Product Description

Teena Maguire should not have tried to shortcut her way home that Fourth of July. Not after midnight, not through Rocky Point Park. Not the way she was dressed in a tank top, denim cutoffs, and high-heeled sandals. Not with her twelve-year-old daughter Bethie. Not with packs of local guys running loose on hormones, rage, and alcohol. A victim of gang rape, left for dead in the park boathouse, the once vivacious Teena can now only regret that she has survived. At a relentlessly compelling pace punctuated by lonely cries in the night and the whisper of terror in the afternoon, Joyce Carol Oates unfolds the story of Teena and Bethie, their assailants, and their unexpected, silent champion, a man who knows the meaning of justice. And love.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #764964 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 156 pages

Review
"'Remarkable... as powerful as anything Joyce Carol Oates has produced' Kate Kellaway, Observer * 'Troubling and remarkable' Lavinia Greenlaw, Daily Telegraph * 'Demonstrates not only the passion, pathos and psychological intensity of this most explosive of major US writers but also again showcases Oates's full-blooded, soaring prose' Irish Times * 'An important book... all men should read it' Literary Review"

New Statesman
‘Raw and rapid… both disturbing and compelling… Simple and shocking… tailor-made to trigger debate.’

About the Author
JOYCE CAROL OATES, a National Book Award winner, is the author of many works of fiction including the bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys, which was an Oprah Book Club Choice, and Blonde, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her books have been translated into many languages. She is a Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University.

Customer Reviews

A Challenging read
If this is the first book that you have read by Joyce Carol Oates and I can guaruntee that you won't be dissapointed.
You will find your perceptions of victim and assailant constantly challenged, wondering how this tragic start to a story could ever be resolved. And Yet Oates manages to drag us in to this world of the victim of a gang rape and her daughter who witnessed the event.
Your heart is twisted continually as you are dropped into the story at crucial moments allowed to feel what the victim feels and yet see the perceptions of others towards a victim of rape.
Each character is carefully and beautifully painted and this book has an unbearable tension as we wait to see if justice can ever be done. And yet without any air of predictability the story is beautifully resolved and leaves the reader breathless with relief and wanting to pick it up and start again! Try it and see for yourself

Don't do with Me as You will
Over the years, Joyce Carol Oates has used the short novel form as a way to expiate her literary and personal demons; subjects she only touches upon in her more "serious" novels. In "Rape, A Love Story" we have the horrible gang rape of Teena Maguire witnessed by her daughter, Bethie. Much of "Rape" reads like a police report or something you might watch on Court TV. The writing is very spare, direct, and journalistically precise: "the woman had to be drunk, high on coke herself, partying since early evening and by midnight you can figure the state she was in, how the hell could Teena Maguire even recognize who had sex with her? And how many"
The Love story angle of the title is of course not a straight ahead, direct man-to woman one but one involving a Niagara Falls Policeman, Dromoor, who finds Teena at the crime scene and who takes it upon himself to become her avenging Angel: "A gun excited him. It was a good feeling. Quickened his pulse so he could actually feel it. Sometimes a tinge in the groin"
"Rape" is not a treatise on rape, per se, nor is it wholly a comment on the tendency of society to place blame on the victim. What it is, is a serious commentary on the randomness of crime: crime that is too often fueled by drugs and alcohol. More imprtantly though it is about the devastating personal effect crime has on the victim and the family of the victim.
Like "Zombie," "The Rise of Life on Earth" and last years "Beasts," "Rape" is out to make a point about a very specific subject. Oates doesn't waste any time getting there and uses very few words in the process. "Rape" is not a major Oates work but it is an interesting, often pathetic and emotionally aware one. And as such it is of interest to all of her fans that crave a quick Oates fix before the next full length novel.

masterpiece
joyce carol oates is definitely the best LIVING american (usa+canada, no way margaret atwood is better)writer. this is her best book: amazing and shocking story, great style in writing.is a book that everybody should read. moreover,the cover is sooooo beautiful!!!!!is the perfect book!i love it!she should win the nobel(finally).