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The accursed / Joyce Carol Oates.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: New York : Ecco, c2013.Edition: 1st edDescription: xiii, 669 p. : map ; 24 cmISBN:
  • 9780062231703
  • 0062231707
Subject(s): Genre/Form: DDC classification:
  • 813/.54 23
Summary: In 20th century Princeton, New Jersey, a powerful curse, which besets the wealthiest of families, causes the disappearance of a young bride, and when her brother sets out to find her, he crosses paths with the town's most formidable people, including Grover Cleveland and Upton Sinclair.
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Item type Current library Collection Shelving location Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Phillipsburg Free Public Library Adult Fiction Adult Fiction FIC OAT Available 36748002107169
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"Joyce Carol Oates has written what may be the world's finest postmodern Gothic novel: E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime set in Dracula's castle. It's dense, challenging, problematic, horrifying, funny, prolix and full of crazy people. You should read it." --Stephen King, New York Times Book Review

Princeton, New Jersey at the turn of the 20th century: a tranquil place to raise a family, a genteel town for genteel souls. But something dark and dangerous lurks at the edges of the town, corrupting and infecting its residents. Vampires and ghosts haunt the dreams of the innocent. A powerful curse besets the elite families of Princeton--their daughters begin disappearing. A young bride on the verge of the altar is seduced and abducted by a dangerously compelling man--a shape-shifting, vaguely European prince who might just be the devil, and who spreads his curse upon a richly deserving community of white Anglo-Saxon privilege. And in the Pine Barrens that border the town, a lush and terrifying underworld opens up.

When the bride's brother sets out against all odds to find her, his path will cross those of Princeton's most formidable people, from Grover Cleveland, fresh out of his second term in the White House and retired to town for a quieter life, to soon-to-be commander in chief Woodrow Wilson, president of the University, and a complex individual obsessed to the point of madness with his need to retain power; from the young Socialist idealist Upton Sinclair, to his charismatic comrade Jack London, and the most famous writer of the era, Samuel Clemens/ Mark Twain--all plagued by "accursed" visions.

Narrated with Oates's unmistakable psychological insight, The Accursed combines beautifully transporting historical detail with chilling supernatural elements to stunning effect.

Map on lining papers.

Includes bibliographical references.

In 20th century Princeton, New Jersey, a powerful curse, which besets the wealthiest of families, causes the disappearance of a young bride, and when her brother sets out to find her, he crosses paths with the town's most formidable people, including Grover Cleveland and Upton Sinclair.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Crossing history and needling social commentary with folklore and Grand Guignol horror, Oates offers a grandly over-the-top tale. Narrated at some remove by a wasp-tongued historian who pretends objectivity, it opens with Annabel, granddaughter of the estimable clergyman Winslow Slade, meeting a seductive if slightly menacing man in the family garden in Princeton, NJ. Later, at a fete at the sumptuous "cottage" her family is bestowing upon Annabel and her chilly military fiance, former President Grover Cleveland collapses at the (presumed) sight of his dead daughter's ghost. When Annabel is lured from the altar by her admirer, who just might be the Devil, it seems that a curse has been laid upon the family and their upper-crust associates, who disdain upstart Princeton president Woodrow Wilson and don't even know that socialist author Upton Sinclair, living nearby, exists. As deaths occur and Annabel's brother, Josiah, hunts for her while coming into full rebellion against his family, we are taken on a tour of hell. VERDICT Though the mix of genres might be too rich for some readers and the happy ending too manufactured for others, this is a smart and relentlessly absorbing read. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/10/12.]-Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Oates has published more than enough books to take risks, and her newest is exactly that: first drafted in the early 1980s, then set aside, the novel is, in addition to being a thrilling tale in the best gothic tradition, a lesson in master craftsmanship. Distilled, the plot is about a 14-month curse manifesting in Princeton, N.J., from 1905 to 1906, affecting the town's elite, including the prominent Slades of Crosswicks and Woodrow Wilson, the president of Princeton University. After Annabel Slade is strangely drawn out of the church during her wedding, an escalating series of violence and madness based in secrets and hypocrisy is unleashed in the community. This story has vampires, demons, angels, murder, lynching, beatings, rape, sex, parallel worlds,, Antarctic voyages, socialism, sexism, racism, paranoia, gossip, spiritualism, and escalating insanity. Oates uses the Homeric ring structure, and her mysterious narrator takes frequent tangents, offering backstories, side stories, footnotes, and a hilarious, subtly satirical chapter on the different-colored diaries and lacquered boxes providing his "sources." The story sprawls, reaches, demands, tears, and shrieks in homage to the traditional gothic, yet with fresh, surprising twists and turns. Oates weaves historical figures throughout, grounding the narrative in a quasi-familiar reality without losing a "through the looking-glass" surrealism. The cause of the curse is not much of a surprise, but the way it's broken is both traditionally mythic and satisfying. Oates has given us a brilliantly crafted work that refreshes the overworked tradition. The author's rage at social injustices and the horrific "cures" for invalids boil beneath the surface; she's skilled enough to let them fuel the fury without erupting into fire. Take on this 700-page behemoth with an open mind, and hang on for the ride. Agent: Warren Frazier, John Hawkins and Assoc. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Soon after arriving at Princeton University, where she continues to teach, Oates completed Bellefleur (1980), launching a series of sly gothic novels. One manuscript, The Crosswicks Horror, was left unfinished, and Oates has now resurrected it as a lush, arch, and blistering fusion of historical fact, supernatural mystery, and devilish social commentary. High-strung and ambitious Woodrow Wilson is the president of Princeton. Anxious over festering conflicts and appalled by what he learns about his distant relative and protege after the nearby lynching of an African American man and his pregnant sister, Wilson seeks advice from retired Reverend Winslow Slade, who would rather think about the upcoming wedding of his granddaughter, Annabel. But this fair maiden is in danger of falling under the spell of a handsome stranger with otherworldly eyes. As an elite WASP enclave finds itself caught in the grip of inexplicable terror, readers will be bewitched by a fantastically dramatic, supremely imaginative plot rife with ghosts, vampires, demons, and human folly. Oates brings her nightshade humor and extraordinary fluency in eroticism and violence, American history and literature (her magnetizing characters include Mark Twain, Jack London, and Upton Sinclair) to this piercing novel of the devastating toll of repression and prejudice, sexism and class warfare. A diabolically enthralling and subversive literary mash-up. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Propelled by a lavish national tour and multimedia campaign, The Accursed is destined to be one of Oates' most widely appealing and avidly read novels.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Oates (Sourland, 2010, etc.) finishes up a big novel begun years before--and it's a keeper. If the devil were to come for a visit, la The Master and Margarita, where would he turn up first? You might not guess Princeton, N.J., long Oates' domicile, but there "the Curse" shows up, first in the spring of 1905, then in June, on "the disastrous morning of Annabel Slade's wedding." No slashing ensues, no pea-green vomiting; instead, the good citizens of Princeton steadily turn inward and against each other, the veneer of civilization swiftly flaking off on the edge of the wilderness within us and, for that matter, just outside Princeton. Woodrow Wilson might have said it differently when he reflected on his native Virginia: "The defeat of the Confederacy was the defeat of--a way of civilization that was superior to its conqueror's." It just could be that the devil's civilization is superior to that of America in the days of the Great White Fleet and Jim Crow, for Wilson--a central figure in the novel and then-president of Princeton University--is no friend to the little people. But then, none of Oates' male characters--some of them writers such as Mark Twain and Jack London, others politicos such as Grover Cleveland, still others academics plotting against the upstart Massachusetts Institute of Technology and its "devilish business"--are quite good guys: Representatives of the patriarchy, they bear its original sin. The Curse is the one of past crimes meeting the future, perhaps; it is as much psychological as real, though Oates takes pains to invest plenty of reality in it. Carefully and densely plotted, chockablock with twists and turns and fleeting characters, her novel offers a satisfying modern rejoinder to the best of M.R. James--and perhaps even Henry James. Though it requires some work and has a wintry feel to it, it's oddly entertaining, as a good supernatural yarn should be.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
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