Availability
Availability Label | Location | Shelfmark | Availability | Reservations |
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Central Branch | Non 813.54 Oat | On loan until: 06/May/24 |
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Full Record Details Table
Title Statement | Joyce Carol Oates: letters to a biographer / selected and edited by Greg Johnson. |
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Author | Oates, Joyce Carol, 1938- |
Additional Contributors | Johnson, Greg,1953- |
Publication | Brooklyn, NY: Akashic Books,[2024]©2024 |
Extent of Item | 333 pages ; |
ISBN | 9781636141169 (hardcover) |
Other Number | pr07421950 |
Summary | "In this generous selection of Joyce Carol Oates's letters to her biographer and friend Greg Johnson, readers will discover a never-before-seen dimension of her phenomenal talent. In 1975, when Johnson was a graduate student, he first wrote to Oates, already a world-famous author, and drew an appreciative, empathetic response. Soon the two began a fairly intense, largely epistolary friendship that would last until the present day. As time passed, letters became faxes, and faxes became emails, but the energy and vividness of Oates's writing never abated. Her letters are often sprinkled with the names of famous people, from John Updike and Toni Morrison to Steve Martin and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. There are also descriptions of far-flung travels she undertook with her first husband, the scholar and editor Raymond Smith, and with her second, the distinguished Princeton neuroscientist Charlie Gross. But much of Oates' prose centered on the pleasures of her home life, including her pet cats and the wildlife outside her study window. Whereas her academic essays and book reviews are eloquent in a formal way, in these letters she is wholly relaxed, even when she is serious in her concerns. Like Johnson, she was always engaged in work, whether a long novel or a brief essay, and the letters give a fascinating glimpse into Oates's writing practice"-- |
Subjects & Genres | |
By Topic | Authors, American--Biography--20th century |
Biographers--Correspondence--United States | |
Women authors, American--Biography--20th century | |
By Name | Johnson, Greg,1953---Correspondence |
Oates, Joyce Carol,1938---Correspondence | |
By Genre | Biographies |
Personal correspondence | |
Personal narratives |