Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.

by Joyce Carol Oates

The bonds of family are tested in the wake of a profound tragedy, providing a look at the darker side of our society by one of our most enduringly popular and important writers

Night Sleep Death The Stars is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: when a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all.

Stark and penetrating, Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel is a vivid exploration of race, psychological trauma, class warfare, grief, and eventual healing, as well as an intimate family novel in the tradition of the author’s bestselling We Were the Mulvaneys.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Family, Audiobook, Literature, Adult

800 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 9, 2020

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

[Nilufer Ozmekik · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven’t read something so good for so long!

I confess! I was scared and my eyes were about to pop out of my sockets as soon as I saw page numbers of the book. I liked to work on long books but they should be “Goldfinch” worthy greatly written and memorable reads. I was having second thoughts but I realized the book’s named after one my favorite poems so I have to go blind and dodge the bullet. There is nothing to be afraid of dnf’ing a book (I hate to do it but if it’s necessary you should have to do it as well.)

But as soon as I start this powerful, extra ordinary reading that ruined me for any mediocre readings I did recently, my emotions were everywhere. I smiled. I cried. I gritted my teeth. I clenched my fists. I laughed aloud. I whined. I clapped. I hurt. I ached. I smiled and finally I LOVED THIS DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY and the author’s brilliant, realistic portraits, living, breathing characterization, moving story-telling like a fresh breeze touches your face and you’re swimming in the literature sea, discovering new tastes, new gems and remarkable vividness of word choices.

When I read a book, two things are important for me : The story’s pacing and strength of the characters’ depictions. For so long I haven’t read multi layered, detailed characters make you feel like you really know them. But the author brought them out with impeccable visualization. They seem like one of your family members. The author makes us easier to connect them and understand their motives, strengths, weaknesses, faults, flaws, beliefs, worries, dreams.

I loved Jessalyn and I understand that she is better alone. She doesn’t need anyone to share her life after she lost her husband. She doesn’t want to be controlled by her own children.

And of course those siblings fight with their own inner demons. My favorites were normally golden hearted Sophie and Virgil. Beverly and Thom are more problematic characters with their bottled up resentments and angers. Beverly shows her feelings by using her aggressive, critical tone and Thom prefers mockery and sarcasm as defense mechanism.

We’re introduced so many remarkable characters throughout our journey and mesmerized by the story’s progression and memorable ending.

This book needs your effort, your time, your full concentration and demands your heart and mind to open to the possibilities, surprises and unexpected twists of life. But at the end, your feel the warmness in your heart that sings to you loudly and you embrace the happiness with your soul. So this is amazing experience you’d love to welcome with open hands.

Overall: THIS IS MASTERPIECE!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins Publishers/Ecco for sharing this fantastic fiction’s ARC COPY with me in exchange my honest review.

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[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

UPDATE....(again) -- This is a $1.99 special again today -(a steal) - Its one of my favorite books -- but many people avoid it because of those 800 pages -- but they read FAST --
Its a fabulous family story!!

Update: I just learned that this is a Kindle $1.99 special today....
It’s a ridiculously fantastic bargain in my opinion.
I keep telling people— it’s one of my favorite family saga stories I’ve read ..

If you think it’s a book you wanna read, the price is sure fantastic! I’d jump at it myself - but I already own it.


THIS IS STILL MY FAVORITE BOOK THIS YEAR!!!!
Just released today!!?
VERY HIGH RECOMMENDATION TO THOSE READERS WHO ENJOY A GREAT LONG FAMILY SAGA....
ITS GRIPPING from page 1 with a very thought provoking situation RELEVANT to our current events.

I read this ‘before’ these events. ...
I say no more about the beginning...
But my God... I LOVE THIS BOOK!!

Strong favorite!!!



UPDATE

Whew, WOW,............AMAZING.....an 800 page novel that I'm sad to see end!
Review to follow. (in a few days or so)

I’m Back: Here it Goes....( love to chat with other readers who read it)


The book cover is gorgeous...
The title is inspired by the Walt Whitman poem:
“A Clear Midnight”.....
“This is thy O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully fourth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes
thou lovest best,
Night, Sleep, death, and the stars”

Joyce Carol Oat’s novel, “Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars”, is a great work of art....grandly entertaining- bold, comic, tragic, deeply moving family drama.
It’s sharp, witty, and highly descriptive. This novel dissects each family member with a ruthless cutting edge: unraveling at the seams....a book well worth reading.

John Earle McClean...(nicknamed *Whitey*)...was born in Feb.1943. He died in 2010.
If only Whitey had lived....none of this would have happened.
Whitey’s family:
Jessalyn, ( wife), and the adult kids:
.....Thom, Beverly, Lorene, Sophia, and Virgil often asked themselves, after his death.....”WHAT WOULD DAD SAY?”
As the reader....I often asked....”does it matter?” “Why? and/or Why not?”
What was obvious: The entire McClean experienced great loss after Whitey died.

Every character had distinct characteristics, talents, interests, strengths, weaknesses, accomplishments, passive and aggressive sides, fears, concerns, worries, self-doubts, opinions, and secrets.
At any given time one or all of the siblings might have kept a tight lid on their emotions, or be explosive with them.
“Siblings form alliances with one another that are both permanent and shifting. Disagreements, disappointments, feuds, temporary and expedient bonds, shared resentments—“

Each character had multi dimensional sides to them. An entire novel could be written on any ‘one’ of the siblings - or Jessalyn ( the widow)....
A complete novel could be written on a few of the minor characters as well.

A FEW.....Tidbit ( general/stereotype), examples: [but don’t pegged them too harshly - as every character may surprise you at some point.... as specialized chameleons do.... in this 800 page novel].
The siblings:
....Beverly...was resentful, .... judgemental....and critical...
....Thom was bossy... who’s sarcasm could be construed as funny, if it wasn’t directed at you.
....Sophia was the earnest schoolgirl
....Lorene...the sardonic schoolmistress
....Virgil...just was! ( was also my favorite character)

Jessalyn....wanted to be left alone to live her own life ... make her own choices. She certainly didn’t want to marry a boring old shoe, as a replacement husband. And she certainly didn’t want her children to dictate her choices. She’s a woman after my own heart!
Jessalyn wondered: if?????
“You’re only as happy as your most unhappy child.
Is this true? Jessalyn wonders if it is a statement of resignation and defeat or a goad to action and change.
If it means you will never be happy if your child of yours is not happy; then you must do all you can to ensure that neither of you unhappy”.

....Many characters & places, to sink your teeth into: Galapagos, is a stand out!
....Hugo Martinez, (photographer artist poet activist), adds a lot to this story.
....Mack-the-Knife: *Mackey*, is a Tomcat to love!
....A GREAT embarrassing scene ( I was cringing), with a sibling > a side of ( cough/cough> her or he)... as I’m not saying who....had me CRINGING with embarrassment.
....Did I cry? My eyes ‘watered’ for a minute in one scene

"One’s own existence, so small. One’s grief, happiness, love or failure to love—of so little consequence”.

“Night. Sleep. Death.The Stars”, takes a good hard look at the complex relationships within a family....
Oats supplied us with a tragic event that sets the stage....
...that will have the family members, ( and readers), not only looking at loss, responsibilities to family members, marriages, boundaries, cracks in the foundation of beliefs, but she examines race, injustice, class, (which for better or worse shape the reality and continuity of our lives).

....Domestic realism...
....Luminous details of every day life and all the riffraff’s...
....With masterful skills....Joyce Carol Oats exposes us to the sobering choices, strains of unexpected sorrow, unexpected pleasures, and rich rewards.

I thoroughly loved this book!

Thank You HarperCollins, and Joyce Carol Oats.
This book will be released on June 9th, 2020

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so good!
Set in Hammond New York.
I was thoroughly caught up inside the lives and minds of this big family...a quite wealthy family...a widow and her five adult children... all struggling to move on after the tragic loss of their much beloved husband/father.
There are many topics touched on in this novel, such as racial discrimination, police brutality, sibling rivalry, emotional trauma...etc..
The family dynamics were quite fascinating to watch... (yes, watch). I felt like I was there watching everything going on.
800 pages, yet I would still have liked to read more about these characters.
This was my first book by this author.. I plan to read more.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins for the ARC!

[Eric Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since Joyce Carol Oates frequently writes about social and political issues at the heart of American society her fiction can often feel eerily prescient. But it's an extraordinary coincidence that in the week preceding the publication of her latest novel NIGHT. SLEEP. DEATH. THE STARS. widely publicised real life events would so closely mirror the book's prologue. The opening describes an incident where a middle-aged white man driving on an upstate New York expressway notices a police confrontation on the side of the road. He observes white police officers using excessive force while detaining a young dark-skinned man and stops to question their actions. In response the officers restrain, beat and taser the driver. The injuries he sustains eventually lead to his death. The video of George Floyd, a 46 year old black man who died as a result of being brutally restrained by a white police officer in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, has sparked widespread protests and newly motivated the Black Lives Matter movement. Public discussions regrading institutionalised racism, prejudice and privilege continue. These are also the pressing issues at the centre of Oates's epic new novel about a family whose lives unravel as a consequence of such a tragic event.

Read my full review of Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. by Joyce Carol Oates on LonesomeReader

You can also watch me interview Joyce Carol Oates about this novel where she candidly discusses her very personal reasons for writing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkXsoe6ieKY

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 5 out of 5]

[4.5] It is such a pleasure to sink into a novel created by a master! Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars is about a complicated family, who in the aftermath of their father's/husband's death are thrown together and apart with rivalries, anxieties, bigotry and (thank goodness) love. I have three siblings and recognized so many familiar dynamics at play - comic, upsetting and revelatory. This novel packs a punch! My emotions seesawed continuously. So much is packed in these 800 pages -yet each one felt essential. I am awed by the way Oates made it all work so very wonderfully.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: This is one of the longest reviews I have written in a while. It is a plea for the benefits of reading outside one's comfort zone. I hope you understand.

I think it is safe to say that readers are divided into devoted fans of Joyce Carol Oates and those who would not read her, ever! Here is how I became fan.

I first read her one hot month in 1988 when I was stranded in Los Angeles due to a snafu in a training program I was attending. My accommodations were located across the street from a used bookstore with racks out on the sidewalk where battered paperbacks sold for a quarter.

I picked up Marya, A Life, only two years after its publication and already a 25 cent paperback. I lay on my bed in a sweltering room and read about Marya's terrible, gritty life having really no idea what I was reading. It was the most disturbing thing I had ever read. Not surprising because in those days I usually read trashy bestsellers.

By 1992, I was living permanently in LA and had embarked on an effort to branch out in my reading. I read Joyce Carol Oates's first novel, With Shuddering Fall. It was pretty gritty too. Her characters were fairly unrecognizable to me. Generally lower class whites, not mainstream in any way, violent and sometimes outright crazy. My mother told me she had tried reading Oates but found her books "weird."

I persevered, still eager in those days to rebel against my mother. I have read her first nine novels and some early short stories, then dropped her for several years. In 2013, I started again, reading whatever was her latest book. She is still weird in her own unique way, so I can only conclude that I have changed as a reader. I now count myself among her dedicated fans.

I have not read the recent bestsellers, How To Be An Antiracist or White Fragility, but I would say that Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars is JCO's answer to such conundrums from a literary viewpoint.

The title is the last line of a Walt Whitman poem, "A Clear Midnight."

The novel is an intimate family tale concerning a white family in upstate New York. The father, a much-loved and well-to-do man in his community, pulls off the road one evening to intervene in what appears to be a scene of police harassment against a Black man. In the ensuing debacle, John Earle McClaren is beaten, tasered, and left by the police on the side of the road where he suffers a massive stroke. The dark skinned man being harassed is taken into custody.

McClaren dies in the hospital from a staph infection a couple weeks later. By that time in the story, his wife and five grown offspring have been introduced. It is clear they are not exactly the close and happy family they are perceived to be by the community.

The novel is long but I read it quickly, not wanting to look away. The family majorly fractures after the patriarch's death but she shows us the hairline fractures present from the beginning, though they had been held in stasis, in almost a hostage situation, by John Earle McClaren. His control was not ever physically brutal but it was absolute. Not his wife nor any one of his children were allowed to be who they really were nor to think for themselves.

JCO has always appeared to be prescient in her novels. She wrote this one a year before the more recent explosion of the Black Lives Matter movement. Listening to an interview with her about writing this novel, I realized again how attuned she is to the evils and upheavals of American culture. At this point in her life she is a privileged white woman but she came up in near poverty in the midst of small town violence. A favorite childhood book of hers was Alice In Wonderland.

She has written at least 56 novels! I feel her writing has become somewhat more accessible over the years but has never lost that bite, penetrating the human heart with all of its strengths and weaknesses, its fears and joys. In her novels I have found everyone I've ever known, the ones I was afraid to know, and myself.

I most loved Jessalyn McClaren, the widow of John and the mother of those five children. Her grief and her emergence from it, her tentative forays into life as her true self, are all so meticulously shown. Somehow we white people get to know ourselves through the book: our ridiculous assumptions about others, our reluctance to move outside our perceived safety zones, our ill-informed prejudices about people and our inherent fragility as the most powerful race on earth, no matter what our political stances are.

All of that is in Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. Read it at your own risk.

[Martie Nees Record · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genre: Literary Fiction/Family Saga
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pub. Date: June 9, 2020

Joyce Carol Oates has long been a favorite literary author of mine. Just when I think that she can’t do it again—write another gripping family saga—she does. The book’s title comes from the closing lines of Walt Whitman’s “A Clear Midnight.” The poem “refers to the moment of transition that happens from one day to the next. The moment is used as a metaphor from changing corporeal existence to the spiritual existence.” The interruption of the poem is from PoetAndPoem.com. Yes, I needed to look up its meaning. Once I got it, I could easily see how its message is used repeatedly throughout this weighty novel of 800 pages.

The theme of “Night” is familiar to fans of Oates. Once again, she is writing about love and loss, which most would agree are preoccupations in our lives as well as in our literature. Oates has lost two husbands, one after forty-seven years of marriage, and the other after ten. I read her 2011 memoir, “A Widow's Story,” which she wrote after the death of her first husband. There she suggests that to get through the agonizing grief, “the widow should think I kept myself alive.” In this novel, the author holds nothing back when writing on the psychological effects of grief on Jessalyn, who is one of the main characters, and a grieving widow. The novel is filled with her emotions of shock, loss, feelings of unreality, and thoughts of never loving again. Oates didn’t write personally after the loss of her second husband. I can’t help but wonder if she chose to tell any of that story here. The author has said no such thing, to be sure.

In this big, sprawling tale, Oates takes her readers to a small town located in upstate New York. Along with examining grief, healing and a family coming undone, the author takes on race and class issues. The story revolves around John Earle “Whitey” McClaren, a successful 67-year-old husband and father with a big personality. He is the anchor of the family as well as the respected former mayor of the town. When he sees two cops beating a defenseless, nonwhite man, he stops his car to intervene. The police do not recognize him and they use their taser guns on him repeatedly. Consequently, he has a stroke. And that is it for Whitey. Oates has him die in the hospital soon afterward.

The rest of the tale centers around Whitey’s widow and five adult children, all with very different personalities. All the kids lose their footing after their father’s death. They come off as having been overly connected or fused to him. Their fragile mental states are not immediately noticeable as with their mother, but they all experience life-altering changes. Oates writes the family’s pecking order at a pace that begins slow and controlled, but builds up angrily. Out of the siblings, the youngest son is the most sympathetic character. He is the black sheep of the family and at the bottom of the pecking order. The author portrays him with bone-deep loneliness. The middle daughter is a high school principal. She transfers her anger onto her students. She actually (spoiler) sabotages some kids by editing their transcripts so they will not get into their first choice colleges. The author has never shied away from writing on the dark side of human nature.

“Night” has been compared to Oates’ 1996 “We Were the Mulvaneys,” which is a saga about another family living in a small, rural upstate New York town, which happens to be where she grew up. “Mulvaneys” is one of my favorite novels by the author. I believe that it is superior to “Night.” An argument can be made that “Night” takes on too many characters with too many details. It can leave the reader thinking that each character’s story should be a novel in itself, making the story feel bloated. Indeed, the master storyteller’s latest novel (according to her website, this is her 59th) is long. Whether it’s too long is debatable—at times yes, at times no. Still, the poetic quality of the author’s prose is worth your time. When all is said and done, the thing about Oates, is after reading her work, it becomes impossible not to notice when you are reading a mediocre novel. That is the power of Joyce Carol Oates.

I received this Advance Review Copy (ARC) novel from the publisher at no cost in exchange for an honest review.

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[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

In person Joyce Carol Oates (JCO) has an air almost of detachment, looking over your shoulder as if at something or someone more interesting, "over there." But in her writing, she displays a deep well of empathy in her characters. Over her prodigious career, she has created enough characters to populate a small town, possibly a city, and from my recollection, no two are alike. I've been reading her for over 40 years, and given the amount of novels and short stories that have flowed from her, it was still amazing to read Widow, her account of her life after the death of her first husband, of her profound grief and depiction of a full life spent away from the keyboard. When does she find the time to produce such a body of work.

Now in her 80's, she takes for her title a line from a poem by Walt Whitman (when does she have time to read?), and presents an 800-page masterwork on grief and its effect on a widow and her five adult children. Each person is so clearly realized and given such a potent inner life, each child thinks they know what's best for the Mom they remember as an adjunct to their beloved father, who wasn't such a saint after all. In other hands, this material could feel bloated and padded, but JCO has managed to make every page necessary, and while I usually don't find novels of such length intriguing, I found this one required every step.

[Elle]

So I started reading this just before the protests started, and I was surprised how relevant the subject matter ended up being. The initial conflict, which takes place in the prologue, involves explicit police brutality and has some devastating consequences. I’m not usually someone who will avoid or seek out topical books to read, so this coinciding with real-world events didn’t really affect my reading either way. That said, I wanted to give people a heads-up before diving in because the description provided doesn’t mention that as far as I can see.

I haven’t read anything by Joyce Carole Oates before, so I had no idea she wrote these absolute tomes when I requested this one. Truthfully, it’s difficult for me to stay focused on something so long, unless it’s a faster-paced plot. This one was a little too meandering for me to fully absorb, so I’m not going to leave a rating for it.

But for those who are already fans of Oates, you’ll probably like this. The characters are complex and well-developed, the writing is beautiful and though it may be a ‘family drama’, the tension feels real and earned. A lot of reviewers I follow and who’s opinions I value really loved Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars., so don’t discount this one just because it didn’t work for me!

*Thanks to HarperCollins & Netgalley for an advance copy!

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I may never become a fan of JCO and maybe I just have to come to terms with that. I did not like this book very much about the aftermath of the death of the family patriarch, Whitey. There is some relevance to current events in that the topic of police brutality is treated obliquely (which probably explains its decent sales), but it is really just about the unraveling of the lives of the five surviving children and the widow. None of the characters are particularly charismatic. The writing is a mashup of third-party observer and stream of consciousness first person and yet the timeline moves imperturbably forward with relatively few flashbacks. I also felt disappointed in the ending because it leaves pretty much everything and everyone in the air, and not in the more satisfying way that Murakami does these ambiguous finals to take an example.

Three stars max. Didn't really enjoy this one.

[Bam cooks the books · Rating 4 out of 5]

How ironic that the first chapter of Oates' latest novel is about police brutality. A timely subject for our country--one that needs to be discussed and solutions found. I am disappointed therefore that Oates doesn't use this opportunity to fully address these issues after beginning her novel with that dramatic scene, but instead, writes a rather commonplace story about yet another wealthy white American family that begins to unravel after the death of the patriarch.

There are five adult children in the McClaren family and the story explores each child's relationship with their parents and each other. Oates' skill at creating characters is impressive--however, these are not very likable people. How awful that the husband is called 'Whitey', that nickname given to him after his hair turned white at a young age. Wouldn't you have refused to let people call you that?

The most interesting character to me is the mother Jessalyn, who went through her married life being coddled by her husband, treated like a child, not his equal when making important decisions. Jessalyn continues to live by herself in the huge, historic eight-bedroom family home. Its size is a bit of an embarrassment but how can it be sold if part of Whitey still remains there if anywhere, where she still hears his voice advising her on life.

I was hoping she'd rise up out of her overwhelming grief and take the opportunity to become a fully independent woman for once. But no, she meets a new man and, like a chameleon, begins changing to fit his lifestyle, values and opinions. Unfortunately, I've known several women who changed just like that.

Okay, so you are probably wondering why I've given this novel four stars if I have so many criticisms. The gesture is a bow to the writer's impressive skills. I have to say here though that her habit of using parentheses, when the qualifying word or phrase could have stood on its own, drove me a little bit crazy after awhile. Why? Why? Why?

I received an arc of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinions. Many thanks for the opportunity.

[Kansas · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2023...


“Se ha vuelto sonámbula. El sueño es su vida, se desliza por ella aturdida, sin ver, sin sentir, como una especie de forma de vida marina tan mínima que no está claro si, de hecha está viva.

El sonambulismo empezó en la habitación de hospital de su marido. Cuando por fin la llamaron. -Señora McClaren, lo lamentamos muchísimo.-”


Son extraños los derroteros de las últimas novelas de JCO porque de alguna forma prácticamente convierte sus textos en un flujo de conciencia continuo, ya sea de un personaje determinado o en este caso particular, de varios personajes, los miembros de la familia McClaren, aunque sea Jessalyn, la viuda quien domine con su voz interior las casi 800 páginas, y la verdad es que siempre usó este flujo de conciencia pero nunca como en estas últimas novelas (exceptuando la magistral Blonde). La Oates coge carrerilla, (en Babysitter también lo hacia pero más bestial y experimentalmente, también hay que decirlo), y resulta imparable y cuando el lector se quiere dar cuenta lleva media novela leída en la que casi sin percibirse, las situaciones se han sucedido dentro de la mente de un personaje o de varios. Además que el comienzo de “Noche. Sueño. Muerte. Las estrellas” también engaña porque dependiendo de su comienzo pensamos que va a ser una novela sobre la brutalidad policial y aunque es el caso, realmente a estas alturas Joyce Carol Oates resulta todo menos previsible. Lo que parecía ser el tema central y la consiguiente investigación, se convierte casi en un tema colateral centrándose básicamente en desentrañar que ocurre dentro de una unidad familiar tras la desaparición del pater familias.


“Un matrimonio se basa en revelaciones y secretos cuidadosamente calibrados: por cada revelación, un secreto.
Antes de casarse, Jessalyn ya lo entendió: hay cosas que hay que ahorrarle a Whitey."


“Que frágil el mundo del hombre. Lo había construido con ella en el centro.
No podía traicionarlo. NO podía socavarlo con una verdad pronunciada de manera irreflexiva.”


La historia transcurre entre 2010 y 2011 y comienza justo en el momento en que John Earle “Whitey” McClaren detiene su coche en el arcén de la autovia a la vuelta a casa por la noche porque es testigo de que un hombre de piel morena está siendo apaleado por la policia. Whitey no consigue aplacar a la policía, todo lo contrario, recibe varias descargas eléctricas que le hacen sufrir un derrame cerebral y pocos días después muere en el hospital sin haber podido revelar qué le había causado el derrame ya que realmente la llegada de Whitey al hospital en ambulancia es bajo un aparentente accidente de coche causado por un ictus: el caso de brutaliad policial no consta en ningún registro. Si tenemos en cuenta que Whitey es un personaje muy popular en la localidad de Hammond por haber sido alcalde durante unos años, y formar parte de los llamados wasp, un republicano light que votó por Obama, a los que la brutalidad policial apenas les toca ya que la policia está muy mediatizada por la raza, ya tenemos de alguna forma el punto de salida de esta novela. Es un comienzo ya digo que extraño porque cualquier otro autor medio se habría dedicado a desarrollar este ataque policial y lo hubiera convertido en una novela en sí misma, pero no, JCO usa este incidente para colocarlo en el primer capítulo, que funciona casi como un Prólogo. A partir de aquí, la voz narrativa cambia.


"Una familia es un campo de batalla donde los aliados y los enemigos cambian sin cesar."

[...]

“Los hermanos formaban alianzas tanto permanentes como cambiantes. Desacuerdos, decepciones, riñas, lazos temporales y de conveniencia, resentimientos compartidos…”


Whitey (hasta su apodo tiene esas connotaciones de élite americana) era el pilar de una familia compuesta por cinco hijos, ya emancipados, y que de alguna forma responden todos a un estereotipo de triunfadores o por lo menos encarrilados socialmente hablando y sin embargo, al morir su padre, la debacle es profunda en el sentido de que la ausencia de este pater familias viene a revelar las carencias de unos hijos que parecían emancipados y emocionalmente estables, y sin embargo no lo eran. La viuda, Jessalyn, esposa y ama de casa perfecta, sobreprotegida por un marido paternalista hasta el infinito que lo ensombrecía todo, es la auténtica protagonista de esta novela. JCO nos enfrenta a través de Jessalyn, al dilema de una mujer que durante su matrimonio nunca le faltó nada material y sin embargo carecía de la más mínima independencia a la hora de tomar decisiones, ni siquiera a la hora de firmar documentos y resulta fascinante ser testigo a través de la narración de esta autora, del despertar de Jessalyn. Le dedica un capítulo de casi cien páginas a la toma de conciencia de la “viudez” en la que no solo se mueve como una sonámbula por la vida, sino que además a medida que va despertando va tomando conciencia de que los hijos quieren tomar las riendas de su vida bajo una falsa capa de sobreprotección, y poco a poco se va desvelando que realmente los hijos tienen su propia y egoista manera de querer controlar a su madre: “Las hijas mayores están que trinan! Su querida y enviudada madre no se está comportando como ellas esperaban.”. A medida que Jessalyn, la viuda, va despertando de su letargo, la familia parece irse desmembrando . Cada uno de los hijos parece entrar en una especie de crisis existencial: la muerte del padre ha servido como catalizador para que algunos lazos que se mantenían unidos, matrimonios, hermandades, lazos emocionales, comiencen a romperse.


“A Thom le resultaba placentero, si bien extraño y desorientador, no tener un hogar de verdad.

No había nadie a quien pudiera explicarle ese placer inesperado ni nadie a quién quisiera contárselo.

Es un hecho: un hombre que duerme solo es un hombre que no necesita a nadie . La verdad más elemental, que Thom empezaba a apreciar ahora, a sus treinta y nueve años.

Qué extraño le parecía haber perdido su forma voluntaria de libertad, su intimidad, su propia identidad, por una mujer y luego por unos hijos durante tantos años. La mujer había querido que fuera mejor persona de lo que era. Durante demasiado tiempo, ese también fue su deseo. El sexo podía buscárselo en otra parte y no en una cama que considerase suya. “


A lo largo de la novela, Joyce Carol Oates demuestra muchas cosas en torno a la familia y sobre todo en torno a la violencia y a lo que esconde tras el sueño americano. Bajo la apariencia edulcorada de estas urbanizaciones con mansiones que se remontan incluso a un par de siglos, se esconde una cierta desesperación con personajes, blancos, que incluso esconden bates de beisbol en sus coches para descargar su ira a la menor oportunidad. En este aspecto hay varias escenas en esta novela en la que Oates compara esta brutalidad policial, con una violencia que se produce día a día no solo en la calle, sino que es una especie de violencia emocional que se dispara en cuanto ese castillo de naipes se derrumba y aquí también hay que tener cuidado con la Oates: descubrir el fino hilo invisible que separa una escena real de una que se vive en la mente. Quizás uno de los momentos más firmes y más tensos de la novela se produce en una escena en la que la hija menor de la familia McClaren, es detenida por un policia cuando conducía de noche respetando el límite de velocidad. Es una experiencia que la misma Joyce Carol Oates sufrió en carne propia cuando era más joven y en esta escena es perfectamente palpable la denuncia social que hace la autora en lo que se refiere a la vulnerabilidad frente al poder policial. Realmente, toda la novela es una denuncia continua a este problema de violencia por parte de la policia porque la autora está cuestionando el hecho de que ¿si no hay un móvil grabando un ataque policial, hasta dónde serían capaces de llegar? La novela transcurre en 2010 cuando todavía la vida no parecia un eterno streaming y el texto parece que fue escrito mucho antes del incidente de George Floyd, así que la Oates lleva denunciando estos hechos en sus novelas desde hace décadas.


"(Por fin pasó un coche, aminoró la marcha y luego aceleró y se perdío de vista al tomar una curva. Sophia no llegó a ver quién conducía, si era algiuen que viviese cerca, que pudiera reconocerla y ayudarla)
(Pero ayudarla… ¿cómo? ¿Por qué? Cualquiera que viese a una joven junto a su coche y a un agente con uniforme interrogándola lo más propable es que apartase la vista enseguida y se marchase. Lo mismo que haría ella en tales circunstancias)

Por lo menos soy blanca. No quería imaginarse la situación si fuera una persona racializada, una mujer de su edad sola en un coche en Old Farm Road, vulnerable ante el agente blanco.

Por lo menos iba vestida decorosa...Llevaba ropa bastante normal, no le quedaba ajustada. Nada de piercings en la cara o en las orejas, nada de tatuajes…”


Los McClaren son los represenantes de un sueño americano que hace aguas. Hasta que no les toca en carne propia, habían ignorado los problemas de raza y sobre todo la brutalidad policial, asi que cuando Whitey cae, Joyce Carol Oates lo relaciona con la caida de este sueño americano: los prejuicios, el racismo, la vanidad de la clase social, la familia, la hipocresía, las apariencias, la falsa moralidad… la base de lo podrido de este sistema. Es casi imposible resumir aquí la cantidad de temas sociales candentes que aborda la Oates pero sobre todo se deja la piel narrando el proceso de duelo de Jessalyn, quizás porque ella misma venía de haber perdido a su segundo marido, Charlie Gross, fotógrafo y neurocientifico, y al que homenajea durante la novela en la figura de otro personaje central, Hugo Martinez, y que de alguna forma rememora también en la fase final de la novela en el capitulo de las Islas Galápagos (esto lo cuenta la Oates en una entrevista a Eric Karl Anderson). Es cierto lo que afirma Joyce Carol Oates que para contar un proceso como éste se necesitan muchas páginas pero la única pega que le pongo a esta novela es que quizás la última fase se hace un tanto larga y repetitiva, pero así y todo resulta una novela magnífica en la deconstrucción, una vez más, de todo un sistema de vida cuyas raices están totalmente podridas. Y me dejo el título rescatado de un poema de Walt Whitman con todo lo que supone de referencias para la novela pero las connotaciones relacionadas con la novela son interesantísimas.


“Corre un viento frío y ella espera. Una viuda es quien espera que algo que ya ha acontecido des-acontezca.”

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

NIGHT. SLEEP. DEATH. THE STARS.
BY JOYCE CAROL OATES

A Clear Midnight

This is thy hour, O Soul,
thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased,
the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing,
pondering themes thou lovest best.
Night, sleep, death and the stars. Walt Whitman

This was a big sprawling examination about race issues, different classes, grief and healing which ultimately brings hope. It begins with John Earle McClaren witnessing an Indian doctor named Azim Murthy being brutally beaten by two police officers on the road. Azim Murthy wasn’t resisting arrest or fighting with the police as they brutally beat him and taser him. He in reality had been pulled over for no reason other than his dark skin. These two police officers racially profiled him. They must have already had anger for not being able to find drugs or a weapon and took their excessive force on this poor victim. He is a doctor with no criminal record at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York.

John Earle McClaren had been in the wrong place at the wrong time dressed up with an expensive vehicle. He used to be Mayor of Hammond where he has had a good relationship with the police. John or his nick name “Whitey,” bravely pulled over to try to intervene with what he saw happening. The police beat Whitey and taser him and he has a stroke. His wife Jessalyn and his five children have no idea other than he has had a stroke and crashed his vehicle. I don’t understand how the doctors of which he had a neurologist and with all of the imaging machines that they easily bought this exclamation. It is only when the oldest of his five children, Thom goes to the impound lot to pick up his father’s vehicle he finds no damage on it at all. He finds a slip of paper saying all charges are dropped. As the days pass and Jessalyn and her five children stay with Whitey waiting for him to open his eyes or become conscious. Thom starts snapping pictures of his father of all of the red-purple blotches on his skin with his cell phone.

Whitey is only 67 years old and when he does become conscious he tries to talk and one side of his body is paralyzed but his wife Jessalyn can understand him. He says “hi there,” and “I love you.” They all think Whitey is going to recover but he dies of a staph infection. It is quite shocking to me that he died so young when the doctors thought he would make a full recovery but of course would require many months of physical therapy. The two oldest daughters blame the fourth child Virgil for not using the hand sanitizer and since Virgil is not materialistic and works as an artist and lives on a farm, they blame him for their father’s demise.

Jessalyn is the nicest and most likable character other than Virgil and the younger Sophia who is taking a break from getting her doctorate. Sophia is working in a medical laboratory under the wing of the director Alistair Means her boss. She works with mice and rats and is known for her steady hands. Virgil and Sophia are good to their mother Jessalyn who is a saint. They respect who she chooses for friends and are supportive to the grieving widow. There is much written about grief and pages of Jessalyn grieving the loss of her husband. Thom takes his father’s place at the helm of McClaren Inc. Thom lives the furthest away and is married with children. Beverly is second oldest and buts into her mother’s grieving process by complaining about a stray feral cat that Jessalyn feeds and adopts. Beverly does things like call Thom on the phone telling him that he has to do something about Jessalyn’s cat named Mack the Knife or Mackie who I think helped her grieve Whitey’s death.

Beverly also finds her mother has decided to give away all of her expensive clothes to Goodwill and Beverly acts like she is the mother and takes all the nice clothes, fur coats and shoes for herself. She also can’t seem to recognize that Jessalyn is grieving and wants to stay close to home where she feels Whitey’s presence. Beverly complains that Jessalyn is neglecting her grandchildren. Lorene does not have children but is very mean spirited. She is the Principal at North Hammond High school and is very technological savvy. She sabotages Senior’s by interfering with their first choice colleges because she finds out that they make fun of her on social media. Lorene and Beverly are very judgmental about people of color or aren’t as concerned with money for example their younger brother Virgil who in the beginning rides around on an old bicycle. They didn’t get that way from their mother or father.

This is a good literary novel by Joyce Carol Oates whom I have had so many of her books over the years but haven’t gotten around to reading them. It may appear that I have given away too many spoilers but there is so much more to this novel. I have described some of the very beginning and who I liked as character’s such as Jessalyn and her two youngest children, Sophia and Virgil. I was recommended this by a Good Reads friend and she was right. This is approximately 800 pages but I read it in three sittings. It is interesting and Joyce Carol Oates has crafted a very realistic contemporary novel that I found to be very timely and easily readable. It takes place in 2010 through 2011 in Hammond, New York. I did witness sibling rivalry, how we all cope with grief in our own ways. There is some pretty impressive writing and it is hard to believe that racial profiling still exists and how excessive force is a real problem with some police. How hard it is to prove police brutality for people of color and how sometimes people are wrongly accused. With the selfless lovable Jessalyn you are in good company as she is still young and there is a triumph of hope. I will read more from this author who is a very talented and who writes a new book just about every year.

Publication Date: June 9, 2020

Thank you to Net Galley, Joyce Carol Oates and Ecco/Harper Collins Publishers for providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

#NightSleepDeathTheStars #JoyceCarolOates #EccoHarperCollinsPublishers #NetGalley

[Erika Lynn (shelf.inspiration) · Rating 1 out of 5]

ONE STAR

"How we sift through ourselves, with others. Clasping at hands that turn transparent, that dissolve in our touch. Crying out No! Wait! Don't leave me, I can't live without you-and in the next instant they are gone, and we remain, alive." - Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.

SYNOPSIS: Night Sleep Death The Stars is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: when a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all. - Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.

REVIEW: Thank you to NetGalley, HarperCollins Publishers/ Ecco, and Joyce Carol Oates for providing me with an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This is a story about a family, a powerful loss, and the resulting grief and change from that loss. How a family can come together and fall apart in the wake of a death. Overall, I thought I would enjoy this book more than I did, and looking at other reviews it seems like the majority did like this book. For me, I found the plot of this book to be really thin, and it took me such a long time to get through this book. I found myself gravitating towards other books that I was also reading at the time instead of this one. This book is meant to be more on the slow side, but I felt that it didn't keep my attention enough and the emotional content to me was more irritating than captivating.

I think my biggest struggle in the book was with the characters, I hated almost all of them. All the children in the family (maybe besides one) were horrible people in one way or another, and I found myself not being able to connect to any of them. It didn't make it better that a lot of the characters also hated each other. There was such a familial disconnect in this book, and half the time I begged the characters to just run and move away elsewhere. I also felt like the characters didn't see tremendous growth throughout the book. Their circumstances changed for sure, but I felt that they were more-or-less of the same person, still quite unhappy. Except for who I am calling the main character, Jessalyn, who did show growth and more change than anyone else. It was hard for me to make it through the book when I could not stand the characters and did not care about their stories.

Another thing that bothered me was the (in my opinion) overuse of parenthesis. In one section of the book, I swear that at least half of some of the pages were contained in parentheses. It made the book feel so choppy and took me out of the story. However, towards the end of the book, this got a little better, so that makes me think that this was on purpose, but I didn't understand it. There were definitely some good parts of the book, and some good thoughts to ponder over, I just found these to be few and far between. I thought the ending was good and fit the tone of the rest of the book, although I do have some spoiler-like thoughts about it, which I won't share here.

Overall, I am disappointed that I didn't like this book more! It was clear that this book was just not for me, and not something that I can really relate to at this stage in my life. I was looking forward to reading it, as I quite like longer books. Especially when they are about families and the dysfunctions in their lives. I may decide to look into Joyce Carol Oates' other books and see if any of those interest me since she seems to be a popular writer.

RELEASE DATE: June 9, 2020

[Tanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd never read anything by Joyce Carol Oates before this book—I was in fact under the mistaken impression that she was strictly a poet, not a novelist. I don't know where I got that notion, but I ended up completely enamored with this novel, and have now found a great author with a vast back-catalogue to explore. I was drawn to Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. because of its eye-catching cover—two bright calla lilies starkly contrasting with a dark starry sky backdrop—coupled with the evocative, striking title, which is lifted from a short poem by Walt Whitman, titled A Clear Midnight:

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

The novel is centered around a single family, the McClarens, and is a deep, epic examination of their relationship with each other (and themselves) when the patriarch unexpectedly dies. The sudden tragedy affects each of them—Jessalyn, the widow, and the adult children Thom, Beverly, Lorene, Virgil, and Sophia—in very different, often completely out-of-character ways. I'm not going to pretend that I liked all the siblings (in fact, I actively disliked the three eldest), yet the inner world of all of them was distinct, unique, detailed, and utterly compelling. Jessalyn is the undisputed center of the novel, and with Oates being twice a widow herself (the sudden death of her first husband left her suicidal for months, and her second husband passed away a year prior to this novel's publication), her character shines the most brightly. Each child also contains multitudes, though, and felt real enough to touch; I've seldomly, if ever, read a novel about the complexities of domestic life that was so unflinchingly honest, realistic, and immersive as a result.

"What do they matter, such miniature lives? (...) Beyond that, death. (...) There is comfort in this, that individuals matter so little, and yet are gripping each other's hand so tightly."

The novel tries to do many things, which could've royally backfired, but it somehow never does: Oates turns a family death into an exploration of personal grief and trauma, but also of contemporary America, covering racial and class differences. In the beginning, I went slowly, and had to take myself out of the narrative often, because the descriptions of the loss were a lot to handle. I went through it myself two years ago, and the dazzling writing brought many things back... but once we enter the long-term "aftermath" and the slow healing, it was an absolutely engrossing pleasure to read about how each of the characters found their own path, away from under the shadow of the powerful husband/father, who, while not a bad, stifling person, was simply larger than life; eclipsing. Who are they, without him? They hurt at having lost him—they feel lost and untethered—but they are now finally free to find out. 

This was ever so slightly out of my usual comfort zone, and I'm glad I allowed myself to judge a book by its cover, and plunged right in, without any preconceptions or ideas of what would await me; it was a breathtaking, remarkable novel.

—————

Note: I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 5 out of 5]

via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚’𝒅 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒕. 𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒌𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒚 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒓. 𝒀𝒆𝒕 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒇𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒅𝒎𝒊𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕, 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝑱𝒐𝒉𝒏 𝑬𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒆 𝑴𝒄𝑪𝒍𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒏’𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒅𝒎𝒊𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏.

I am always blown away by Joyce Carol Oates because of her ability to strip every type of character to the bone. There isn’t a single thing she fails to expose, like an all seeing eye. As a writer, her fiction never lacks verisimilitude. Why do people behave the way they do? In 𝙽𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝. 𝚂𝚕𝚎𝚎𝚙. 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑. 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚜, it’s the influence of the father when he is present and how their lives spin off course when he is gone that alters their roles. In the McClaren family the children have always “contended for the father’s attention”, and it carries on well into adulthood. “Each family occasion was a test of some sort from which you could not exclude yourself”, the pain of trying to measure up to John Earle McClaren “Whitey”, makes the family a battleground of “shifting alliances”. They all suffer a human disaster of sorts, when Whitey witnesses a social injustice, one as a former mayor he would be wrong to ignore. The police don’t know that an important upstanding citizen is before them, things get out of hand. Lying in intensive care, unable to communicate he is left clinging to life, wondering what just hit him.

Clearly an imposing man, Whitey isn’t the character that pulled me in, it is Jessalyn, mother and wife who has never burdened others with her own needs, the woman who has been taken for granted by her husband (who certainly loves her) and their five children. Thom is the “Heir”, the one who knows everything the others don’t, the most like his impressive father who carries the McClaren name well. Virgil is nothing like his successful brother, “maddening” to the other much more responsible, self-sufficient, stubborn siblings. His hippy living infuriates them all, more so when coddled by their mother with whom he shares an easy intimacy. Naturally he fails his father and feels like an outcast among his siblings who resent him something terrible. Sophia is the steady hand, a PH.D. research scientist working on the cure for cancer. Whitey is beyond proud when bragging about this youngest daughter. A woman who seeks the admiration of others. Beverley resents her father’s love of Thom, but remains a ‘sweet suburban mom’, following somewhat in her mother’s shoes with the husband as the head of the family. The well behaved daughter, tirelessly raising children. Lorene is a school principal, a strong woman, someone to be reckoned with who keeps adolescent boys and girls in line, including her nieces and nephews. No longer a doting aunt with the children growing up. Also the sister who always has to be best, come out on top.

After the reading of the will, learning how the estate is to be divided among Whitey’s children and wife, there is turbulence within the family. What they feel they deserve, or don’t has them all reflecting on their father’s decision, and themselves. Equal is not necessarily fair! Every single one of them is falling apart without the eye of the father to fill their lives with expectations, as if he was their polestar. Jessalyn’s purpose has changed, without her beloved to tend to she is lost. It is a shock when she becomes involved with a man, exposing a class divide. Before Hugo comes a mangy, squint eyed tomcat first to steal her attention, no review is complete without mentioning Mack the Knife. The cat who makes them all question their mother’s sanity. Jessalyn is no longer wallpaper, she is suddenly behaving in a manner surely their father wouldn’t have approved of, and his will is proof he knew best how to manage her, to care for her when she obviously hadn’t a clue. Right? She is slipping, but it is this slow unraveling that helps her find her spine, that thing her daughters doubt she has.

The McClaren family is a wreck, but it’s as if through their father’s death they finally have permission to discover who they really are. It gets ugly, they have soaked in suppression for too long, living with the roles their father’s keen insight gave them. Whitey was a loving father but not everyone can live in the world the way he did, trail blazing with endless confidence as your fire. Where did that burning ambition and confidence get him in the end?

How the children react to their mother behaving as a woman, a sexual being, instead of a kept pet is painfully realistic. How do we survive our families, or without them? I could talk about this novel forever, the family dynamics alone bring up many topics. Jessalyn, what a fascinating story-line, I think many readers will recognize their own mother, or themselves in this tale. How different we are around our family, you want to know how resentments are born, how self-esteem sinks or an overabundance of confidence, misplaces pride, jealousies- here you go! I read this book months ago and wanted to wait closer to release date, and I am still thinking about it a. I know reading Joyce Carol Oates is an investment of time but I never put the book down without feeling like I just survived something. Whoa!

Publication Date: June 9, 2020

Harper Collins

Ecco

[Jennifer Blankfein · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW! The writing...the characters...the stories...so engrossing! I loved all 787 pages of this incredible book! Full review to come on Book Nation by Jen.

[Hayden Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent a lovely 48 hours in the grips of this thing. Main takeaway is that I must read more Oates because I kept doing that thing while reading this book where I'd set the book down and go into the kitchen and be genuinely startled by the time on the oven clock.

Second takeaway, which is a question: how the hell does she do this? Every (read: six) Oates novel I've read has been densely populated with the most vibrantly real of people. I've known Jessalyn McC... (already, the names are slipping...) McClaren for two days, and I'm walking away with a fourth grandmother. It has something to do, I'm sure, with Oates's ability to understand

I've seen the word "saga" used quite a bit for this book, and it fits—essentially, a family's patriarch dies, and that loss snowballs out across the other family members' lives. Here are seven people—a father (deceased as inciting incident), a mother, five children—each with their own preoccupations and grudges and judgments and weaknesses and triumphs, and here are eight-hundred pages across which you can watch them lose their damn minds.

Anyway, I'm very tired (?).

[Britta Böhler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a bit onderwhelmed to be honest...

[Cody | CodysBookshelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Major thanks to Ecco Books for the free ARC, which was given in exchange for an honest review!

Joyce Carol Oates is far and away my favorite writer, living or dead, so I always jump on reading her new releases early (as if I don’t still have tons of her backlist to get to . .)

You might think I’m biased; I’m not. I’ve given a few of her books negative reviews before—I’m not afraid to be honest. And I can honestly, happily say Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. is one of Oates’s finest creations yet. While delving into familiar JCO territory (a family death, family dynamics, racial tensions, et cetera), it is the characters that set this one apart from anything else our finest living writer has written; the characters propel the plot(s) for this book’s almost-800 pages.

The patriarch of a family is dead, and his widow and five (adult) children must deal with it, in all their own ways. Oates dives deep into the politics of living in a big family, the way alliances and grudges change, transform. The way families come together and pull apart. Each main character and some of the minor ones could have entire novels written about them.

At first my favorite character was Virgil, the wandering artiste, in some ways the quintessential youngest child. He of unrest and unsolved sexual confusion. Then I fell for Jessalyn, the widow, and her struggle to move on beyond her husband’s absence. Then I settled on Lorene, the middle child—a harsh, paranoid school principal who comes (further) unraveled in her own way.

In some ways this book is a spiritual cousin of Missing Mom, another favorite JCO novel of mine. But instead of dealing with the absence of a mother, this one deals with the absence of a father. Highly, highly recommended, this one is now firmly in my top five favorite Oates novels—and might just end up as my favorite new release of the year.

This book releases in June, 2020.

[Melissa Crytzer Fry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first Joyce Carol Oates book, so I don’t really have any frame of reference for comparison to other works. What I will say is that parts of this book were brilliant: the portrayal of the woman who, through domestic duties and child rearing, loses her identity over time; the portrayal of the grieving widow; of sibling rivalry; of greed and racism and police brutality.

And yet, the biggest detractor for me was that this book was entirely too long. There is so, so, so much repetition of the same thoughts, the same details and descriptions repeated from one chapter to the next, and then the repetition of several characters experiencing the same event (but never revealing new information/insight). It became tedious.

What’s more, I have never read a book with this many (useless) parentheses in my entire life. Early on, I thought I would have to (prematurely) give up on the book because it was so (utterly) maddening. Eventually (thank GOODNESS) I stopped seeing them, and read right past them (in the same way you do he said, she said) – because they were 100% unnecessary. Here’s an example:

Confused memory of his vehicle bouncing… you can ruin a tire that way but you won’t’ know it immediately, the air will hiss out slowly and one day (soon) the (not cheap!) tire will be flat.

Trying hard to remember what happened next. Trying so hard the effort is hurting his brain.

(But why assume that something actually happened? Maybe this condition he’s in is just – him).

(Always liked to take the contrary position, if there was one. Even as a kid… Flattering to Whitey all his life to be told he sounds like a lawyer. Except he isn’t a lawyer.)

But, in so many portions of the book, insightful wisdom and lovely passages:

No adult is anything but a kid, when a parent dies.

How fragile, the man’s world. He’d constructed it with her at its core.

Her eyes are too large, and set too deep in their sockets—her expression is stark, startled, owl-like, yearning. Her hair is stiff with static electricity, the hue of something burnt. Her hands move nervously like laboratory creatures that climb over one another in desperation.

Her face was an unsentimental elf’s face—plain, small as if squeezed together, tough.

I’m not one who has to “like” all the characters in a book, either, but of the eight main characters, only four were redeemable. The rest were downright rotten (though I have to admit the rottenness of Lorene kept me spellbound).

So- in summary: if you love Joyce Carol Oates, have a lot of time to spend (800 pages), and don’t mind some doggedly unlikeable characters, parentheses out the wazoo, AND gorgeous sentences with timely messages about racism and law enforcement corruption, this book might be for you. I should also end on the positive notes that 1) the life/death themes are well done in this novel, and 2) Oates excels at portraying the seesaw of emotions that human beings are capable of from one instant to the next: in love one minute, questioning it the next; happy one minute, falling into depression the next; in control, spiraling OUT of control...

Though this novel is not likely to be on an all-time favorite list for me, I’m happy I read it.

[Vonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

For fans of literary/general fiction that loves a meaty story, do yourself a favor and grab this as quickly as possible. Fans of Joyce Carol Oates, you are aware of her greatness. This is another great(er) family saga, one that she has drawn on her personal pain as a widow. She writes such a powerful main character Whitey, then his wife Jessalyn,tries to hold the family together in the face of tragedy. A great story you rarely see the likes of anymore.

[Marjorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb. Ms. Oates' at her finest. Close contender of my favorite of this author's work - "We Were the Mulvaneys". I believe the character of the widow was a bit autobiographical from what I've read of Ms. Oate's life. The widow was my favorite character. Most highly recommended.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An 800 page book doesn't scare me. Some of my favorite books are whoppers.

The number of pages are irrelevant when one becomes immersed in detailed characters, propelled by foreshadowing through their actions and weaknesses, touched by universal truths of human nature.

Oates latest novel explores the impact of death on a family.

I was sucked into the story, eagerly looking forward to reading and learning more about these characters. To discover if I was right about what would come.

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. begins with the sudden death of a family patriarch. Whitey stopped to investigate what appeared, and was, a case of police profiling and brutality. He was their next victim. He did not survive.

Whitey was 67---my age. He was his wife Jessalyn's reason for existence, her lodestone; he defined her. In deep shock, she plummets into a private despair hidden behind her self-effacing thoughtfulness for others.

The children, as children do, decide what must be done, how their mother should 'be', and when her actions do not conform with expectations, they reel off into obsessions and fears and anger.

The family balance is thrown off. The children carry their individual burdens. Some believed they were 'favorite' sons or daughters, while others strove to gain their father's approval. One had given up trying.

After many months, a man enters Jessalyn's life who takes her under his care. She rejects his attentions in horror, but allows him to slowly change her, alter her, and bring her back into the land of the living.

The children are incensed, complain to each other, demand someone do something. Mom has been acting incorrectly. Mom has chosen the wrong man. Mom has a feral cat in the house.

Oh, I have seen this! The children who resent the second spouse. I myself scared off a woman who had set her sights on my newly widowed father! Yes, I did!

I was increasingly horrified as the novel got darker and darker, delving into the black hearts of these children. They are murderers and self-abusers and suicidal misfits and long-suffering, angry wives.

Each sibling must find their way out of their despair and illness. I expected Jessalyn to change into a 'modern heroine', evolving into her own woman. To leave passivity behind. She finds happiness, but not growth.

This story disturbed my sleep. It was an emotional journey.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

[Briana · Rating 1 out of 5]

This just wasn't my cup of tea. I stopped reading it and it took me weeks to pick it back up and finish it. Thank you to NetGalley, Ecco, and HarperCollins for the ARC in exchange for an honest review of Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. by Joyce Carol Oates. The main thing is that the writing feels amateur to say that JCO is such a titan in the literary community. The characters are unlikable and not in a fun way. I also didn't care for the alternative look on police brutality done on a wealthy white Republican man. I can somewhat understand what was trying to be done and there were some interesting parts with the family dynamic but it was just a boring look at bad things happening to a miserable family. I just don't think it's the narrative needed at this moment.

[farahxreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars takes its title from “A Clear Midnight”, a short poem composed by Walt Whitman: “Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best; night, sleep, death and the stars.” These themes, without questions, are featured throughout the story of McClaren family, as they cope with the death of their father as a result of police brutality. In the wake of this harrowing catastrophe, Jessalyn, the wife, along with her five adult children sense that “a kind of fixture had slipped, lynchpin, and things were veering out of control.”

This was my first Joyce Carol Oates and I was genuinely suprised by how good it was. The author has written a novel on both personal and political themes - from rumination of grief, death, healing, marriage, acceptance, widowhood, sibling rivalries to broader subjects such as the issue of gender, racism, justice, police violence, white and class privilege. It is also evident that the author has a clear understanding of human psyche and human condition. She demonstrates how death alters normal people who have normal lives and paints a portrait of how grief and trauma can tear a family apart. I also loved how the McClaren family are people we are all familiar with. Each character has their own flaws, idiosyncracies and unique personalities that made feel like this could be anyone’s story. Despite wanting to smack some sense into the characters, I couldn’t help but hope for the best for them.

All in all, reading Night.Sleep. Death. The Stars feels like someone is telling me a story and this someone really cares about telling it. Joyce Carol Oates writing was simply brilliant and I look forward to reading more of her works in the future. Thank you Times Reads for the review copy in exchange for an honest review and for always introducing me to excellent books that may have otherwise flown under my radar. Really appreciate it.

[Avolyn Fisher · Rating 1 out of 5]

I begin this review like a nervous open-mic comic trying to warm up the room, clear my throat and attempt to set some sort of relaxing tone before entering a crowded room of hostility. For sure, there is something I missed here and many people seemed to truly have enjoyed this book. So I feel the need to explain my 1 star rating, although this isn't meant to come across as scathing as it might.

I debated whether this was a 2 or a 1, thinking if it was truly a 1 how could I have finished it, since it's 800 pages. But it was out of blind optimism and hopeful anticipation that surely something was going to happen to make this journey worthwhile and redeem the book. But alas. The ending was not satisfying whatsoever.

I will truly attempt to avoid spoilers but here are the issues I had with this book:

• Having finished the book, the prologue feels cheap and somewhat misleading for what the book will actually entail (meaning, if the circumstances of death had been different, say choking on a carrot, the rest of the book would remain almost unchanged)
• The book lacked character development and the majority of the characters storylines either had no progression or nearly no progression to any meaningful conclusion or place
• The characters themselves are awful and while I understand that humans are flawed imperfect beings, it was truly astounding how hateful they were towards each other, the lack of street smarts or common sense in their personal monologs and commentary was jarring, and they all seemed to have the maturity of 13 year-olds despite being adults
• The incessant need for adult children to refer to their dad as "Daddy" and the overuse of the phrase, "What would Daddy think!?" To the point that this bullet almost feels like a spoiler
• A peculiar obsession over collarless Mediterranean shirts
• There is an undercurrent of racism in the book that I couldn't quite put my finger on. The prologue suggests that the author is on the right side of history here but the fact that the rampant racism in the rest of the book is still a product of her brainchild, was uncomfortable
• And lastly, simple boredom. Most of the dialogue was mind numbing and the internal thoughts of the characters was just idiotic and made the characters seem like morons when they didn't seem immature or cruel.

Joyce, I am so sorry that I didn't love this book. It's probably me, not you. I hope to give another work of yours a chance someday with more positive results. But this was just not good. And I imagine my critique is more critical given the length. An 800 page book is asking a lot of the reader and thus much is to be expected from the book.

[Zara ♡ (ZaraReadsHere) · Rating 5 out of 5]

One word. WOW.

This is my first book by Joyce Carol Oates and it DEFINITELY won't be the last.

⤔4.5★

TW : police brutalism, death of a family, suicidal thoughts, violence, alcoholism, animal abuse, physical abuse.

Summary:

John Earle McClaren or Whitey was a well known figure in his town. When one day he tried to defend a man stopped by the police, a stroke attacked him which costed him his life. We follow the aftermath of the incident and how his family dealt with his death.

Here are my thoughts:

"Of all the world, she was his salvation."

JCO had a remarkable way of describing grieve and loneliness. It tugged a string in my heart especially when reading about how Jessalyn trying to cope after her husband's death. It was impossibly realistic and one of the best I have ever read.

"Their mother loved them without qualification. Their father loved them with many qualifications."

The characterisation of all the McClarens blew my mind away. They hit too close to home that I felt like I could actually name a nosy aunt like Beverly, a stuck up like Lorene, a free-willed Virgil at the tip of my tongue. They all felt familiar and this book described how a dysfunctional family worked genuinely. It irked me but in a good way.

Even though there were no major plot points here, but throughout the pages, we peeked deeper and deeper into the inner layers of the McClarens. They might look normal from the outside but once you got inside their mind? You would be surprised.

Honestly, it took me awhile to get used to the writing style. However, after a few chapters I was thoroughly addicted. Eventhough this book is almost 800 pages, but I felt like each line was well thought and was written for a purpose. JCO has a knack for making the readers to read between the lines. She laid the crumbs, and it will be up to us on how to interpret them.

I did experienced some issues with the timelines since we follow multiple POVs from all the remaining McLarens. I had to reread some pages a few times to get the timeline in check. But other than that, this book is a gem ♥

Thank you so much Times Reads for giving me this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Bonnie Brody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joyce Carol Oates is not only inimitable and prolific, but she is an American icon of literature. She is able to write about the subtle nuances of people no matter what their race, socioeconomic background, or ethnicity. It is almost as if she has been graced with the ability to see into the human soul.

This novel's title comes from the last line of 'A Clear Midnight', a poem by Walt Whitman. He is "pondering the themes thou lovest best" - night, sleep, death, the stars. Ms. Oates has captured the essence of this love as she grapples with loss, rebirth, darkness, and the infinite presence of love, both present, past, and eternal.

The novel is about the McClaren family, a well-to-do family of two adults and five grown children. On his way home from work, Whitey, the family patriarch, sees a dark skinned man being unfairly assaulted by police officers. Whitey (so nicknamed for the color of his hair), stops his car and asks the police to relent in their assault. The police tell him to get back in his car and go away. Whitey refuses and the police turn on him, tasering him repeatedly, kicking and beating him into unconsciousness. The police, realizing they have gone too far, call 911 and Whitey is taken to the hospital under the pretenses that he had a stroke or heart attack. The only witness is the man who was the original target of the police who happens to be a doctor in the same hospital where Whitey resides in a coma.

Ms. Oates depicts, in minutiae and through a macro lens, the depths of feeling and unique character of each family member. There is Jessalyn, Whitey's wife, and five grown children, I felt like I grew to know them all. The character development over time is astonishingly perspicacious and relevant to the family dynamics and the impact of external circumstances that each of the family members is grappling with.

This novel, at almost 800 pages, is a tome and I loved almost every single bit of it. Parts of it reminded me of Ms. Oates' memoir 'A Widow's Story' as she describes the torment and hopelessness that ravages Jessalyn. Not all the characters are likable and some are downright despicable, Every person in the novel is unique.

This is a novel to savor, if that is possible. I found it hard to put down and looked forward to reading it every day. Ms. Oates has an absolute ability to portray family dynamics realistically, somewhat like a trompe l'oeil painting. As a clinical social worker and family therapist, I can vouch for that.

This novel is prescient, as if Ms. Oates had twenty-twenty foresight into the future. Today's news could have been based on this novel. The brutality of the police, the profiling of the doctor, the assault on a witness, and the ultimate covering up of the truth rings so true. Thank you Ms. Oates for this wonderful reading experience.

[Mary Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This tome delves into family relations when a strong patriarch dies and each member reacts differently to his/her own grief and the grief of siblings, spouses, children, and parents. Whitey MacClaren dies following a stroke - but the initial pages delie the circumstances of that stroke. As his conditions improves and then plummets, his wife and five adult children surround his bedside and pray for his recovery. And each reacts differently to his condition and eventually to his loss. This is a book with out resolutions in some ways. Many questions are left unanswered about how and if the players will rise above their grief, their relationshisp, their mistakes. I'll be mulling this for quite some time.