. I hate it. If I'd moved up to Massachusetts any earlier than I did, Ted Kennedy would have been my senator. Although I am a Democrat and agreed with a lot of the work he did, I don't know that I could have voted for him. I reflexively vote against all Kennedys, always. Because of stuff like Chappaquiddick and its aftermath.

It's a case where there was probably never going to be justice and where I don't know what justice might have looked like. The closest we're probably going to get is this book, which is fiction, and which echoes the central events. But only echoes - it's set in a different time, with different people.

I have mixed feelings about Joyce Carol Oates. I like the stories she chooses to tell, and I like her dreamlike attacks on and explorations of the ways we socialize or suppress female sexuality. At the same time, I find her prose prosaic (more so when she's trying for poetry) and think that her universal archetypes (if we can call them that) flatten and limit my experience of my own humanity. That's not me in there.

Do I like the recasting of the Chappaquiddick story as an allegory for the power imbalances between older men in power and younger women out of power, the ways in which the women are doomed sacrifices? Do I feel more powerless after reading the book, as though Oates is complicit in taking away the agency of a woman who in real life was clearly motivated? I don't know. I do think the book is worth reading and talking about.

One thing I can say is it made me more aware of the way we tell crime stories and scandal stories through the eyes of the aggressor. Yes, the victim isn't there to tell their side, but the perp usually isn't telling either. I've thought before about whether we're re-victimizing the victims by treating them as objects (sometimes of veneration, sometimes not) to protect ourselves from existential angst (who wants to self-identify as dead?) but this book brought home the emotional truth of it - along with the possibility that as they're fighting for life, some of them are already starting to absorb a sense of themselves as inherently passive (yet still culpable).(less)

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Sep 10, 2012 Alea rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“M’è passata tutt ‘a vita annanz all’uocchie. “
Così si dice, dalle parti mie, quando si scampa la morte. Io non lo so, com’è stare per morire (e manco lo voglio sapere).
Però, se è vero quel che si dice, “Acqua nera” è il racconto della vita – “chiazze di amnesia che si allargano nel cervello come vernice bianca rovesciata” - fissato in qualche manciata di minuti negli occhi di una giovane donna che muore.
“Per l’anagrafe lei era Elizabeth Anne Kelleher. (…) Per gli amici era Kelly.”
I pensieri...more “M’è passata tutt ‘a vita annanz all’uocchie. “
Così si dice, dalle parti mie, quando si scampa la morte. Io non lo so, com’è stare per morire (e manco lo voglio sapere).
Però, se è vero quel che si dice, “Acqua nera” è il racconto della vita – “chiazze di amnesia che si allargano nel cervello come vernice bianca rovesciata” - fissato in qualche manciata di minuti negli occhi di una giovane donna che muore.
“Per l’anagrafe lei era Elizabeth Anne Kelleher. (…) Per gli amici era Kelly.”
I pensieri di Kelly non sono torbidi come l’acqua che l’avvolge e si insinua nella bocca, nel naso, nei polmoni.
“sei una ragazza americana che ama la propria vita”
E’ la vita, la vita che tenta di affermarsi contro ogni ragionevole disperazione.
Ho provato una sensazione quasi fisica di impotenza, scorrendo enne volte la pellicola delle parole, il pomeriggio , tu sei la prescelta , le frasi, i baci, frammenti di infanzia (le braccia del nonno), bolle di dialoghi con i genitori - sono qui, mamma, papà, sono qui – i pensieri di Kelly, incastrata nell’auto sommersa dall’ acqua torbida che puzza di fango, di benzina, di urina, di marcio, l’iterazione assolutoria del perché io sono qui ora il senatore tornerà a salvarmi.
“Mentre l’acqua nera le riempiva i polmoni, e lei moriva”
Nella Storia, quella Vera da cui la Oates ha tratto ispirazione, lei era Mary Jo Kopechn.
Era in macchina con il senatore Ted Kennedy, quando nel 1969, di ritorno da una festa verso il pontile del traghetto, l’auto si fiondò nel lago.
Guidava il senatore, ubriaco. Lei morì, lui si salvò, si salvò anche dall’accusa di omissione di soccorso.
“La politica, il negoziato del potere. L’eros, il negoziato del potere”.
Il senatore le aveva messo gli occhi addosso. Lei non avrebbe avuto un’altra possibilità.
Perché aveva scelto di andare via con il senatore? Questa recriminazione è nei pensieri di Kelly che muore.
Tenta di giustificarsi, di autoassolversi: è cordiale, è simpatico, è separato dalla moglie (come se parlasse a sua madre)
Anche se nella sclera degli occhi azzurri c’è del giallo e i capillari prorompono sul naso, e la pancetta…
Ma più che l’ uomo, è il senatore.
La brava ragazza americana si fida: il senatore tornerà a salvarla, verranno le ambulanze.
“Mentre l’acqua nera le riempiva i polmoni, e lei moriva”
Oltre l’impatto angosciante del racconto, filtra una “lezione morale”, tra le pagine della Oates.
Su questa prospettiva, si potrebbero versare fiumi di parole.
Ma a cosa serve, tanto la storia sempre quella è.
(ah, lo dovrebbero sapere quanto sono affascinanti certi uomini di potere, o di fama, di tutto dotati tranne che)(less)

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Jul 11, 2012 Yashar Yashmi rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novel, review

ستاره (از پنج ستاره) : یک ستاره و نیم

باید بگویم، تجربه ی روایت این اثر، یکی از بهترین و جالب ترین تجربه های من در خواندن رمان بود. روایت سریع و منقطع همراه با جمله های معترضه ی فراوان و سبک و آهنگ ضربی داستان، فضایی بسیار جالب را به وجود می آورند (ر.ک مقاله ی پایان کتاب) ‏
[در مورد این سبک روایت بیش تر از پیش باید توضیح دهم. به نظرم نوع روایت، بسیار مدرن است. نویسنده می داند که خواننده ی مدرن، حوصله ی داستان سرایی های داستایوفسکی یا پرداخت شخصیت های شلوخوف را ندارد. بنابراین بهترین راه حل را پیدا...more ستاره (از پنج ستاره) : یک ستاره و نیم

باید بگویم، تجربه ی روایت این اثر، یکی از بهترین و جالب ترین تجربه های من در خواندن رمان بود. روایت سریع و منقطع همراه با جمله های معترضه ی فراوان و سبک و آهنگ ضربی داستان، فضایی بسیار جالب را به وجود می آورند (ر.ک مقاله ی پایان کتاب) ‏
[در مورد این سبک روایت بیش تر از پیش باید توضیح دهم. به نظرم نوع روایت، بسیار مدرن است. نویسنده می داند که خواننده ی مدرن، حوصله ی داستان سرایی های داستایوفسکی یا پرداخت شخصیت های شلوخوف را ندارد. بنابراین بهترین راه حل را پیدا می کند: روایتی سریع و بی پرده. وقتی کتاب را می خواندم، نمی توانستم آن را زمین بگذارم. جالب این جاست که این امر نه به خاطر داستان آن ( که به نظرم بیش از اندازه بدون کشش بود) بلکه به خاطر گذر های بی وقفه ی درون داستان بود. داستان به مانند سریال های قابل قبول، با فصل های کوتاه، و تعلیق های ماهرانه ای شما را قدم به قدم با خود همراه می کرد. فصل اول داستان، تقریباً مانند فصل اول داستان «استخوان های دوست داشتنی»، پیام مرگ قهرمان داستان را می رساند. اما بر خلاف آن به دنیای پس از مرگ قدم نمی گذارد، بلکه راوی جریانات و اتفاقاتی است که قبل از مرگ برای قهرمان داستان (کلی) و همراه مشهور او (سناتور) افتاده است. هر چند به نظر من این پرداخت به گذشته که مثلاً سعی دارد شخصیت پردازی ها را در آن شکل بدهد، مانند گفته های درونی «کلی» و روانکاوی درون او؛ داستان را لذت بخش نمی کند.]‏

رمان (اگر بتوان اسمش را رمان گذاشت) به شدت دخترانه (و نه حتی زنانه ) و این دخترانگی هم به شدت آمریکایی است. در قسمت های مختلفی از کتاب، قهرمان داستان مکرراً به خود یادآوری می کند که او یک دختر آمریکایی است و دختر آمریکایی به آرزوهای خودش می رسد. ‏

مبنای این اثر، علی الظاهر یک داستان واقعی است اما متاسفانه هیچ شخصیت پردازی ای در کار دیده نمی شود [شاید نویسنده توقع داشته است ما شخصیت ها را از قبل بشناسیم]. همه ی شخصیت ها تیپ هستند. مع ذلک این قضاوت من در مورد «کلی» و پدر او آن چنان هم که باید و شاید صادق نیست. ‏

به هر حال، این کتاب از آن دسته آثاری است که فقط یک بار خواندنش می ارزد و مشخصاً آدم حوصله ی این که بار دوم سراغشان را بگیرد، ندارد... همین!!!‏

1391/4/20
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Mar 01, 2012 Madeline rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-list

The firs time I heard about the so-called Chappaquiddick incident was in college. It was right after Ted Kennedy died, and we were talking about it in one of my classes, and we got around to the various Kennedy scandals, and then my professor remarked, "you know, everyone on the news keeps talking about all the good things that Ted Kennedy did during his life - no one's mentioned how he was responsible for a woman's death."

Here are the facts: on the night of July 18th 1969, Ted Kennedy left a pa...more

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Jan 11, 2012 Cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction

Joyce Carol Oates, in one hundred-sixty pages, takes readers into the mind of a twenty-six year old woman facing certain death in the depths of BLACK WATER. The car, driven recklessly by a drunken US Senator, leaves the isolated and unfamiliar road while trying to make the ferry. From the first of thirty-two short, intense and beautifully realized chapters, we are strapped in the front seat, shoulder broken, head bleeding, with the air bubble evaporating.

Each chapter revisits the horror in the...more

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Oct 15, 2011 Roberta rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009

Mentre l'acqua nera le riempiva i polmoni, e lei moriva.

Incredibile romanzo breve che ci racconta la storia di una ragazza ventiseienne, seduta in una macchina a fianco di un non meglio specificato Senatore. I due si sono incontrati a una festa per il 04 luglio a casa di un'amica comune in un'isola del Maine, e da lì se ne sono andati in macchina diretti a un ferry che li avrebbe portati, presumibilmente, a una stanza d'albergo. Purtroppo lungo una scorciatoia basta una brutta curva per spedire...more

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Aug 14, 2011 Thompson rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a fictionalized account of Ted Kennedy and the drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne. Most of the book is the thinking of the fictionalized Mary Jo. Much of the thinking is the confused ramblings of a liberal who substitutes feeling for thinking. This feeling keeps the drowning woman sure that the senator who abandoned her will rescue her. Typical of the lack of real thinking of the drowning liberal is her thinking that the support of abortion by liberals is nobel, but by conservatives is racism....more

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Mar 08, 2011 Dana added it

Book: Black Water
Author: Joyce Carol Oates
Pages: 154
Series: none

Who: Elizabeth “Kelly” Kelleher, The Senator, Buffy, Mom & Dad
What: Seeing Kelly’s day and the accident.
Where: Buffy’s house and the swamp waters.
When: The Fourth of July
Why: Kelly plans to spend the week with Buffy & has fallen for the Senator.
How: The crash happens because The Senator decides to drink and drive.

Kelly’s story is one like any young girl who meets a famous person. They want to be with them, would be willing...more

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Mar 03, 2011 Engl 328 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates was born in 1938. She grew up in a working class family in the countryside of Lockport, New York. She attended a one-room schoolhouse in elementary school. As a child, she told stories through her drawings and paintings before learning how to write. After receiving a typewriter for a gift at the age of fourteen, she began writing novel after novel throughout high school and college. In 1953, at age fifteen, Oates wrote her first novel and it was rejected by pu...more Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates was born in 1938. She grew up in a working class family in the countryside of Lockport, New York. She attended a one-room schoolhouse in elementary school. As a child, she told stories through her drawings and paintings before learning how to write. After receiving a typewriter for a gift at the age of fourteen, she began writing novel after novel throughout high school and college. In 1953, at age fifteen, Oates wrote her first novel and it was rejected by publishers who found its subject matter (the restoring to a useful state) of a drug addict, too depressing for teenage audiences. She went on to attend Syracuse University on a scholarship of $250 a year. She won the coveted Mademoiselle fiction contest. After graduating as valedictorian, she earned an M.A. in English at the University of Wisconsin, where she met and married Raymond J. Smith after a three-month courtship, and they settled in Detroit in 1962. One of Joyce’s colleagues, Edmund White writes; “Joyce is a quiet stay at home person. She has a clear, well stocked and beautifully organized mind. She plays the piano, talks knowledgeable about music, is an art collector, and an accomplished poet along with her outstanding writings.” Joyce grew up during the depression and watched her father struggle to find work and make ends meet. This created a strong work ethic in her and an amazing outlook on life.
Joyce Carol Oates story, Black Water, is about a young woman who wrote her thesis in college on “The Senator.” Kelly Kelleher is a twenty-six-year-old "good girl" when she meets the Senator in person at a Fourth of July party. In a brilliantly woven narrative, we enter her past, her present, her mind and her body as she is fatally attracted to this older man, her hero, this soon-to-be-lover. Her infatuation of the senator is about to come true. Kelly becomes the romantic dream of all women, drawn to the power of men in high positions. The party takes on the quality of a surreal nightmare; a tragic car ride that we hope will not end as we know it must end. Kelly dies as she described her infatuation of “The Senator” and her love affair with him. She goes back and forth between her childhood, her life at the moment, and the dream of loving “The Senator.”
This novel Black Water started as a story based on the accident at Chappaquiddick, of the 1969 tragedy that took the life of Mary Jo Kopechne and ended the presidential aspirations of Senator Edward Kennedy. The short story portrays the "minutes/moments before death by drowning" and designed to be read in the length of time it takes the heroine to die by suffocation. As Oates explained to Ramona Koval in a 2002 interview, Mary Jo Kopechne didn't drown. Oates had been fascinated by the events of Chappaquiddick, and it signaled the passing of an era. This inspired the short story, Black Water.
Important Works:
A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967), them (1969), Wonderland (1971), Black Water (1992), and Blonde(2000) I'll Take You There (2002), and The Falls (2004). In 2003, Oates herself said that she thinks she will be remembered for, and would most want a first-time Oates reader to read, them and Blonde. Carol has written fifty novels, twenty eight short stories, eight poetry collections, eight volumes of drama and eleven volumes of essays and criticisms. The New York Times has stated some of her masterpieces as, them, Bellefleur, The Wheel of Love and Marriages, Infidelities and A Widow’s Story. Oates is always willing to take risks, test the limits of fiction and write on different genres.
President Obama awarded the National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medal. To Oates for her contributions to American letters. Ms. Oates has been honored with the National Book Award and the PEN/ Malamud Award for excellence in the art of the short story.
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Jul 23, 2009 Robert Cooper rated it 5 of 5 stars

Though Joyce Carol Oates has been for many years a literary lioness, this is the first of her novels I’ve read. It is very powerful. Closely based on the Chappaquiddick incident, it’s about a young woman who at a Fourth of July party meets “The Senator” (aka Ted Kennedy); they hit it off and decide, in the evening, to go to his motel; since they are on an island, they make for the ferry. Running late The Senator, a lot more lit up than the road, tries a shortcut, misses a turn and the car slide...more

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Mar 02, 2010 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read_in_college, fiction

A very long time ago in a distant land known as the 90's, I was working with a woman who also liked to read during her lunch. She asked me if I had any interest in going with her to hear an author she liked go speak. I had never heard of this Joyce Carol Oats woman. (Seriously.) So we went to this huge church in St. Paul and the place was packed. I was surprised - This many people for some author? Hu. Cool. (I know - I was young and pretty darn clueless.)

We were all just sitting there and then...more

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Oct 19, 2011 Joanne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A strange little book based on the Ted Kennedy / Chappquiddick incident in 1969. This story is updated a little for a 1988 setting in Boothbay Harbor, ME over 4th of July weekend.

What is unique is it’s Kelly’s (the vulnerable girl) story and thoughts of basically her life flashing before her as she is submerged in the black water after crashing. She still tries to maintain the goodness of the senior iconic Senator as she believes he will come back to rescue her since he chose her to spend the n...more

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Apr 09, 2010 Jeanne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sometimes Joyce Carol Oates takes real stories and fictionalizes them. For example, My Sister, My Love is based (loosely) on JonBenét Ramsey’s life and death. Black Water is her fictionalization of the Chappaquiddick incident.

Written in 1992, our story takes place on Grayling Island, Maine in the present. Elizabeth “Kelly” Kelleher has just met her political hero at a 4th of July party. Her idol, of course, is the unnamed senator, who is clearly Teddy Kennedy. He is older and experienced, and Ke...more

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Feb 04, 2011 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

Real good. Great writing. Good rhythm, appropriate to the subject matter, etc. The big problem here is the way Oates toys with the reader. Can't really say a ton without giving too much away, but, we're sort of tugged back and forth and back and forth for the sake of narrative tension, and I didn't really like it. I didn't feel respected -- though I don't usually feel respected by Oates when I read her stuff. As soon as the book reached its apex, the story was done, and yet the book continued an...more

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Nov 24, 2009 Sterlingcindysu rated it 3 of 5 stars

(copied review) “She was the one he had chosen.'' This is Kelly Kelleher's thought as she leaves the party with a senator, as much a symbol of her desire to change her life as it is the fulfillment of a romantic dream. She's a young woman struggling to assert herself, but this rash move ultimately ends in tragedy. Oates makes readers feel that they are along for the very frightening ride in the car with Kelly and her senator in this shocking, all-too-familiar story. It's fast paced, almost as if...more

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Apr 19, 2013 Alisha rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: own

I really enjoyed reading this book. While it was actually a textbook for my class and used in discussions, I thought the style was interesting.

Things that I liked: I enjoyed reading about the main characters: The Senator and Kelly Kelleher. I thought it was an interesting story about death, faith, etc. I found at times that I felt like I could relate to Kelly at times during the novel. She is shy and quiet it seems, just like me. I liked that Oates would go along with the story but then use tha...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Gretchen rated it 4 of 5 stars

. You don’t realize how good this book is until Oates finally reveals where it’s going. It’s loosely a fictionalized account of Chappaquiddick – the relationship of The Senator and girl (Kelly) who only meet that afternoon on Grayling Island, then their rush to catch the ferry, then the wreck, etc. It is strangely structured. The events are told repeatedly with different information included. The repetition is reminiscent of music composed of variations on a theme. Backstory is worked in. The tr...more

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Mar 30, 2009 Shelley rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2009, 1001-list

I believe that Joyce Carol Oates shows great genius. This short but powerful book was disturbing to read – so I’d have to say that even though I appreciated the writing, I would be very careful recommending it to anyone.

Based on the true story of Ted Kennedy and the Chappaquidick accident in 1969. Told from the viewpoint of the young Mary Jo Kopechne, these 154 pages were designed to replay the crash scene over and over again, each time from a slightly different perspective. I was literally read...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Amber Bird rated it 4 of 5 stars

How delightful when an unknown book on my to-read list turns out to be a) a novella and b) pretty good! Back story - I picked this one up because it's listed as one of Time Magazine's greatest novels. I knew nothing about the book, author or the subject, and had never even heard of Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick accident. I do, however, love historical fiction, and I love it when a book gets inside your head to the point where you want to research it's subject matter independently ... I mean serio...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Aimee rated it 3 of 5 stars

A suspenseful book loosely based on the car accident with Senator Ted Kennedy and a 26 year-old woman he met at a party.

It is told from the hopeful perspective of a woman Kelly who is so enamored to be chosen by a Senator that she puts her life in his hands despite her own better judgement.

She maintains hope while drowning in the "Black Water". Will he go back to save her?

In every relationship, there are two different views of that relationship. I enjoyed this book for that reason. Joyce Carol...more

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Sep 15, 2011 Fabian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Impressive, poignant. At the top of her game, this IS J.C.O.

The entire novel is about one single awful moment, and everything that splinters from it and before it takes place. Crystallizing the moment impeccably.

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Jan 21, 2011 Paul Jellinek rated it 2 of 5 stars

If I judged this book by its cover, I would have given it five stars for sure. But unfortunately, although very well written, the book itself didn't work for me. The whole story is focused on the final moments of the life of a fictionalized Mary Jo Kopeckne (sp?), the young woman who drowned in Ted Kennedy's car in Chappaquiddick (sp?). It is made up of a kind of collage of flashbacks, some going back just to the afternoon of the tragedy, others going back much farther in her life. Yet somehow,...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Misha rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, novel

Black Water is a haunting narrative of the final moments of Kelly Kelleher, a young woman whose impulsive decision to pursue her attraction to an older man leads to her death in a car accident. Kelleher, of course, is a stand-in for Mary Jo Kopechne, the young woman who lost her life in a car accident with Ted Kennedy at Chappaquiddick in 1969. I found it interesting that Oates chose to update the story to the early '90s (contemporary for when the book was written) and write The Senator as Kenne...more

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Dec 21, 2009 Rebecca rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

The second book I've read now from Oates. Didnt enjoy it as much as the other but it was okay. She runs on from one sentence to the other and at times this is suitable and at other times, it can be very confusing. You know from the very beginning, this book is about Kelly dying in this car, beneath the black water. There were timehen I had a sense of hope, like maybe the ending would change. There were times as I read, I could feel myself lose my breath, the descriptions of water filling her lun...more

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Dec 01, 2012 J.C. rated it 4 of 5 stars

A fascinating yet incredibly depressing novella, i kept getting the idea that the moral of the story is that basically we're all being lied to, that no matter who we look to (I'm speaking about politics here) tends to become self-serving, and will never really represent us. The formation of the story was intriguing, I was very curious while reading it where exactly the story was going, as it seemed to be going backwards. I had to read this for my Modern Fiction class, I am not sure if I ever wou...more

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About Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She is also the recipient of the 2005 Prix Femina for The Falls. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and she has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. Pseudonyms ... Rosamond Smith and Laure ...more

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Quotes from Black Water

“She wasn't in love but she would love him, if that would save her.” — 48 people liked it

“It makes me angry sometimes, it's a visceral thing--how you come to despise your own words in your ears not because they aren't genuine, but because they are; because you've said them so many times, your 'principles,' your 'ideals'--and so damned little in the world has changed because of them.” — 42 people liked it

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Black Water

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