Black Girl White Girl

Author: Joyce Carol Oates

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $24.99 AUD
  • : 9780007232796
  • : HarperCollins Publishers Australia
  • : HarperPerennial
  • :
  • : 0.206
  • : August 2007
  • : 197mm X 130mm
  • : United Kingdom
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  • : books

Special Fields

  • :
  • :
  • : Joyce Carol Oates
  • : Paperback
  • :
  • :
  • : English
  • : 813.54
  • : good
  • :
  • : 448
  • : Modern fiction
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Barcode 9780007232796
9780007232796

Description

A controversial, painfully intimate depiction of race in America by the esteemed author of 'We were the Mulvaneys', 'Blonde' and 'The Falls'. Fifteen years after the mysterious death of Minette Swift -- a 19-year-old black girl enrolled as a scholarship student in an exclusive liberal arts college -- her former roommate Genna begins an unofficial enquiry into the traumatic event. In reconstructing the girls' tumultuous freshman year at the college, Genna is lead also to reconstruct her life as the daughter of a famous 'radical-hippie-lawyer' of the 1960s among whose clients were anti-Vietnam war protesters wanted by the FBI. What follows is a gripping and personal portrayal of 'black' and 'white' in America in the years of crisis following the end of the Vietnam War, and the ignominious exposure and fall of President Richard Nixon. First published 2006; this edition with PS section 2007.

Reviews

'Oates is digging her pen into the sensitive heart of the race question, with all the intelligence and humanity we have come to expect from this brilliant and bafflingly prolific writer.' The Times 'The prolific Oates is bang on form with this one, a cunningly loaded mix of post-Nixon paranoia, public racism and private madness.' Metro 'Failures of communication seem both tragic and inevitable in a novel that reveals its author's awareness of the complexities involved in personal and political relationships too often portrayed as stereotypes.' Sunday Times 'Where the novel truly stands out is in its depiction of its two protagonists. Genna is a fine portrait on the coruscating effects of guilt on a young soul. Her halting, self-lacerating voice is painfully acute, such as when she ponders whether the persecution of her roommate is just a malicious dormitory prank or much worse.' Guardian

Author description

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including 'We Were the Mulvaneys', which was an Oprah Book Club Choice, and 'Blonde', which was nominated for the National Book Award. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University.