Broke Heart Blues

by Joyce Carol Oates

John Reddy Heart, a handsome young heartthrob, becomes the obsession of a small town in New York State during a sensational trial after a man is murdered in his mother's house. Reprint.

Genres: Fiction, Suspense, Contemporary, American, Literary Fiction, Ebooks, Americana

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

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

[emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

new years resolution: finally read more from the authors i'm always saying i need to read more from.

i just probably shouldn't have started here?

this book has been underread and out of print for large swathes of its 25-year existence, and unfortunately it's pretty clear why. 427 pages is just too many to make the fairly obvious point that people are shallow and easily swayed in high school and that that instinct remains.

(427 pages largely in a collective perspective of a high school class. 427 pages describing the same relatively inane events over and over. 427 pages with moments of brilliance few and far between.)

i've read all of joyce carol oates' short stories, and i think where are you going where have you been is one of the greatest of all time, and i...probably shouldn't have picked this for my first of her full novels.

bottom line: my oates quest will continue...but maybe after some recovery time.

(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the copy)

[Fabian · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a superb, prolific writer, there are time we witness the literary giantess become rather pedestrian. See: We Were the Mulvaney's. And less horrid, it is this, Broke Heart Blues, that demands much and gives little. Yeah, the enigmatic figure gives us glimpses of the types of attributes (literary and historical, hero or villain) she will bestow upon, oh, lets say, Marilyn Monroe (her most beloved and intense literary character). And we realize that the over-description of one heinous act to be what made Black Water an ode to adolescent doom. BHB is an approximation, but in my view a sincere failure. Though that will do nothing from reading another JCO book!

[Erin Quinney · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book got on my nerves. At first, I liked the strange POV, the "we" that switched between characters but always meant the collective, the "Circle." Then, it just got annoying. The person speaking changed at random, was never identified by anything other than gender, and repeated everything again and again and again. Also, the "we" were a little pathetic. Their obsession with John Reddy Heart (really? Blah.) was odd and unbelievable. Most people realize their teenage obsessions were crazy and stupid and get over it and maybe have a laugh at their former melodramatic selves. Not these people. It's irritating and not endearing. And I had to spend 286 pages with these people, reading the same 10 stories over and over again. At the end, I still couldn't keep all the characters straight, I never knew who was talking, and I didn't care. I just wanted it to be over.

The middle of the book started to get interesting but then Joyce Carol Oates decided we couldn't have that. She left the only character with any likability factor and returned to the "we." She told the exact same stories she told in the first half except 30 years later. Sure, I get that's the point. People are obsessive drama whores. The things that happen in high school stay with us. We tell the same stupid stories whenever we meet until the end of time. And those stories are always, always biased and probably not even 25% accurate. Thing is, it's annoying even when those stories involve me in some way. When they don't and they are as ludicrous and pathetic as the ones in this book? Shut up. Stop talking. Make a point. Please.

Unfortunately, that never happens.

I've read two books by Joyce Carol Oates and I've hated them both. I suppose I should read We Were the Mulvaneys or What I Lived For but, quite frankly, I'd rather stick a pencil in my eye. Time to accept this author isn't for me and move on.

[Wallflower · Rating 5 out of 5]

i'm surprised to see how much others on here didn't seem to like it -- broke heart blues is very nearly my favourite book.
oates' choice of perspective was amazing. i loved the way the first part had no specific narrator -- all of the individual, very different voices, joined together for a common very human purpose. oddly enough i found every moment intriguing, i couldn't put it down. and i adored john reddy heart through the whole thing, though i was at first not quite sure what to make of the transition into his head.

[Mark Wenz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm baffled by the negative reviews of this book, a book that brilliantly reveals Oates's genius. Broke Heart Blues has much to say about the mythology of high school, the insidiousness of rumors, the romantic stories that permeate America, and the contrast between what people remember as true and what was actually true. The second section of the book reveals the true John Reddy Hart, not the mysterious and mythical character that dominated the fantasy lives of his classmates. The middle section reveals a teenager with issues, a young man nothing like what his classmates envisioned him to be--now a man approaching middle age who is simply trying to find his place in the world and get by. When Oates reveals what actually happened in the life of John Reddy when he was a child and adolescent, we see a confused, conflicted, and emotionally stifled person, which makes sense considering his role models were a narcissistic mother, an absent father, and a stubborn and eccentric grandfather. The realism depicted in Section Two contrasts starkly with Sections One and Three, which, narrated in a frantic, hyperactive, breathy collective vision, present a hyperbolic, emotional, and adolescent vision of the world as seen by wealthy white Americans who have little understanding of how privileged they are. Unsurprisingly, John Reddy Heart's classmates never have grown out of adolescence since America celebrates youth at the expense of maturity; and, like many middle-aged Americans, they yearn romantically for a past that resonates differently in their psyches, because of their insecurities and foibles, than in reality. The behavior of John Reddy Heart's classmates at the 30th reunion is hilariously uncontrolled and immature, as we see people nearing 50 years of age getting in touch with their 18-year-old selves, drinking, eating, dancing to the point of getting sick, and acting like entitled yet desperate adolescents. The revelers' desire to relive their "glory days" reveals all of their insecurities and failed dreams, which some of them continued to grasp at wildly. Despite all the tragedies that occur during the 30th anniversary celebration, the collective narrator (the "we" that Oates so brilliantly creates) plans for a 35th and 40th since real life can't compete with the mythology of youth to which so many of them cleave. This book is a masterpiece, a book unlike any I've ever read, and I highly recommend it. Unlike those who claimed they were trying a third or fourth time to sludge through it, I read this book with delight, finishing it in only three days. Grade: A

[Cody · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sad to say this is my least favorite Joyce Carol Oates novel thus far—I’m giving two stars instead of one for (too rare) flashes of brilliant writing. Broke Heart Blues is strangely overwritten and underwritten all at once: the small town of 1960s Willowsville, New York, is utterly obsessed with and compelled by John Reddy Heart (gag), a local teenager that … gets into some trouble? Is accused of a murder? Is the son of a strange Marilyn Monroe stand-in (this novel was published a year before the author’s magnum opus Blonde, and in spots this inferior work feels like a trial run) worth such a fuss? Narrated with a collective “we” — representing this nowhere small town and its unbearable, spoiled citizens as a whole — JCO never leaves room for any real character development or gives any reason for why these townspeople, or the reader, should care about Johnny at all. He’s a guy, a dude, doing nothing and showing no affection or remorse or personality. He only talks to them when he has to!—All this for a cold and distant Aquarius man? I was bored, that’s all. It’s almost 400 pages of the same couple stories told over and over and over, from too-similar perspectives. I found myself asking too often while reading, “Don’t these people have lives?” I understand lingering on memories from the past, relationships from high school and college, but only when they’re worth remembering or can teach a lesson, or both.

I think perhaps the author was going for a commentary on mid century consumerism, but if so, the commentary isn’t pointed or even fully formed. This novel is a bunch of nothing, long out of print and rightfully so. JCO has accomplished more than this.

[Alison Bergblom Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't remember a collective 1st person narrator (the we) in any novel or short story let alone a successful one. This book's apparent subject is a crime. But it's deeper subject is the more interesting one, which is the mythology of high school, particularly the mythology of high school as "the best years of your life."

I also thought the books tripartite structure and seemingly omniscient but actually unreliable narrator were very effective. I also liked how those moments of unreliability showed the ways gossip distorts reality. Along with Blackwater and Blonde, this is one of my favorites by Joyce Carol Oates.

[Stephen Hoogerhyde · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never cease to be amazed at Joyce Carol Oates inventiveness. How she can continue to turn out novel after novel, and each one different, is amazing to me.

This one is largely set in northwest upstate New York (the area in which Oates was born and raised, and a scene of a number of her novels) and deals with a strange family that arrives in town from out west and soon captures the attention and interest of the town. John Heart, the oldest son and the focus of the novel, drives the family into town in a bright pink Cadillac, though he is only 11 years old: his mother, the striking Dahlia Heart, who dresses in all white, his grandfather, Aaron Leander Heart, who will eventually wander around town collecting glass bottles, and his younger brother and sister.

The first part of the story is told from the point of view of John Heart's classmates at Willowsville High School, who are inordinately fixated on this--to them--exotic young man. The second part of the story deals entirely with John Heart after he has left his family and Willowsville, and is told from the omniscient third person. The final part of the novel covers the 30th reunion of Willowsville High School, with almost no mention of John Heart, and from the point of view of his classmates.

As focused as they are on John Heart, and as much as they try to bring him into their circle, the novel is very much about the classmates of John Heart. It depicts the life and loves of a smaller town high school, with all the angst and drama that that entails, and in the reunion at the end of the novel it shows how, as much as life has taken some of them down markedly different paths, not much has changed once they all get together again. As the narrator says, "After high school in America, everything's posthumous."

The novel contains many very long paragraphs; one goes on for 23 pages! On the other hand, one chapter is only one short paragraph. For those of you familiar with her work, this one contains little violence compared to other novels of Oates. I enjoyed this one as much as any of her novels.

[Argiro Vatzioli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Τώρα, αν πω ότι μου άρεσε, θα πω ψέματα... Αν πω ότι δεν ήθελα να το αφήσω στην άκρη, πάλι ψέματα θα πω. Όμως πρέπει να παραδεχτώ πως με προκαλούσε να το συνεχίσω, σαν σε κάθε σελίδα του να έπαιζε ένα ιδιόρρυθμο κρυφτό μαζί μου, να με αφήνει για λίγο να κοιτάξω πίσω από την κουρτίνα και την επόμενη στιγμή να την κλείνει ερμητικά αφήνοντάς με με την εντύπωση μια παραξενης και συναρπαστικης εικόνας, που ίσως ήταν αληθινή, ίσως όμως και παιχνίδι του μυαλού μου. Κάπως έτσι, γύρω απο έναν συμπαγή πυρήνα, που θα μπορούσε να είναι η βάση για μια στιβαρή και εκπληκτικη ιστορία, η συγγραφέας κατορθώνει σωριάσει τόνους ατέλειωτης και ανουσίας φλυαρίας, χωρίς νόημα και ουσία, καταφέρνοντας να αποθαρρύνει και τον πιο επίμονο αναγνώστη, στην προκειμένη εμένα, που το έκλεισα με φανερή ανακούφιση (όταν έφτασα στο τέλος).

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A typical Oates novel in which you find more details about the people involved than you really want to know. This one starts before a 16-year-old male shoots a naked man manhandling his mother in bed and then describes not only how his life evolved but the feelings of all his peers throughout all the years until a 30th year high school reunion. He had been exhonerated for the killing and many of the teenage girls who had been attracted to him never were able to rid themselves of the obsession. The text moves back and forth during all of this carrying-on, and I found myself turning pages quickly at times - trying to get on with what was happening. Some reviewers would say that Oates has again succeeded in describing life as it existed at that time for she certainly doesn't leave out any details, but as one who lived during much of that time, I feel the account could have used some editing.

[James Lundy]

First of all, let me say that I have loved everything I've ever read by Joyce Carol Oates -- until now. John Reddy Hart... If I ever hear that name again I think I'm going to... take a nap, which is what trying to read this snoozer will make you want to do. I found myself looking ahead time and time again to see how many more pages the chapter would last. "I'll finish this chapter before I put it down," I'd promise myself. Seldom did I keep that promise,though. Save your money and read a cereal box instead. It's a lot more engaging than this loaf of a book. How in the world did they find 3 pages of positive quotes from reviewers to include in the opening pages? I wish I still had the $10 I plunked down for this waste of paper. Why isn't there a way of leaving less than zero stars?

[minnie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have read a few Joyce Carol Oates books and loved them all, this one I found hard going and it took me months to read.The only section I liked was the one written from the point of view of John Reddy Heart,I found the hysterical obsessive voices of the high school girls difficult to take and I was glad to be finished it.I recently read The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides and it reminded me a lot of Broke Heart Blues.

[Tami · Rating 2 out of 5]

How many times can one phrase be repeated within a single book? Anyone who had read a Joyce Carol Oates book knows that the answer is too scary to consider. The concept is interesting, but I almost stopped reading so many times out of annoyance with the repetition and constant babbling tone of the first two sections of the book.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know I read this book a few years back, and I remember it being a bear because of all of the details. Maybe Joyce and Stephen King should date - then they could write a whole book of descriptive adjectives about downtown store fronts. ...

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was also suprised to see how much everyone else disliked this book. Definately not her best, but soooo good all the same. I thouroughly enjoyed this book.

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

No one does hyper High School hysteria like JCO, especially when coupled with the American themes of class, wealth disparity, violence, money grubbing, pretense, gun love, celebrity, fear of aging, idolization of youth, freedom, familial abuse and disintegration, the Wizard of Oz emptiness of the American Dream ... whatever you can think of in terms of American obsessions and sins it is probably touched upon here. In fact, this might be the most "American" novel I have ever read - and ultimately, it is vicious.

And ingenious, if admittedly hard-to-love. For it is uncompromising in form and execution - long, over-the-top, accumulative, total overkill that suits the subject - at least in the outer two of the three "HS" sections, a full 80% of the novel.

In the framing sections Oates is in experimental mode - long, dense stream of consciousness paragraphs - but "consciousness" in this case is a communal "we" of a certain clique within a high school class. An upper class clique that is predictably obsessed with itself but allows itself the luxury of becoming obsessed with the alluring, mysterious, wrong-side-of-the-tracks new kid in town - John Reddy Heart. This obsession with the classmate reaches fantastical heights after he is accused of an act of violence.

The incredible narrative device of a first person plural narrator is a virtuoso performance from JCO. The plural "we" is a character in and of itself though alchemically made up individuals. And this "we" is often unreliable as unrealistic flights of fancy often take over the story. Individuals over and over again inflate innocuous encounters with John Heart in efforts to one up each other and leach off some of the glory that they have invented for him. And so the "we" does also - a scene where a group of girls visit Heart's apartment is perhaps the peak of hysterical fantasy.

Alone the outer sections of communal teenager "we" would probably not succeed by itself but JCO sandwiches a wonderful novella in between where we visit Heart two decades later and see the real man, the real boy he was, the family life that shaped him and lead him to the infamous act, and the repercussions. Heartbreaking. (Sad-faced pun intended.)

[Tim Callicutt · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Reddy Heart is the local teenage heartthrob, beloved by all but truly known by few. When he is accused and convicted (sort of) for murdering his mother’s lover, a well-known local businessman, his sense of mystique only deepens. The trial and imprisonment of John Reddy Heart sends shockwaves through the community.

John Reddy Heart, John Reddy Heart, John Reddy Heart… Get used to that name. It’s the name on everyone’s lips. There’s an almost ritualistic quality to the way they speak it. It’s annoying at first but saturates the novel to the extent that you stop caring. It is effective, at the very least, of helping build John Reddy Heart into a near-mythical figure - an emblem of teenage hope and horniness all bundled into one stoic package. Originally an out-of-towner and of a different social class, John Reddy Heart starts as the encapsulation of teenage rebellion, only to become a living metaphor for the ignominious end of teenagerdom as well. All that fuss and what is there to show for it? A broken system and deflated ego? That’s growing up, kids.

It’s particularly interesting that John Reddy Heart doesn’t have much interest in being anybody’s symbol. Sure, there are a few moments of coolness that set him apart but he’s largely a low-key character. When we get his actual perspective, he seems to be unaware of the hype he’s generated amongst his classmates, even years after he’s exited their lives. He’s also immune to the stardom that he’s accumulated as a result of the trial. His story is a tragic one that offset his life and family dynamics in ways that can never be repaired.

This novel would have been a three-star read if we had only gotten the pure hero worship of Woodsville but Oates settled things down a pace by letting us peek into Heart’s later life, even if he still remains frustratingly aloof. A good, if not great, novel that has made me interested in exploring more of Oates’ oeuvre.

[Roberta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Romanzo corale estremamente affascinante (anche perchè testimonia la tendenza tutta americana a letteralmente "idolatrare" il periodo della giovinezza) che indaga l'immagine che una cittadina perbenista come Willowsville si è fatta di un giovane come John Reddy Heart (un estraneo sia letteralmente che metaforicamente, ma estremamente affascinante, che viene accusato di aver ucciso l'amante della madre). E tutte queste illusioni, che sembrano ai giovani di Willosville più vere della vita vera (che non conta niente, dichiara una ragazza - ormai non più ragazza - al 30° ritrovo di classe) si rivelano (al lettore e a volte anche agli illusi stessi) per quello che sono: idee strampalate lontane anni luce dalla realtà, un turbinìo di passioni e di isteria all'interno del quale c'è un John Reddy Heart alquanto confuso e acciaccato dalla vita. Non so se sia più rivelatorio o angosciante questo svelare quanto ci si possa sbagliare anche sulle cose più importanti della propria vita. Come sempre comunque la Oates scava mirabilmente nella psicologia dei personaggi.

[Simona · Rating 3 out of 5]

Attraverso questo romanzo ho imparato a conoscere, non solo la Oates, ma anche il protagonista.
Iniziamo a conoscere John Reddy Heart sin da quando arriva a Willowsville, sobborgo nei pressi di Buffalo e all'età di 11 anni guida una Cadillac.
Conosciamo John dalle voci, dalle testimonianze di amici, di compagni di scuola e abitanti della cittadina. Ciò che scopriamo è un giovane arguto, intelligente, insofferente, solitario che pian piano diventa un idolo, un mito per tutti, anche quando sarà protagonista di un reato e un processo.
Mi è piaciuto? Non lo so dire con esattezza, ma sicuramente personaggi come John ammaliano il lettore con la loro vicinanza e presenza, anche grazie alla penna di Joyce Carol Oates che descrive con dovizia di particolari e dettagli una storia che ci invita a riflettere sulla figura dell'eroe, di quanto abbiamo bisogno di eroi e su chi siano gli eroi di oggi.

[Sterlingcindysu · Rating 2 out of 5]

John Reddy Heart moves with his family (driving a Cadillac at age 11) into a house his mother got from a sugar daddy while working in Vegas. All the boys want to be like him, and all the girls want him. He allegedly shoots a man who is attacking his mother at 16, but is acquitted. The novel is told from the point of view of his fellow classmates, and their class reunions with just a brief section of his adult life. Very hard to read through, very intense writing.

[Paul Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely wonderful book. The best I've read in many years.
Bless you John Reddy Heart. You're not what they they all think you are...and you chose to accept an injustice.
This is the best of Oates' books I have read (though I intend to read many more). She is right up there with the greats. Of the American writers, only the best of Joseph Wambaugh can match her.
I strongly recommend this beautiful book.

[Eschaaf2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel has made me think about the characters frequently. It's reminiscent of something, I can't put my finger on it, but it makes you feel like the story is a part of your own history. Definitely good. Typical Joyce Carol Oates, though: fairly bleak take on humanity. But that's part of what makes it so fabulous.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting one for Oates. I really liked the dual-sided nature of the text. That was an interesting technique and made the book much more complex than it would have otherwise been. It's still not my favorite Oates, but that would be a pretty big request to make at this point.

[Lynn Vannucci]

Great reviews, for its comedy; I enjoyed it a great deal but not as much as most of her books.

[Christy Hawkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

What happens when popularity cults form? Just read and see!

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only Oates' book I didn't really appreciate. It was about 250 pages too long- she made her point about 30 pages in.

[Beverly · Rating 1 out of 5]

I confess, it was so repetitious that I skimmed many pages. It was as if someone said to the author write a book with 300 pages and we don't care what the content is.

[Serena.. Sery-ously? · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tutti possono scrivere una storia del genere. Solo la Oates la rende maledettamente speciale.

[JimZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely favorable review in the Times Literary Supplement, August 6, 1999.

[Aleksandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, so this is going to be the first review for which I actually made notes while reading the book. Let's see if it will make the text more eloquent.
The novel was between 2 and 3 stars for me. I've decided to give it 3, because some two-star reads were actually much worse than this one. But still, "Broke Heart Blues" was boring, boring, boring.
The book is divided into three parts, the first one being the longest. It tells the story of a quiet, rich, posh suburban town, where one day the Heart family arrived from Las Vegas, totally incompatible with the lifestyle and tastes of the community, a move which, within a few years,, would culminate in a murder, presumably committed by a teenage John Reddy, defending his mother from an aggressive lover. The novel, however, and disappointingly so, is not about its constant presence despite being absent, John Reddy Heart. It's about the impact this event had on the lives of his schoolmates. The time when the action is set is not given, which was a bit frustrating (knowing the time of action helps me imagine the setting), but judging by the publication date, I'm guessing it starts in the late 1960s.
The first part employs the interesting literary device of a collective narrator, one the hand hand interesting, as the novel is supposed to present the point of view of a particular community at a particular time. On the other hand, however, not having a single voice to pinpoint from among this multitude (100+ people) is a little tiresome and annoying - there is nobody to follow, nobody to attach to. And if that is the case, why should the reader care about anyone of them? There were just so many, too many, with unusual, impossible-to-remember names.
The narration is this part is non-linear, which I usually really enjoy, but Oates takes it further than that and employs the device of stream of consciousness here, long sentences, hardly ever a new paragraph, and scarcely any comma. Combined with all the names popping up here and there, it all got just too boring and tiresome.
Then part two comes, which concentrates on the actual John Reddy (the presumed murderer). This one was much better: there was no stream of consciousness, more plot, and the backstory of John Heart and his family was pretty interesting (perhaps a bit corny - a presumed murderer being too sensitive to tolerate deer hunting in the county). Most importantly, there was just one narrative voice and one hero. Now this was a part I really enjoyed; sadly, it ended almost as soon as it began, giving way to part three, which was a return to stream-of-consciousness-cum-collective-narrator narration.
Perhaps it's because I'm not American, but I am absolutely unable to understand why all those young people were so affected, during their whole lives, by a murder that was perpetrated when they were 16? 17? by, supposedly, a schoomate they weren't even friends with, that they hardly ever knew (it is actually interesting that we never get to find out actually whodunit, we are just given hints, albeit pretty clear ones).
To sum up - the book was much too long, and much too boring. It could have been better had it concentrated on John and his family; however, I understand that the author's intention was to show a chunk of American society of her time, and its fascination with pseudocelebrities. I guess it must have been a sort of vanity project of Oates's, semi-autibiographical if not more than that. But it still does not explain why a reader would be expected to care.