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More copies of this ISBN:This title in other formats:My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampikeby Joyce Carol Oates
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:
"Dysfunctional families are all alike. Ditto 'survivors.'" So begins the unexpurgated first-person narrative of nineteen-year-old Skyler Rampike, the only surviving child of an "infamous" American family. A decade ago the Rampikes were destroyed by the murder of Skyler's six-year-old ice-skating champion sister, Bliss, and the media scrutiny that followed. Part investigation into the unsolved murder; part elegy for the lost Bliss and for Skyler's own lost childhood; and part corrosively funny exposé of the pretensions of upper-middle-class American suburbia, this captivating novel explores with unexpected sympathy and subtlety the intimate lives of those who dwell in Tabloid Hell. Likely to be Joyce Carol Oates's most controversial novel to date, as well as her most boldly satirical, this unconventional work of fiction is sure to be recognized as a classic exploration of the tragic interface between private life and the perilous life of "celebrity." In My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike, the incomparable Oates once again mines the depths of the sinister yet comic malaise at the heart of our contemporary culture. Review:"Oates revisits in fantastic fashion the JonBenet Ramsay murder, replacing the famous family with the Rampikes — father Bix, a bully and compulsive philanderer; mother Betsey, obsessed with making her daughter, Bliss, into a prize-winning figure skater; and son Skyler, the narrator of this tale of ambition, greed and tragedy. Skyler's voice — leaden with grief and guilt — is sometimes that of the nine-year-old he was when his sister was killed, and sometimes the teen he is now, 10 years later, when a letter from his dying mother 'solves' the mystery of Bliss's death. The emotionally wrecked Rampike children are collateral damage in a vicious marital battle; Sky is shunted aside, while Bliss is ruthlessly manipulated. Stylistic tricks (direct-address footnotes chief among them) lighten Oates's razor-sharp satire of a privileged enclave where social-climbing neighbors dwell in gargantuan houses; as Oates's readers will expect, the novel is long, propelled at breakneck speed and apt to indulge in verbal excess (as in the 55-page novella within the novel). Oates's psychological acuity, however, ranks this novel as one of the best from a dark observer of our lives and times. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Synopsis:"New York Times"-bestselling author Oates is back with this dark, wry, captivating tale, inspired by an unsolved true-crime mystery.
About the AuthorJoyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and the Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and she has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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