First Love: A Gothic Tale

by Joyce Carol Oates

Josie S- has come with her mother Delia to live in her great-aunt Esther Burkhardt's house in upstate New York. Also living there is Josie's cousin, Jared, Jr., on leave from the Presbyterian seminary. Preoccupied with his studies, impeccably dressed in his starched white shirts, distant and mysterious, Jared, Jr. is an intriguing figure to Josie's curious and impressionable young mind. One summer afternoon, when Josie encounters Jared, Jr. at the riverbank behind the Burkhardt house, dark secrets are shared between them as an unnatural love blooms. A moody sense of foreboding grips the reader from page one as religion, whispers of dark family secrets, violations of trust and virginity, bad blood, and a hint of incest all haunt the landscape of this startling tale of divided family loyalties, psychological manipulation, and the tangled strands of love and fear in the mind of a young girl groping for her way in one fractured American family.

Genres: Fiction, Gothic, Novella, Horror, Short Stories, Literature, Adult Fiction

86 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 3 out of 5]

"'Bad blood'! --what does that mean?" I asked, revulsed by the thought, and Mother said, "'Bad feeling.' basically," and I said, "But why call it something so ugly-- 'bad blood'? Ugh." My throat choked up as if the smell was with us in the room. "One day," Mother said ominously, yet with satisfaction, "you'll know."

sweet Jesus, this was a disturbing novella.

SOME SPOILERS but nothing you won't find right on the back cover of the book

precocious 11-year old Josie and her intriguing but worthless mother flee their world to live with some distant relatives: Great-Aunt Esther Burkhardt and her sepulchral grandson, 25-year old Jared Jr - a seminary student now living at home again, due to a mysterious bout of 'nervous exhaustion' at the seminary. one balmy day in the dead heat of August, Josie comes across a shirtless and sweaty Jared, gazing into the river that lies behind their dilapidated manor. she is transfixed by that bare torso, "the vertebrae of his spine prominent as tiny knuckles, a ripply impress of ribs through his translucent-pale skin". she has fallen in love; she is hypnotized like a little bird before a snake. Jared forcibly seduces her ('molest' is the appropriate word), and will soon do even more - physically torturing her body and psychologically ensnaring her mind, deeper and deeper, until she finally lashes back in her own small but effective fashion.

i usually give tales of child abuse and molestation a very wide berth. NOT INTERESTED. too grueling, and i am the sort who reads mainly for enjoyment, and not necessarily for edification on how low humans can go. and so i've had this on my shelf, unread, since it was first published in 1996. not sure why tonight was the night that i finally found the nerve to read it, but i'm glad i did. it is graphic, but not overly so. it is a cruel story, but it does not end in nihilism. and man it is beautifully written. gorgeous, really. Oates is a phenomenal writer and First Love shows off her skill at constructing a hypnotic narrative full of sinister imagery, multi-layered dialogue, compelling monsters, and a painfully real interior monologue. i want to re-emphasize "hypnotic". that is the perfect word for this grim tale.

so in the end, what did i get out of it? not a whole lot i suppose. Oates is a fantastic writer, check. Child Abuse = Horror, check. religious zealots often have hearts full of evil and perversion (and not the good kind of perversion)... the South is full of "eccentrics"... little kids can be little survivors: check, check, and check. Jesus has many faces so which is the real one - well, that's not a concept i encounter often, but it is a rather underdeveloped (although interesting) part of the novella. so the main take-away for me is that i still consider Oates to be one of my favorite authors and she surely does like to write about dark places. which is why i was attracted to her in the first place. maybe less child molestation in my next Oates read though.

First Love: A Gothic Tale (that's the full title) is a slim but complete package: written by Oates and 'illustrated & designed' by Barry Moser. he is a brilliant artist as well. his woodcuts are top-notch. gothic, creepy, perfect for the material. here's his portrait of that charmer Jared Jr:



as in the book... sweaty, with skin like a snake. ::shudders::

another interesting bit:

Mother said, her gaze on me calculating, impatient, of the silver glint of light reflected in swift-moving water, "There is no 'there', there is only 'here'. Just as there is no 'then', but only 'now'. America is founded upon such principles, and, as Americans, we must be, too."

[Paula Mota · Rating 2 out of 5]

Não devias chamar-lhe amor, mas sim outra coisa.

A mistura de religião e violência sexual é tão revoltante, que não tiro daqui nenhuma mensagem, mas é sem dúvida demasiado doentio e perverso para lhe chamar gótico.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is in reply to the current one other reviewer and to anyone who leans toward their same viewpoint on stories such as these:

This is one of Oates best.Stirring, evocative, emotional and haunting.The kind of story that at least on some level sears itself into ones memory.

Oates commonly writes about unconventional romantic relationships and romances that others find unsettling or disturbing. Its one of her trademarks.

If that bothers you, you should likely steer clear of much of her work as you probably wouldn't enjoy it.

[diario_de_um_leitor_pjv · Rating 5 out of 5]

COMENTÁRIO
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"O primeiro amor"
Joyce Carol Oates
Tradução de Carvalho Oliveira

Um detalhe sobre os livros de Joyce Carol Oates: mulheres jovens ou adolescentes são personagens frequentes.

A pequena novela "o primeiro amor" é mais um desses exemplos, pois é uma história que tem Josie como protagonista, numa "trama", marcada igualmente, por uma família destruturada e onde diferentes formas de violência são uma constante.

Nesta história, próxima do pesadelo, a jovem Josie é vítima de violência sexual no seio da sua família. Mas indelevelmente constrói um fascínio pelo seu agressor, num quadro familiar cheia de segredos sussurados, de intensa religiosidade e de violência física e psicológica.
Estás problemáticas são narradas por Carol Oates com o brilhantismo que caracteriza a sua escrita criando um plano de tensão que envolve o leitor.

Este foi o "livro mistério" que li este mês e que integra as iniciativas #lêseteatreves da @aoutramafalda e #outonogótico da @papeiseletras. Na segunda quinzena de Novembro terei um novo "livro mistério".

(li de 8 a 10 de Outubro de 2022)

[Eden Burrow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Idk ummm authors gotta stop writing about pedophilia and incest just for shock value

[Allison Floyd]

Once again JCO defies the GoodReads rating system.

If reading Zombie is like playing in a biohazard bag, then First Love is like playing in a velvet pouch. Lined with wolverines.

Seriously warped, beautifully written and illustrated.

It rang a little hollow for me this time around--I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's hard to believe that the narrator seems relatively unscathed at the end. Because there's a whole of scathing going on in this story.

[John Pistelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 1996 novella makes for a curious little book. The hardcover’s title is lettered on the dust jacket in a shiny purple foil blackletter typeface, and the narrative is pointedly labelled “A Gothic Tale” on the title page. Barry Moser’s cover and inside illustrations—stark black-and-white engravings—hark back to a nineteenth-century style. Given this packaging, all postmodern pastiche with a nudge-and-a-wink from the shiny purple decoration, one would not necessarily expect such grim subject matter as the protracted molestation of an eleven-year-old girl by her seminarian cousin, and yet that is what First Love is about.

In the novella, our narrator, young Josie, has been taken by her absconding mother to live with her great-great-aunt in a decaying old house in upstate New York. There, neglected by her aged aunt and abandoned by her mother (who is out working and looking for a new man), Josie falls victim to the predations of her cousin, Jared, Jr., on leave—for his mental health—from the Presbyterian seminary where he is studying. Though its title is largely ironic, First Love does suggest that her cousin’s sexual trespasses are a partially-desired opening to the adult world of feeling for Josie. I am aware that this does not meet present political standards for the representation of such subject matter; I am only reporting on what I believe Oates to be communicating in the tale, as in this passage, also reprinted on the back cover, whose mingled fear and desire, given in fragmentary clauses, characterize the novella’s prose style as a whole:

Shutting my eyes sometimes to the point of dizziness, vertigo. To the point of an almost unbearable excitation and dread. And I see him, my cousin, Jared, Jr., so many years later. I see him as an upright flame, a figure and not a person. If I try to summon back his face, the sound of his voice, and the sensation in my stomach like a key turning in a lock when he touched me, I lose everything.

There is, no doubt, a presently unwelcome nuance in the portrait of female—and perhaps more broadly, childhood—desire, which I think is authentically Gothic in its forbidden suggestion of what society—Christian society especially, portrayed by Oates as noxiously hypocritical—represses.

The novella begins with Josie’s being drawn into nature, where a black snake (who either represents or supernaturally is Jared, Jr., just as she will later see him as a black hawk) crosses her path. It ends when she refuses to participate in Jared’s desire to make her his accomplice in preying on the poor children of their town for the purposes of child pornography, rape, and murder. While Josie’s mother, Delia, is the novel’s most interesting character, a witty pragmatist and nihilist, she is too flighty and selfish to help her daughter resist evil. Josie wins on her own, through an innate moral sense perhaps grown, Wordsworth-style, out of her childlike love for nature, nature unspoiled by man’s phallic and predatory intrusion as snake or hawk. I am reminded of Toni Morrison’s recent God Help the Child by this novella’s intimations of childhood victimization by universal adult corruption. On finding Jared’s stash of child pornography, Josie takes it as evidence that children are excluded from the social/religious compact: “For the Covenant would not be with children, would it?”

The novella ends with Josie alone in the house—Jared, Jr., having realized she was incorruptible, has returned to the seminary; her mother is away again, presumably with a man; and her aunt is confined to her room by a stroke. Josie has refused to perpetuate her family’s evil; her soul returns to goodness as the earth awakens in spring, free of social corruption:

Late April, yet it’s the first real day of spring. A blue-windy, brilliant day, eagerly you open your heart to the vast sky tracked by long diaphanous clouds stretching for what appear to be hundreds of miles, you hear birds, songbirds, newly returned from the south after the long winter, their exquisite sweet spring cries.

Goodness and beauty, like evil and ugliness, are also repressed, and they also return. This is a comprehensive and holistic vision, aware of Marx/Nietzsche/Freud, but circumscribing them too. To place such a vision in “A Gothic Tale” is to validate the intelligence of fiction, also implicitly of women (primary authors/audiences of the Gothic for three hundred years)—though not uncritically, as most of the women in this story uphold repressive society for their own reasons and advantages. But a Gothic heroine, however tempted to the dark side (“Feel yourself drawn!” is the novel’s refrain), may at least resist in a Gothic narrative. What this novella—and perhaps its genre—does not offer is any vision of fulfilling adult love. Its counsel is limited to its other refrain, “Fear will save your life,” and Josie, even at the end, has “not the courage to contemplate” the “deep pit of fathomless time yawning beneath” her great-aunt’s house, which pit we may take to be both the unconscious and history. She has attained her individual freedom, but the house still stands, and she is still in it.

I know I need to read a long novel by Joyce Carol Oates—this is my second short one, after the similarly-themed Beasts—but the novellas in an oeuvre so vast can be irresistible. So far I admire Oates’s stylistic intensity, her witty play with literary history and form, and her moral complexity and irony. Her politics come out in the fiction a bit bluntly and not without patronizing cliche—is religion as one-dimensional as she claims here? and are the poor only victims of the rich? But these are appealingly old-fashioned flaws, and I look forward to going on in Oates’s work, to see what else she makes of our Gothic inheritance and our twisted desire.

[Irem Gündoğdu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gotik edebiyatı sevenler için ters köṣesi bol bir uzun öykü. Küçük,tekinsiz bir kasabaya akrabalatının yanına taṣınmak zorunda kalan 11 yaṣındaki kız ile annesini anlatan karanlık öyküde. Kuçük kız, kara yilanlari ve ilk aṣk'ı aynı zamanda tanıyor. Zaman zaman soluğunuzun kesildiği bu öyküde, anlatıcı olan Josie'nin dilini çözmekte bir o kadar gizemli
Hikayeler asla gerçek değillerdir dedi annem. Fakat radlantı eseri de olsa gerçeği barındırabilirler. Bazen...🖤

[Mariano Hortal · Rating 5 out of 5]

"El primer amor" es una de esas novelitas cortas que de vez en cuando se marca la gran escritora Joyce Carol Oates. En este caso tenemos la historia de una madre y una hija que tienen que trasladarle a una pequeña villa norteamericana, una villa al azar ("Ramsonville"). Allí la niña descubrirá el amor, o al menos lo que cree que es el amor ("Tú no lo llamarías amor si pudieras ponerle otro nombre") a través de su primo aspirante a sacerdote que la saca 14 años. Es un Coming of age desde la perversidad de su primo, que ya le dice que "Una vez cruzas cierta línea, hacia el desenfreno, todo es posible". nuestra tímida y retraída protagonista se irá haciendo mujer ya que "El desafío de la vida" es "no hacer lo que estaba en mi mano hacer" (parafraseando uno de los textos). La nóvela es pródiga en sutileces, ambigüedades mezcladas con explicitud, el lirismo es ciertamente sobrecogedor por momentos. Cuánto se puede decir en una novela tan cortita. Una pequeña delicia... eso sí, difícil de encontrar hoy en día, ya que está descatalogada por estos lares.

[AJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a cute, tiny book! It looks like it could be a children’s book but it’s more like that adorable fluffball kitten that slices your hand open with its razor sharp claws! Definitely one of her darker stories, and this lady is DARK. Bless her heart 🙃

[Aviendha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Çağdaş dünyanın en ağrılı sorunlarından birine değinmiş kitap. Masum küçük bir kızın henüz algılayamadığı gerçekliklerin yıkıcı etkisi. Etrafında olan biten çirkinliklerden hangisi daha fazla can yakıcı karar vermek zor. Karanlık, insanî olmanın çok dışında bir uzun öykü...

[Audrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pedophilic incest

[Juushika · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A young girl's introduction to her reclusive, religious cousin is the beginning of a hidden relationship. This has a rich atmosphere, fevered with summer heat and the southern gothic. The stylized voice lands somewhere between genre and literary, and it alternates between a claustrophobic second person and a distant, sardonic third person. It leans into its liminal space to interrogate what's "real" in the relationship, how it appears, is depicted, is conceptualized: a transforming snake and inverted power dynamic; incestuous sexual abuse. I find that the way Oates applies literary flair to horror tropes can have the same hollowness of other literary crossovers; this certainly can feel like it replaces style for substance. But this doesn't overextend and it's sticking with me better than I expected. (Except the illustrations, which don't add much.)

[Papatya ŞENOL · Rating 4 out of 5]

"aşk" değil aslında bu, ama gotik olduğu kesin. hastalıklı bir genç adamın bir kız çocuğuyla dengesiz ilişkisi ve etkileri anlatılıyor bu küçük ama büyük kitapta. çok güzel, sade yazılmış. en ilgi çekici karakter ise bence çok fazla üzerinde durulmamış olsa da yorumları, çıkışları ve gizemli yaşam tarzıyla anne. sıradan kitapların dışına çıkmak isteyenlere öneririm.

[Jackie · Rating 1 out of 5]

A nasty little 80 page story.

[belisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

minik, garip bir öykü, yazar bir pencere açmış ve manzaraya bakıp geçmiş sanki...

[April Miska · Rating 4 out of 5]

A weird, creepy and kinda gross little thing.

[meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

coming to realize that Joyce carol Oates' fiction is actually more disturbing than the foot tweet

[Jessie Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The content was highly disturbing. No reprieve except one thankfully or I would’ve thrown it in the garbage. I give it 3 stars because it is well written, the symbols used within the story are all clear but I wasn’t able to find the right combination to find the story within the story. Probably because the content was freaking messed up.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short and very creepy tale that can be read in one sitting. It is very "gothic", bringing to mind an Ann Radcliffe, Horace Walpole, or Matthew Lewis. It is a bit disturbing as many of Oates' stories can be, so be prepared. I find the mother in the story as horrifying (if not more so) as some of the the other characters with her completely neglectful and self-centered behavior. And I loved the woodcuts by Barry Moser, they are perfect for the book.

[🎒 · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.89, tired of all white oleander mother figures but still pretty and well-written!

[Vince McCollum · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Definitely need to discuss. Definitely need more Oates in my life

[M]

My morning of election read yesterday. Disturbing and immensely quotable.

'Mother said, her gaze on me calculating, impatient, of the silver glint of light reflected in swift-moving water, "There is no 'there', there is only 'here'. Just as there is no 'then', but only 'now'. America is founded upon such principles, and, as Americans, we must be, too."'

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 I think?? Real disturbing and dark subject matter. Would definitely read more from her though.

[Mahaut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horrible

[Jude Connolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

critically it is very flawed and also this is yet another dead dove read of mine (hoping this isn't the theme for this year, but then again it would be quite fitting with how fucked the world seems to be right now) but I really enjoyed the play on its biblical themes, its haunting precision, and the fever dream daze of it paired with Barry Moser's brooding illustrations. the story felt like a combination of Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" and a past short story of JCO's, "Where Have You Going, Where Have You Been?" both of which I also enjoyed. much like O'Connor and A.M. Homes, Joyce Carol Oates has always explored darkness without lightly treading. if you can handle it, her stories can be just as rewarding as they are punishing. which is obviously true to my tastes.

[David W. Cofer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is more a long short story (86 small pages) than a novel, or even a novella. The story centers around an eleven year old girl named Josie. Josie is lonely as is her mother who left her husband and moved with her and Josie in with her aunt. Enter Josie's second cousin Jared, Jr. who is on leave from his theology studies and moved into the house as well. Josie and Jared, Jr. are both fascinated by one another, and Jared takes advantage of Josie's young age and interest in him and uses her as a test of his celibacy. He physically abuse her and strips her naked, yet not acting on his lust for her. All this occurs while Josie’s mother finds a boyfriend and stays out late at night and takes off out of town for days at a time, totally neglecting young Josie. Obviously, loneliness is a prevalent theme in the book.

This is not one of Oates best books, by a long shot. It is not well written, with many confusing sentences. Often who is being referred to is obscure. The book is written in the second person, which actually works well for this book.

Overall, I did not like the story. None of the characters were likeable, and I could not relate or pull for any of them, not even little, innocent Josie. Being so short, the book lacked any depth and character development was possible, leaving the characters very one-dimensional.

It was painfully obvious Oates mission in writing this book was to address what she felt was hypocrisy in religion. She would have been better off presenting those views in an essay, rather than attempting to disguise them in a fictional account.

[Jolly Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ce livre m'a laissée totalement perplexe. Je pense être complètement passée à côté.
Je n'avais encore jamais lu de roman de Joyce Carole Oates mais, celui-ci m'a un peu destabilisée. La narration est très particulière et change de point de vue fréquemment, certaines scènes semblent être des hallucinations de l'héroïne et laissent une impression assez étrange au lecteur.
L'auteur semble dénoncer la pédophilie et l'hypocrisie de certains croyants (par la pédophilie de certains prêtres) mais ce qui est dérangeant est le point de vue choisi. Celui de la petite fille amoureuse de ce cousin qui lui fait faire des choses sexuellement dérangeantes alors qu'elle n'a que 11 ans.
C'est un roman très perturbant.
Entre l'inceste, la pédophilie et cette petite fille qui n'a pas conscience que ce qu'on lui demande n'est pas normal, je me suis retrouvée assez mal à l'aise...

[Christian Engler · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this novella, JCO, has added yet another masterpiece to her already voluminous collection. In a blue/middle collar environment, innocence is lost by a man who, in the future, would become a man of the cloth. It is a story that mirrors so much of what is visible in the news today of people who think that they are above the law. JCO shows the irony of the molester who is studying to be holy and virtuous in the eyes of God, but acts and committs in the name of unthinkable, selfish evil, which seems representative of much of humanity. A gritty, raw painfully truthful book!

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. This is one of JCO’s great gothic works. It’s a very short read, but it’s jam packed with searing imagery, gothic themes and a puzzling, scary, sometimes heartbreaking, often creepy view of Josie and her family.
Some readers may find the book disturbing but one’s reaction does not change the fact that JCO has done an outstanding job of portraying the psyche of these characters and the gothic time and place of this tale. Only an extremely powerful writer can accomplish such complexity and depth in such a short book.