Joyce Carol Oates

Flattered by the attentions of a senator she has met at a Fourth of July beach party on Grayling Island, Kelly Kelleher accepts a ride from him, taking a first step toward her final confrontation with death. 50,000 first printing. Tour. BOMC.

Black Water

A senator seduces young Kelly Kelleher at a Fourth of July picnic, and as they head for his hotel, his rented Toyota swerves off the unnamed road and into the black water. Reprint.

Jenna

2.5 stars. Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates was my first by her. It’s about a girl, Kelly, who is a 26-year-old “good girl” who works in politics, who meets a senator at a party on the Fourth of July. This senator happens to be a senator she wrote her honors thesis on and has admired always. They hit it off, leave the party together, and he drives the car off a bridge into a creek and leaves her there to drown. Also thanks to @literarylauren_ for sending me this book.

This story is based off the story of Ted Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick Incident where he drove off a bridge into a lake and left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown. Somehow I never knew about this event so I definitely fell into a Wikipedia rabbit hole after reading this - it’s nuts! He didn’t call the cops for 12 hours!! And he just got to go on being a senator with basically no repercussions... horrifying.

This book is a really short and fast read. It has a somewhat stream-of-consciousness style that was a little bit repetitive and hard to follow for me. But, after I finished it, @hayhails told me that Oates purposefully wrote it to be read in about two hours, because that’s how long it took Mary Jo to suffocate. Knowing that made it more affecting and even more devastating, because she maybe could have been saved.

Although I didn’t absolutely love this one, I still want to give Oates another shot. She’s such a prolific writer! I’d recommend this if you want a short read with a touch of history and you like a stream-of-consciousness style. It just wasn’t quite all the way there for me.

Black Water

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