Synopses & Reviews
New York Times bestselling author of
The Falls,
Blonde, and
We Were the Mulvaneys, Joyce Carol Oates returns with a dark, wry, satirical tale — inspired by an unsolved American true-crime mystery.
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 expose 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
"...This book is easy to admire...my reaction was...'Wow: What a writer.'" Seattle Times
Review
"There is much to admire in this bittersweet tale of one woman's triumph of will." Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Review
"Joyce Carol Oates's uncompromising prose illuminates the stark landscape of our times." Chicago Tribune
Synopsis
New York Times-bestselling author Oates is back with this dark, wry, captivating tale, inspired by an unsolved true-crime mystery.
Synopsis
Herein is the unexpurgated first-person narrative of nineteen-year-old Skyler Rampike, the only surviving child of an infamous American family destroyed a decade ago 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 his own lost childhood, Skyler's narrative is an alternately harrowing and corrosively funny expose of upper-middle-class American pretensions — and an unexpectedly subtle and sympathetic exploration of those who dwell in Tabloid Hell.
About the Author
Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Accursed. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.