Bleak! But what'd I expect? After all, Joyce Carol Oates is not Maeve Binchy. She sure knows her way around invoking an atmosphere, though. The themes here are pretty worn around the edges, for Oates and for literature in general. Nevertheless, you find yourself rooting for Katya, and genuinely grieving for her, and hoping that everything will be all right-- although, this being JCO, you know that's not bloody likely. The end becomes pretty predictable pretty quickly. It's just as well that this is a novella, since it frankly felt quite long enough as is.

Also! Here commences the "toxic authors" shelf, wherein I gently remind myself to partake lightly (if at all) of said author's other endeavors, lest the bleach-drinking--oft-threatened (promised?), never-delivered--actually occur. Call me shallow, call me a wuss, but darn it, my inner landscape is cluttered with enough sad detritus as it is. And while I admire you, JCO, for creating in the pages of this book a powerful scene/image that will take its place there, I say "Uncle!" to the relentlessly depressive.

Maybe that's why I'm more drawn to T.V. these days. I take more comfort in knowing that Bret Michaels can't pronounce "mediocrity" to save his life than I do in the deftly rendered brutalizations of wounded fictions.