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Joyce Carol Oates: Letters to a Biographer
This rich compilation of Joyce Carol Oates's letters across four decades displays her warmth and generosity, her droll and sometimes wicked sense of humor, her phenomenal energy, and most of all, her mastery of the lost art of letter writing.
"It's hard to think of another writer with as fecund and protean an imagination as the eighty-five-year-old Joyce Carol Oates, who is surely on any short list of America's greatest living writers." —New York Times Magazine
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's 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.
"It's hard to think of another writer with as fecund and protean an imagination as the eighty-five-year-old Joyce Carol Oates, who is surely on any short list of America's greatest living writers." —New York Times Magazine
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's 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.
321 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 5, 2024
14 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
857 books9,682 followersJoyce 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 21, 2024
The book delivers precisely what is promised by the combination of title and subtitle. It delivers more than promised in the sense that the biographer and editor, Greg Johnson, is also the author’s friend—and so the letters are warmer and more wide-ranging than might otherwise be expected from coolly business-like correspondence with a biographer. If you come looking for a heavily-edited, thematically-arranged volume, you’ll be disappointed. The edits are limited and judicious, usually in the form of a short introduction to set the context or clarifying comments enclosed in brackets within the text of the letters to identify people, places, events, and the like that would otherwise be confusing to the reader. The latter are especially important given that we have only the letters to the biographer and not the other half of the conversation. Reading the book is very much like overhearing one half of an ongoing phone conversation with Joyce Carol Oates (JCO)—her half—about her spouse, her aging parents, her pets, her colleagues, her work, the publishing world (Vanguard, Random House, Dutton, Norton, Doubleday, Ecco/HarperCollins) and editors, other authors, the theater world, and academic literary circles.
You’ll also be disappointed if you come looking for an unabridged, academic collection or critical edition of the complete correspondence. Ellipses within the letters identify missing portions. You’ll have to make your own index if you want to refer back to JCO’s opinions about Toni Morrison, John Updike, Tom Wolfe, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Truman Capote, Charles Gibson, Janet Malcom, Margaret Atwood, Mike Tyson, Flannery O’Connor, Angelina Jolie, Marilynne Robinson, Saul Bellow, Nabokov, Henry James, Philip Roth, Stephen King, Walter Mosley, P.D. James, Donald Trump, Norman Mailer, Elaine Showalter, Jeanne Halpern, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Silko, Louise Erdrich, Wallace Stevens, Oprah Winfrey, Cormac McCarthy, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and Harold Bloom and Cornel West (“masters of bloviation,” p. 291).
Of special interest throughout the book are the many observations JCO makes in the letters about the writing life, especially the challenge of moving back and forth between plays, short stories, novels (shorter and longer, YA and literary fiction), and poetry. She despairs of ever mastering the novella and she frequently mentions the challenge, even agony, of the first draft vs. the relative ease of revising. (For flavor: “Yet, to have the facility of a Mozart, to toss work off without any effort at all, would not be much fun,” p. 58. “I expect to glance into a mirror one day & see a blank space with the notice OUT OF PRINT across it,” p. 291)
I am in the very odd (for me) position of reviewing a book about (by?) an author whose work I have not read, except in the occasional New Yorker or Atlantic essay or article in the New York Review of Books. I’ve never read her novels or seen her plays performed. And, frankly, this is probably not the book that one should choose for an introduction to JCO. Better, or at least more likely to be comprehensive for the periods it covers, is the 1998 biography, also by Greg Johnson (Invisible Writer: A Biography of Joyce Carol Oates). However, this book of letters and my subsequent research and reading about JCO (especially the November 20, 2023 Profile in the New Yorker by Rachel Aviv, “Joyce Carol Oates’s Relentless, Prolific Search for a Self”) intrigue me enough to pursue reading a few of her novels and short story collections as time permits over the next year or so. If that is the criterion, the book was clearly a success.
Contents
Preface by Greg Johnson
Introduction by Joyce Carol Oates
Part One: 1975-1990
Part Two: 1991-1992
Part Three: 1993-1995
Part Four: 1996-1998
Part Five: 1999-2004
Part Six: 2005-2006
Who Should Read It?
Students of JCO who are trying to obtain contextual and biographical information to understand her oeuvre will be interested in the book, as will any hard core fans of either JCO or Greg Johnson. It is not for people like me who have limited to no prior acquaintance with JCO’s work, as there are likely better entrées to that work and summaries of it.
Princetonians should read the book. In addition to JCO, the university and the town (especially the McCarter Theatre) play a prominent role in the correspondence. As someone who spent significant time at Princeton Theological Seminary during the periods covered by the book (1988-1995), I found it a wonderful trip down memory lane. One letter in particular, dated 8 February 1994, with its brief mention of the weather (“Our weather is unspeakable! More snow! Sleet!”) was especially meaningful. We have photos of that horrific winter in which our first daughter was born a week after the letter was penned. The snow never let up.
Upcoming Events at which JCO will Promote the Book:
This book was received via LibraryThing Early Reviewers (LTER), a program by which publishers provide advance copies of books for review (or, as in this case, recently published copies—the book was released on March 5 and I was notified that I had “won” it on February 27; I received and started reading it on March 8). The book arrived complete with a Press Kit from Akashic Books with promotional events with Joyce Carol Oates listed from March 18-May 20. LibraryThing does not dictate the content or tone of any reviews, so long as they abide by the Terms of Use publicly posted on the site. This review is my honest opinion.
Cornel West actually appears with an interview/essay in the next book I must review, Until Our Lungs Give Out: Conversations on Race, Justice, and the Future, Rowman & Littlefield: NY, 2023, edited by George Yancy.
You’ll also be disappointed if you come looking for an unabridged, academic collection or critical edition of the complete correspondence. Ellipses within the letters identify missing portions. You’ll have to make your own index if you want to refer back to JCO’s opinions about Toni Morrison, John Updike, Tom Wolfe, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Truman Capote, Charles Gibson, Janet Malcom, Margaret Atwood, Mike Tyson, Flannery O’Connor, Angelina Jolie, Marilynne Robinson, Saul Bellow, Nabokov, Henry James, Philip Roth, Stephen King, Walter Mosley, P.D. James, Donald Trump, Norman Mailer, Elaine Showalter, Jeanne Halpern, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Silko, Louise Erdrich, Wallace Stevens, Oprah Winfrey, Cormac McCarthy, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and Harold Bloom and Cornel West (“masters of bloviation,” p. 291).
Of special interest throughout the book are the many observations JCO makes in the letters about the writing life, especially the challenge of moving back and forth between plays, short stories, novels (shorter and longer, YA and literary fiction), and poetry. She despairs of ever mastering the novella and she frequently mentions the challenge, even agony, of the first draft vs. the relative ease of revising. (For flavor: “Yet, to have the facility of a Mozart, to toss work off without any effort at all, would not be much fun,” p. 58. “I expect to glance into a mirror one day & see a blank space with the notice OUT OF PRINT across it,” p. 291)
I am in the very odd (for me) position of reviewing a book about (by?) an author whose work I have not read, except in the occasional New Yorker or Atlantic essay or article in the New York Review of Books. I’ve never read her novels or seen her plays performed. And, frankly, this is probably not the book that one should choose for an introduction to JCO. Better, or at least more likely to be comprehensive for the periods it covers, is the 1998 biography, also by Greg Johnson (Invisible Writer: A Biography of Joyce Carol Oates). However, this book of letters and my subsequent research and reading about JCO (especially the November 20, 2023 Profile in the New Yorker by Rachel Aviv, “Joyce Carol Oates’s Relentless, Prolific Search for a Self”) intrigue me enough to pursue reading a few of her novels and short story collections as time permits over the next year or so. If that is the criterion, the book was clearly a success.
Contents
Preface by Greg Johnson
Introduction by Joyce Carol Oates
Part One: 1975-1990
Part Two: 1991-1992
Part Three: 1993-1995
Part Four: 1996-1998
Part Five: 1999-2004
Part Six: 2005-2006
Who Should Read It?
Students of JCO who are trying to obtain contextual and biographical information to understand her oeuvre will be interested in the book, as will any hard core fans of either JCO or Greg Johnson. It is not for people like me who have limited to no prior acquaintance with JCO’s work, as there are likely better entrées to that work and summaries of it.
Princetonians should read the book. In addition to JCO, the university and the town (especially the McCarter Theatre) play a prominent role in the correspondence. As someone who spent significant time at Princeton Theological Seminary during the periods covered by the book (1988-1995), I found it a wonderful trip down memory lane. One letter in particular, dated 8 February 1994, with its brief mention of the weather (“Our weather is unspeakable! More snow! Sleet!”) was especially meaningful. We have photos of that horrific winter in which our first daughter was born a week after the letter was penned. The snow never let up.
Upcoming Events at which JCO will Promote the Book:
This book was received via LibraryThing Early Reviewers (LTER), a program by which publishers provide advance copies of books for review (or, as in this case, recently published copies—the book was released on March 5 and I was notified that I had “won” it on February 27; I received and started reading it on March 8). The book arrived complete with a Press Kit from Akashic Books with promotional events with Joyce Carol Oates listed from March 18-May 20. LibraryThing does not dictate the content or tone of any reviews, so long as they abide by the Terms of Use publicly posted on the site. This review is my honest opinion.
Cornel West actually appears with an interview/essay in the next book I must review, Until Our Lungs Give Out: Conversations on Race, Justice, and the Future, Rowman & Littlefield: NY, 2023, edited by George Yancy.
August 11, 2024
This is kind of a random read for me. I have read a few of JCO's novels and stories. I enjoyed some of them, but I am not a big fan. I do enjoy letter collections, so I gave this a shot.
These letters were all written by JCO to Greg Johnson between 1975 and 2006. He selected and edited them. He is a novelist and short story writer, but he is probably best known as Oates authorized biographer. He has written several other books on JCO including his edited selections from her journals and a volume of conversations with JCO.
The letters are not very exciting. They are mostly Oates describing her various travels to conferences, ceremonies, lectures and vacations, reports on her pets, practical discussions about the biography and discussions of the health of her parents. She reports on the progress of the books she is writing but there is not much discussion of the craft of her writing. She mentions books she is reading or authors she meets, but there is very little analysis or discussion of literary matters.
These are chatty letters from one friend to another. When you read some authors' letters it is clear that they are writing with an eye to the letters being published. Henry James, Hemingway, Ezra Pond or Virginia Woolfe all seem to have one eye on publication in their letters. JCO appears to have written these letters for the perfectly appropriate reason of keeping up with a friend.
She does have a few good lines.
She mentions the "sinister William Burroughs", which is sharp but accurate.
Norman Mailer compares reading Tom Wolfe's new novel to 'making love to a 300-pound woman". Oates asks, "how does Mailer know about such things?"
She describes the English poet John Hollander as "a dull but pompous man who, while scolding the younger generation for not speaking or writing clearly, mumbled."
She is listed as #42 on the NYT list of the 100"Great Minds". She is embarrassed by the whole thing, but she notes that "any list that excludes the masters of bloviation Harold Bloom and Cornell West, can't be all bad."
The letters do give some insight into how she can write so much high-quality stories, novels and essays. She is always at work on multiple projects. Most authors write one novel at a time and usually take breaks between them. She appears to always have several books in various stages. She discusses being happy when she finishes one of her long novels because it will let her get to a novella or short story.
The deep friendship between her and Johnson come through in the letter. He became friends with her parents and family. She also comes across in the letters as a good decent person.
The book ends in 2006. Johnson and JCO, like everyone else, start to communicate by email by then. Johnson explains that the emails between them are more frequent, but they are briefer and less engaging than letters. The age of collected letters is dead.
These letters were all written by JCO to Greg Johnson between 1975 and 2006. He selected and edited them. He is a novelist and short story writer, but he is probably best known as Oates authorized biographer. He has written several other books on JCO including his edited selections from her journals and a volume of conversations with JCO.
The letters are not very exciting. They are mostly Oates describing her various travels to conferences, ceremonies, lectures and vacations, reports on her pets, practical discussions about the biography and discussions of the health of her parents. She reports on the progress of the books she is writing but there is not much discussion of the craft of her writing. She mentions books she is reading or authors she meets, but there is very little analysis or discussion of literary matters.
These are chatty letters from one friend to another. When you read some authors' letters it is clear that they are writing with an eye to the letters being published. Henry James, Hemingway, Ezra Pond or Virginia Woolfe all seem to have one eye on publication in their letters. JCO appears to have written these letters for the perfectly appropriate reason of keeping up with a friend.
She does have a few good lines.
She mentions the "sinister William Burroughs", which is sharp but accurate.
Norman Mailer compares reading Tom Wolfe's new novel to 'making love to a 300-pound woman". Oates asks, "how does Mailer know about such things?"
She describes the English poet John Hollander as "a dull but pompous man who, while scolding the younger generation for not speaking or writing clearly, mumbled."
She is listed as #42 on the NYT list of the 100"Great Minds". She is embarrassed by the whole thing, but she notes that "any list that excludes the masters of bloviation Harold Bloom and Cornell West, can't be all bad."
The letters do give some insight into how she can write so much high-quality stories, novels and essays. She is always at work on multiple projects. Most authors write one novel at a time and usually take breaks between them. She appears to always have several books in various stages. She discusses being happy when she finishes one of her long novels because it will let her get to a novella or short story.
The deep friendship between her and Johnson come through in the letter. He became friends with her parents and family. She also comes across in the letters as a good decent person.
The book ends in 2006. Johnson and JCO, like everyone else, start to communicate by email by then. Johnson explains that the emails between them are more frequent, but they are briefer and less engaging than letters. The age of collected letters is dead.
July 29, 2024
I love Oates' insights. She has a blessed life and many admirers but can't really see it or believe it or feels embarrassed by it. She has written an insane amount but often feels inadequate anyway. She has achieved next to everything you could want as a writer, but laments how she has wasted her time.
She says in these letters that perhaps we read biography because we just want to know how people have done it, gotten through a life. Certainly that's why I read her journals and letters. It soothes me that someone I so greatly admire has (had) the same thoughts I do. These thoughts become depersonalised, not really belonging to any one person and certainly not to any circumstance they have or have not created for themselves. They just are.
Maybe that's what all of literature is for :)
Now look, these letters were all addressed to Greg Johnson, I get it--but I would be super embarrassed if I had edited a book for JCO fans and every letter began, "Wow Greg Johnson, great job on your latest story! Congratulations Greg on your latest award! Great new novel, Greg, what an amazing cover!" Ahaha... the temptation to accuse him of drawing attention to his own successes through this collection is strong. But also, Mr Johnson does seem to have achieved a lot across his years of correspondence with JCO, and it's fucking difficult to get anyone to look at your writing, so whether that was his intent or not, I hope it works!
She says in these letters that perhaps we read biography because we just want to know how people have done it, gotten through a life. Certainly that's why I read her journals and letters. It soothes me that someone I so greatly admire has (had) the same thoughts I do. These thoughts become depersonalised, not really belonging to any one person and certainly not to any circumstance they have or have not created for themselves. They just are.
Maybe that's what all of literature is for :)
Now look, these letters were all addressed to Greg Johnson, I get it--but I would be super embarrassed if I had edited a book for JCO fans and every letter began, "Wow Greg Johnson, great job on your latest story! Congratulations Greg on your latest award! Great new novel, Greg, what an amazing cover!" Ahaha... the temptation to accuse him of drawing attention to his own successes through this collection is strong. But also, Mr Johnson does seem to have achieved a lot across his years of correspondence with JCO, and it's fucking difficult to get anyone to look at your writing, so whether that was his intent or not, I hope it works!
March 13, 2024
A pure delight, from start to finish. "JCO" is an engaging writer of letters, and the editor (Greg Johnson's) notes and context offered throughout only amplifies one's reading of these letters. As a longtime fan of JCO's work, it was awesome to read snippets of insight and commentary on some of her beloved works and life experiences. I only wish this were 300 pages longer, as I am sure I'd be just as engaged throughout. If you haven't, check out Greg Johnson's 1998 biography of JCO, Invisible Writer, discussed in-depth here. I can only hope there might be more to come, in some form or another!
December 22, 2025
I received this book from LibraryThing.com Early Member Giveaway for a honest review. This is my opinion of the book. It was interesting to read letters from the author to her biographer. She talks about what happens in her day to day life and also talks about her writing process. I rated the book a 3 out of 5 stars.
May 26, 2024
i possibly know too much about this woman
June 3, 2024
Well put together, and a joy to read! I love reading journals, diaries and letters, and this was very enjoyable!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews