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What I Lived For
In a stunning portrait of a powerful man's downward spiral to moral ruin, Jerome "Corky" Corcoran's violent act of vengeance precipitates his downfall. Reprint.
624 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
199 people are currently reading
2457 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
854 books9,666 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 - 30 of 124 reviews
October 14, 2009
Nobody wants to speak up for this book but I will. It's a huge breathless painful headlong dangerous full-pelt rush, all 600 pages of it. So accurate about the awfulness of the male mind that many pages were for me excruciating reading. It's horribly compelling. Quite brilliant. So naturally I thought I was a JCO fan, but then I read Zombie, which was kinda not such a good idea. Then I went for "them". Couldn't be bothered with that. Then I tried "We Were the Mulvaneys" - that seemed like it might be on to something, but then...wasn't. So I'm still looking for the other really great JCO novel. I know she's got one somewhere.
October 4, 2020
I can't believe there's so few ratings for this book. A brilliant portrayal of a man hitting bottom over a four day period. It was so close to being 5/5 but there's too much graphic sex for my literary tastes. The sex aside this is pure brilliance.
May 7, 2016
Skimmed like mad.
It's weird: I think Oblivion is one of my favourite books, and those stories are the most dense with detail I've ever read: what everyone's wearing, what's on the table, the lighting, weird things the characters did that day... but in Oblivion these details are captured in the narrative flow. In What I Lived For, a weekend in the life of Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, in Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, the details all seemed extraneous, so I stopped reading any of them and stuck to the dialogue and still managed to follow the two things that happen in the book. I admired the style of it, but it didn't work for me: clearly the prose was supposed to be gripping and hypnotic (like the dreary pessimistic world of Bob Slocum in Something Happened) if it was going to be so expansive and detail-packed for just a few days' worth of happenings, but for me it wasn't. And as for Corky Corky Corky Corky Corky Corky Corky Corky (so many per page)'s misogyny, rage, etc, it didn't seem all that insightful. It was more like, 'Hm, there's probably a black guy in the room. Let's make sure Corky tosses a slur his way and gets mad.' You know? Not necessarily part of what was going on, not captured by the narrative, just a kind of empty collection of sentences.
I don't think anyone can say for sure why Heller or Wallace's prose is hypnotic and gripping even given its slow narrative pace and Oates' isn't, at least for me. I think it's like if the narrative is a locomotive, some authors give it a long track to run on but stay on it, while others spend a lot of time describing the bushes, hills and towns it passes by and yet all these things are inessential to its journey. And Corky's fate was hardly determined by every ingredient of his burger, nor the shape of his fries.
It's weird: I think Oblivion is one of my favourite books, and those stories are the most dense with detail I've ever read: what everyone's wearing, what's on the table, the lighting, weird things the characters did that day... but in Oblivion these details are captured in the narrative flow. In What I Lived For, a weekend in the life of Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, Corky Corcoran, in Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, Union City, the details all seemed extraneous, so I stopped reading any of them and stuck to the dialogue and still managed to follow the two things that happen in the book. I admired the style of it, but it didn't work for me: clearly the prose was supposed to be gripping and hypnotic (like the dreary pessimistic world of Bob Slocum in Something Happened) if it was going to be so expansive and detail-packed for just a few days' worth of happenings, but for me it wasn't. And as for Corky Corky Corky Corky Corky Corky Corky Corky (so many per page)'s misogyny, rage, etc, it didn't seem all that insightful. It was more like, 'Hm, there's probably a black guy in the room. Let's make sure Corky tosses a slur his way and gets mad.' You know? Not necessarily part of what was going on, not captured by the narrative, just a kind of empty collection of sentences.
I don't think anyone can say for sure why Heller or Wallace's prose is hypnotic and gripping even given its slow narrative pace and Oates' isn't, at least for me. I think it's like if the narrative is a locomotive, some authors give it a long track to run on but stay on it, while others spend a lot of time describing the bushes, hills and towns it passes by and yet all these things are inessential to its journey. And Corky's fate was hardly determined by every ingredient of his burger, nor the shape of his fries.
July 8, 2019
A day in the life of Jerome “Corky” Corcoran is quite a day indeed. It’s Memorial Day, 1992. Marilee Plummer, a black woman who had recently accused a black city council member of raping her, has apparently committed suicide. Corky doesn’t make any political friends when he calls for a full investigation. Nothing’s going right for Corky. He feels betrayed by his lover, his financial empire is in trouble and his troubled step-daughter is causing him grief. Corky has never gotten over his father’s cold-blooded murder and he may soon discover some answers.
Joyce Carol Oates is one of my favorite authors but I can’t say that this is one of my favorite novels of hers. It’s a very uncomfortable book to read and Corky is a very hard character to like. He’s a womanizer, he’s patronizing, he’s conceited although he also hates himself, he’s racist and he has a horribly foul mouth. I felt like I was being assaulted by the hard language used throughout this story. On Corky’s behalf, he’s a self-made millionaire and has come a long way from his difficult start. This book is over 600 pages (it’s a reprint, having first been published in 1994) and there were times I wasn’t sure I could spend any more time with this guy. I’ve always known that Ms. Oates is a brave author and I think this is probably one of her bravest efforts. But I’m not at all sure that Corky warranted such attention. I wish I could have come to care about Corky. The first chapter of this book is a heartrending one but it wasn’t enough for me to justify what Corky becomes as an adult.
This must be the first Joyce Carol Oates book that I didn’t love. Sorry, Ms. Oates. I do appreciate the opportunity to read this work of a well-loved author.
This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
Joyce Carol Oates is one of my favorite authors but I can’t say that this is one of my favorite novels of hers. It’s a very uncomfortable book to read and Corky is a very hard character to like. He’s a womanizer, he’s patronizing, he’s conceited although he also hates himself, he’s racist and he has a horribly foul mouth. I felt like I was being assaulted by the hard language used throughout this story. On Corky’s behalf, he’s a self-made millionaire and has come a long way from his difficult start. This book is over 600 pages (it’s a reprint, having first been published in 1994) and there were times I wasn’t sure I could spend any more time with this guy. I’ve always known that Ms. Oates is a brave author and I think this is probably one of her bravest efforts. But I’m not at all sure that Corky warranted such attention. I wish I could have come to care about Corky. The first chapter of this book is a heartrending one but it wasn’t enough for me to justify what Corky becomes as an adult.
This must be the first Joyce Carol Oates book that I didn’t love. Sorry, Ms. Oates. I do appreciate the opportunity to read this work of a well-loved author.
This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
October 5, 2011
This is one of the best books I have ever read, but it is NOT for the faint of heart. If you like your books clean, run. Fast. Now. This is Joyce Carol Oates at her best, because she seems to step out of her own comfort zone to tell the story of a hard-drinking young Irishman who loves 'em and leaves 'em. This book is not awkward or sappy. She nails it, as the protagonist nails everyone he sees. Only JCO can make you come to like a guy like this, but you do.
December 17, 2025
What I Lived For was published in 1994 and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 and also a 1995 finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The novel's protagonist is Jerome "Corky" Corcoran who when he was only eleven in 1959, experiences a trauma that affected him for life; his father, Timothy, was gunned down and killed on Christmas Eve as he was hanging an evergreen wreath on the front door of their residence in Union City in upstate New York. Was Jerome a witness to this event as he looked out the upstairs window? And could he identify who did it? And why was Timothy killed?
The novel then moves on and takes place over a single Memorial Day weekend in 1992 where Oates literally gets into Corky's head and where we find that he is a corrupt self-made millionaire who is a Union City councilman and a real estate developer who got ahead by making sometimes questionable investments. He is also a womanizer who is divorced but involved with one of his many conquests. He seems to live for sexual pleasure which Oates describes very graphically and extensively. But he is also at a crisis in his life as his finances, love life, and family relationships are on the verge of crumbling. Over this weekend Corky must deal with his finances. He also tries to appease his troubled stepdaughter, Thalia, who was friends with a young black woman who supposedly committed suicide. And during the weekend he looks back on his life extensively, how he got to where he is and he tries to appease his own demons. This all leads to a very gut-wrenching climax that I really was not expecting!
This was a very long novel as usual for Oates at over 600 pages. And although the story was quite compelling, I sometimes struggled to maintain interest in the story. I think this had a lot to do with me being somewhat distracted during this holiday season. But in the end I was again amazed at Oates and her ability to get inside the head of her protagonists. In this case in the mind of Corky Corcoran and his thoughts about what he lived for: sex, money, drinking, and anything else to distract from the trauma of his father's death back in '59. In the end, I thought this was another powerful novel from Oates and I'll be looking forward to reading more of her.
The novel then moves on and takes place over a single Memorial Day weekend in 1992 where Oates literally gets into Corky's head and where we find that he is a corrupt self-made millionaire who is a Union City councilman and a real estate developer who got ahead by making sometimes questionable investments. He is also a womanizer who is divorced but involved with one of his many conquests. He seems to live for sexual pleasure which Oates describes very graphically and extensively. But he is also at a crisis in his life as his finances, love life, and family relationships are on the verge of crumbling. Over this weekend Corky must deal with his finances. He also tries to appease his troubled stepdaughter, Thalia, who was friends with a young black woman who supposedly committed suicide. And during the weekend he looks back on his life extensively, how he got to where he is and he tries to appease his own demons. This all leads to a very gut-wrenching climax that I really was not expecting!
This was a very long novel as usual for Oates at over 600 pages. And although the story was quite compelling, I sometimes struggled to maintain interest in the story. I think this had a lot to do with me being somewhat distracted during this holiday season. But in the end I was again amazed at Oates and her ability to get inside the head of her protagonists. In this case in the mind of Corky Corcoran and his thoughts about what he lived for: sex, money, drinking, and anything else to distract from the trauma of his father's death back in '59. In the end, I thought this was another powerful novel from Oates and I'll be looking forward to reading more of her.
October 3, 2017
Having read more than 20 of JCO's novels I started to think I'd seen every side of her as a writer. Then I come across a book of hers that astounds me afresh. What a creation 'Corky' Corcoran is. At first I disliked him, then I despised him but finally I couldn't help feeling sorry for someone so much a victim of their own personality. I don't buy the 'product of childhood influences' angle put forward by some reveiewers: Corky was always going to be Corky. And he's a horribly convincing creation. As a man, I find JCO's insight in the murkier aspects of the male psyche rather terrifying. The parralels with Ullyses are fairly obvious but I really don't think Joyce owes very much to 'Joyce'. Her writing style is sui generis and as, almost always, she grabs you by the lapels and won't let go until you've finished the book (despite the fact I was embroiled in moving house at the time!). I can't say I entirely 'enjoyed' the book, but I did admire it enormously and wouldn't have missed reading it for anything.
So, I'm again confirmed in my personal view that she is the outstanding genius among contemporary writers of fiction in English.
So, I'm again confirmed in my personal view that she is the outstanding genius among contemporary writers of fiction in English.
September 14, 2025
an underrated JCO backlist
November 29, 2013
"What is passing so swiftly so irrevocably into what was."
Finally, I'm done. That was (1) exhausting, (2) train-wreck enthralling, (3) TMI . This book does not entertain. It does not bolster the reader's faith in humanity. It does not use punctuation as much as is normal.
It does deliver a frightening, totally convincing expose of the inner thoughts and drives of a charming, womanizing, heavy drinking man of fading good looks and average intelligence as he systematically makes one bad decision after another, tearing his life apart brick by brick, relationship by relationship, never understanding, even in retrospect, that his choices are bad ones, dooming him to a cycle of confusion, frustration, desperation, loss, his life taking on the feel of a car ride without brakes that at first is fun, giddy, adventuresome but steadily becomes more and more out-of-control, faster and faster, until all you can see, imagine, think about is the large object that the car is destined to destroy itself upon, there being no other path available .... Sorry. I can't do it. I can't write a sentence that lasts a whole page (yes, this six hundred page book sometimes feels like it is made up of about seven hundred sentences).
If you have the strength and emotional fortitude (and attention span that a full page sentence requires), then by all means read this book. It is a truly amazing piece of writing. But beware, next time some nice guy gives you a compliment... You may find yourself wondering what is really going on in his head. Or worse, you might think you now know. Cocktail parties will never be the same.
Finally, I'm done. That was (1) exhausting, (2) train-wreck enthralling, (3) TMI . This book does not entertain. It does not bolster the reader's faith in humanity. It does not use punctuation as much as is normal.
It does deliver a frightening, totally convincing expose of the inner thoughts and drives of a charming, womanizing, heavy drinking man of fading good looks and average intelligence as he systematically makes one bad decision after another, tearing his life apart brick by brick, relationship by relationship, never understanding, even in retrospect, that his choices are bad ones, dooming him to a cycle of confusion, frustration, desperation, loss, his life taking on the feel of a car ride without brakes that at first is fun, giddy, adventuresome but steadily becomes more and more out-of-control, faster and faster, until all you can see, imagine, think about is the large object that the car is destined to destroy itself upon, there being no other path available .... Sorry. I can't do it. I can't write a sentence that lasts a whole page (yes, this six hundred page book sometimes feels like it is made up of about seven hundred sentences).
If you have the strength and emotional fortitude (and attention span that a full page sentence requires), then by all means read this book. It is a truly amazing piece of writing. But beware, next time some nice guy gives you a compliment... You may find yourself wondering what is really going on in his head. Or worse, you might think you now know. Cocktail parties will never be the same.
August 17, 2014
Oates believes in childhood having the key to your personality and behavior, as she shows in this book with flashbacks to Corky’s childhood. Knowing this should prevent us from thinking Oates is saying ALL men are like this one.
On the one hand I didn’t want to put the book down, on the other hand I knew I mustn’t read it before bedtime. Kept finding myself hoping Corky would change at least a little, get at least a little more sensible. Rooting for him, in other words. Excruciating to see the trouble he keeps getting himself into, yet Oates persuades us that he can do no other.
Set in Buffalo NY [under an invented name].
Quote from book: “The one thing a man’s terrified of is a good-looking woman laughing at him. [Marilee was] too smart for that, ambitious career girl careful in her dealings with influential men…[Such a young woman has] got only one really negotiable asset and that’s her reputation. Smart, good at her job, good-looking, sexy – all that’s assumed. But her reputation for being loyal, trustworthy, respectful to important men – that’s her real ticket.” 232
Goodbooks readers I agree with:
“… one of the best books I have ever read, but it is NOT for the faint of heart. … Joyce Carol Oates at her best, … tells the story of a hard-drinking young Irishman who loves 'em and leaves 'em. This book is not awkward or sappy. She nails it, as the protagonist nails everyone he sees. Only JCO can make you come to like a guy like this, but you do.”
“The writing style is stream-of-consciousness, here-and-there-and-then-back-here again”
Paul: “ It's a huge breathless painful headlong dangerous full-pelt rush, all 600 pages of it. So accurate about the awfulness of the male mind that many pages were for me excruciating reading.”
On the one hand I didn’t want to put the book down, on the other hand I knew I mustn’t read it before bedtime. Kept finding myself hoping Corky would change at least a little, get at least a little more sensible. Rooting for him, in other words. Excruciating to see the trouble he keeps getting himself into, yet Oates persuades us that he can do no other.
Set in Buffalo NY [under an invented name].
Quote from book: “The one thing a man’s terrified of is a good-looking woman laughing at him. [Marilee was] too smart for that, ambitious career girl careful in her dealings with influential men…[Such a young woman has] got only one really negotiable asset and that’s her reputation. Smart, good at her job, good-looking, sexy – all that’s assumed. But her reputation for being loyal, trustworthy, respectful to important men – that’s her real ticket.” 232
Goodbooks readers I agree with:
“… one of the best books I have ever read, but it is NOT for the faint of heart. … Joyce Carol Oates at her best, … tells the story of a hard-drinking young Irishman who loves 'em and leaves 'em. This book is not awkward or sappy. She nails it, as the protagonist nails everyone he sees. Only JCO can make you come to like a guy like this, but you do.”
“The writing style is stream-of-consciousness, here-and-there-and-then-back-here again”
Paul: “ It's a huge breathless painful headlong dangerous full-pelt rush, all 600 pages of it. So accurate about the awfulness of the male mind that many pages were for me excruciating reading.”
October 29, 2009
I'm so impressed with Joyce Carol Oates.
First of all, she looks as quirky as she writes. My kind of person! Second, she has so much talent with unsettling stories. Stories that are unsettling?
What I Lived For unsettled me because I wasn't prepared for it. JCO writes in such a strange voice in this story. She channels an egotistical Irish man/boy so well that I think she knows the male psyche better than I do. And apparently it's a violent, penis-centered place.
Do men really think and respond the way the protag does? Crotch first, brain a few minutes behind?
And do most powerful men, or those who are appointed power, fraternize so much?
This story shows a world of politics and drama that feels true but teeters on the edge of soap opera.
All in all, very entertaining book full of great thoughts on political correctness, racism and how stupid men can be.
First of all, she looks as quirky as she writes. My kind of person! Second, she has so much talent with unsettling stories. Stories that are unsettling?
What I Lived For unsettled me because I wasn't prepared for it. JCO writes in such a strange voice in this story. She channels an egotistical Irish man/boy so well that I think she knows the male psyche better than I do. And apparently it's a violent, penis-centered place.
Do men really think and respond the way the protag does? Crotch first, brain a few minutes behind?
And do most powerful men, or those who are appointed power, fraternize so much?
This story shows a world of politics and drama that feels true but teeters on the edge of soap opera.
All in all, very entertaining book full of great thoughts on political correctness, racism and how stupid men can be.
January 24, 2017
Wow! I just finished this today. Like many Joyce Carol Oates' books, I could not put this one down. The author writes about a man's life from a childhood incident that stays with him for life and takes you through points in his adult life from a totally male perspective. The main character, Corky, is a successful businessman who drives an expensive car, drinks a bit too much, failed in relationships, and is emotionally detached. While you probably are not liking the sound of this main character, reading it through ... you will. That is all I'm saying on the story. Joyce Carol Oates lives up to her reputation with this one.
July 23, 2019
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'Always Jerome Corcoran would recall how nothing that is has the power to evoke what was.'
Jerome Andrew Corcoran, “Corky” is a 43-year-old real estate developer and broker, a city councilman with a future in politics. He is also so much a MAN that you almost have to wonder, have you ever had a mother? Do you even like women? I tried to like him, I tried but it’s hard! His mother did fall apart after his father’s murder, surely that did something to him. Childhood trauma absolutely molds us in some way. Oates brings her characters alive, down to the disgusting things that go through their mind. With Joyce Carol Oates you have a guarantee the characters she creates are never censored beings. There is nothing diluted in Corky, and he isn’t better for it, no sir… but he is more believable. “He is a man in motion. No sooner gets to one place and loves it then he’s restless and bored and can’t bear to stay another minute.” He is exhausting, intolerable and unapologetically what other men used to believe exemplified manliness. A man who would, to my way of thinking, smell of smoke, whiskey, sweat and the lingering expensive perfume of his last lover. What made him this way, is it the horrific tragedy from his childhood when “God struck swiftly and without warning. No Mercy.” Did something die in him or worse, was some misery born out of the grief? Is it the tragedy of knowing and not knowing what you should know?
Union City, New York is his! Democrat, businessman, popular guy! “Forty-three years old. Not young but anyway not old.” This Irishman has got plans and time is on his side, he is sure Christina Kavanaugh is his but then he is sure of a lot of things isn’t he, Mr. Cocksure? He’s high and mighty now, nothing of the boy with humble beginnings and the air of tragedy hanging about him. The past is behind him, where it will stay. The women love him, but Thalia, his ex-step daughter with ex-wife Charlotte Drummond (11 years that one lasted) is one female that knows how to play games with him. A young woman of “unpredictable moods”, who leaves a message that she needs help, it’s serious and then nothing. Unreachable. But he can’t think about that, his mind is on Christina and he’s hot for her now! Corky’s not one for thinking about the whys of his own life, ‘he’s not a guy comfortable inside his own head’, and let’s face it, many of us won’t feel comfortable in his head-space either but damn if I wasn’t engaged poking around in there.
He has made it, all I kept thinking is ‘he’s a mover and a shaker’ and of course there is going to be corruption and betrayal in every corner! Power welcomes it. All those smiling people, maybe for all the screwing he is up to it’s Corky being screwed, not the women. In the beginning there is a traffic jam, caused by a young woman’s suicide, strange that yet another tragic death will again be a pivotal moment in his life, just like his father’s murder. He’s middle aged and haunted by his past, he tries to fill himself up on success and sex and women. If you can control everything, than tragedy can’t touch you, right? Neither can age. Is he a pig? Yes and no, maybe he has something redeemable, you have to stick with the novel long enough to find out. How is Thalia tied into all of this, what has she done? What does she know? We all want to be seen as who we profess ourselves to be. The only difference here is we are privy to Corky’s deepest thoughts, to the things that stir him, even shameful desires. We see behind the closed door, when he erupts, hitting his woman. Yeah, like I said, he isn’t exactly the guy you want to love. Women, he knows, you can get away with anything, even the worst things about a man, ‘if they love you, you can’t lose’ and such women will find terrible things sexy, forgivable. It pisses you off, because there are plenty of people who think just this way! Worse, it is sometimes true!
With Thalia, “by Corky’s request she never called him anything other than “Corky”, she was obviously kept at a distance, no ‘daddy’ aspirations, fuzzy father daughter intimacies he can remind her of. The resentment she feels for him as fresh as yesterday, likening him to her grandfather seemingly disinterested herself in all her wealth, the very power and success he needs. He thinks he has her figured out, like all women but maybe it’s she that has him pegged. His hunger, knowing he probably is sexually stirred by her too. Maybe he has tried to remain unaffected, but Thalia is in a bad way, which begs the question, what will he do about it? Who the hell can he trust? All those mighty people rubbing shoulders and the terrible rotten things they do. Will he be a hero? Shouldn’t he, of all people, understand injustice?
All of Oates’ work speaks for itself, even if you find a character repulsive or more human than you want to admit, it can’t be denied she can really get into the mind of anyone she so chooses. While not my favorite, I always find her work meaty.
Publication Date: July 23, 2019
ECCO
HarperCollins
'Always Jerome Corcoran would recall how nothing that is has the power to evoke what was.'
Jerome Andrew Corcoran, “Corky” is a 43-year-old real estate developer and broker, a city councilman with a future in politics. He is also so much a MAN that you almost have to wonder, have you ever had a mother? Do you even like women? I tried to like him, I tried but it’s hard! His mother did fall apart after his father’s murder, surely that did something to him. Childhood trauma absolutely molds us in some way. Oates brings her characters alive, down to the disgusting things that go through their mind. With Joyce Carol Oates you have a guarantee the characters she creates are never censored beings. There is nothing diluted in Corky, and he isn’t better for it, no sir… but he is more believable. “He is a man in motion. No sooner gets to one place and loves it then he’s restless and bored and can’t bear to stay another minute.” He is exhausting, intolerable and unapologetically what other men used to believe exemplified manliness. A man who would, to my way of thinking, smell of smoke, whiskey, sweat and the lingering expensive perfume of his last lover. What made him this way, is it the horrific tragedy from his childhood when “God struck swiftly and without warning. No Mercy.” Did something die in him or worse, was some misery born out of the grief? Is it the tragedy of knowing and not knowing what you should know?
Union City, New York is his! Democrat, businessman, popular guy! “Forty-three years old. Not young but anyway not old.” This Irishman has got plans and time is on his side, he is sure Christina Kavanaugh is his but then he is sure of a lot of things isn’t he, Mr. Cocksure? He’s high and mighty now, nothing of the boy with humble beginnings and the air of tragedy hanging about him. The past is behind him, where it will stay. The women love him, but Thalia, his ex-step daughter with ex-wife Charlotte Drummond (11 years that one lasted) is one female that knows how to play games with him. A young woman of “unpredictable moods”, who leaves a message that she needs help, it’s serious and then nothing. Unreachable. But he can’t think about that, his mind is on Christina and he’s hot for her now! Corky’s not one for thinking about the whys of his own life, ‘he’s not a guy comfortable inside his own head’, and let’s face it, many of us won’t feel comfortable in his head-space either but damn if I wasn’t engaged poking around in there.
He has made it, all I kept thinking is ‘he’s a mover and a shaker’ and of course there is going to be corruption and betrayal in every corner! Power welcomes it. All those smiling people, maybe for all the screwing he is up to it’s Corky being screwed, not the women. In the beginning there is a traffic jam, caused by a young woman’s suicide, strange that yet another tragic death will again be a pivotal moment in his life, just like his father’s murder. He’s middle aged and haunted by his past, he tries to fill himself up on success and sex and women. If you can control everything, than tragedy can’t touch you, right? Neither can age. Is he a pig? Yes and no, maybe he has something redeemable, you have to stick with the novel long enough to find out. How is Thalia tied into all of this, what has she done? What does she know? We all want to be seen as who we profess ourselves to be. The only difference here is we are privy to Corky’s deepest thoughts, to the things that stir him, even shameful desires. We see behind the closed door, when he erupts, hitting his woman. Yeah, like I said, he isn’t exactly the guy you want to love. Women, he knows, you can get away with anything, even the worst things about a man, ‘if they love you, you can’t lose’ and such women will find terrible things sexy, forgivable. It pisses you off, because there are plenty of people who think just this way! Worse, it is sometimes true!
With Thalia, “by Corky’s request she never called him anything other than “Corky”, she was obviously kept at a distance, no ‘daddy’ aspirations, fuzzy father daughter intimacies he can remind her of. The resentment she feels for him as fresh as yesterday, likening him to her grandfather seemingly disinterested herself in all her wealth, the very power and success he needs. He thinks he has her figured out, like all women but maybe it’s she that has him pegged. His hunger, knowing he probably is sexually stirred by her too. Maybe he has tried to remain unaffected, but Thalia is in a bad way, which begs the question, what will he do about it? Who the hell can he trust? All those mighty people rubbing shoulders and the terrible rotten things they do. Will he be a hero? Shouldn’t he, of all people, understand injustice?
All of Oates’ work speaks for itself, even if you find a character repulsive or more human than you want to admit, it can’t be denied she can really get into the mind of anyone she so chooses. While not my favorite, I always find her work meaty.
Publication Date: July 23, 2019
ECCO
HarperCollins
April 27, 2011
Joyce Carol Oates is a prolific author, who somehow manages to write of a character's mind so clearly. I hated this character. Jerome "Corky" is a man who feels he embodies greatness, trying to get out of his "Irish Hill" upbringing. Corky witnesses his father's murder at the age of 12 on a Christmas Eve that he will never forget.
The writing style was a stream-of-consciousness, here-and-there-and-then-back-here again. I hated the physical details provided about how Corky thinks about womena and treats them. Corky is a racist, womanizer, all around man who represents all I hope men are not.(To be a realist, I know some are but really -.) Thus I couldn't get further than 108 pages in.
The writing style was a stream-of-consciousness, here-and-there-and-then-back-here again. I hated the physical details provided about how Corky thinks about womena and treats them. Corky is a racist, womanizer, all around man who represents all I hope men are not.(To be a realist, I know some are but really -.) Thus I couldn't get further than 108 pages in.
March 14, 2014
Spunto interessante e sempre attuale, ma un po' sprecato da Joyce Carol Oates, che diluisce la già esile trama con numerosi momenti morti e scene di sesso molto simili tra loro. Sarebbe potuto durare la metà delle pagine e non avrebbe perso un'oncia della sua potenza, anzi ne sarebbe uscito un romanzo ancora più prorompente.
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January 18, 2012I renewed this book at the library the maximum number of times permitted--and then once more!--and still no dice. I just could not get interested enough in the story to bother finishing it. It doesn't matter how good others say a book is...if I'm not diggin' it, I'm just not diggin' it! Oh, well.
March 14, 2015
How can a 600-page book with one main character over four days be SUCH a freaking page turner?? Damn!
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May 31, 2019I read this book.
April 17, 2020
Raunchy, raw, and real. Not an easy read in any way, but worth every minute. Excellent.
August 18, 2021
This audible book is way too long and way too gross. If you like JCO short stories like I do, you might try reading just the last 15 or 20 pages. This might be an interesting short story.
I have considered myself a JCO fan but I know that she has some hits and misses. I should’ve been warned off by this 30 hour 600 page tome. The book is filled with lengthy descriptions of sexual encounters focused on the sexual depravity of a main male character. These were strangely what I would call highbrow descriptions and I kept thinking there was going to be some ultimate point to them. But I finished the book without discovering that point.
If you are interested in books about Irish people in the US and all the exaggerated and false stories about them, this book might hold some extra interest for you. I just found it all a little annoying.
I have been buying JCO audible books pretty much each time I have seen one. This one is just proof that you can’t win them all. This one was published in 1995 I believe.
I have considered myself a JCO fan but I know that she has some hits and misses. I should’ve been warned off by this 30 hour 600 page tome. The book is filled with lengthy descriptions of sexual encounters focused on the sexual depravity of a main male character. These were strangely what I would call highbrow descriptions and I kept thinking there was going to be some ultimate point to them. But I finished the book without discovering that point.
If you are interested in books about Irish people in the US and all the exaggerated and false stories about them, this book might hold some extra interest for you. I just found it all a little annoying.
I have been buying JCO audible books pretty much each time I have seen one. This one is just proof that you can’t win them all. This one was published in 1995 I believe.
January 15, 2023
I first read this novel shortly after it was published and have read many of JCO's works. As this new year began, I was leafing through some old files and came upon my list of the ten works of fiction that I believed should be 'rescued' if all else were lost. I had written this list at the very beginning of this millennium , in January 2000. I was surprised to see that I had put "What I Lived For" on this list, so felt I should immediately re-read it now. I greatly appreciated doing so. Oates enters Corky's mind and feelings, she becomes him (or he her). How she knows so much about about male perceptions and responses I do not know, but she does. As some other commentators have said, Corky may be a little too priapic, but he is convincing; this is his story, his life. The intensity, the force with which it is presented is rarely equalled.
January 24, 2023
This lady writes so many crazy ass books idk I keep reading them
July 2, 2019
I have no idea how to rate this book. On one hand, it read like a parody. Corky is an over-the-top figure of male excess, hubris and need and alcohol swirling around in a toxic vortex. The writing, very appropriately, mirrors Corky's state. It is brash and indulgent and messy, unfiltered and sloppy, Joyce's stylistic hedonism and Roth's libidinal zeal mixing in long passages that lack punctuation or pause. Like Corky, these sentences don't know when to quit.
In fact, when readers tell me they intuitively "know" if an author is male or female, I will want to show them this novel. Oates nails the prototypical straight male voice. Yet I am always suspicious of books where the discussion is more pleasurable than the reading itself, where you can read an excerpt and get the point. Did this book need to be this long? Was I completely immersed? No. This novel felt more like an experiment than a finished product. Still, I will remember Corky. It would be impossible not to. That alone is something.
In fact, when readers tell me they intuitively "know" if an author is male or female, I will want to show them this novel. Oates nails the prototypical straight male voice. Yet I am always suspicious of books where the discussion is more pleasurable than the reading itself, where you can read an excerpt and get the point. Did this book need to be this long? Was I completely immersed? No. This novel felt more like an experiment than a finished product. Still, I will remember Corky. It would be impossible not to. That alone is something.
October 17, 2013
I read this book in college, which by now means about 10 years ago. I don't remember anything about the plot, other than that it takes place over a long holiday weekend and involves a hot shot politico and his daughter. I don't remember any characters other than Corky Corcoran, which barely matters because every sentence of this book revolves around him, anyway.
What I do remember, a decade later, is this book's effect. Oates captures the male psyche so effectively here that it's almost unbearable. Pages upon pages of cascading interior thought, thoughts crashing over each other like a violent thunderstorm. It's a masterpiece of voice, and as I prepare to take another trip into Oates country shortly, I know going in that she'll scarcely be able to match the intensity level of What I Lived For. Highly recommended.
What I do remember, a decade later, is this book's effect. Oates captures the male psyche so effectively here that it's almost unbearable. Pages upon pages of cascading interior thought, thoughts crashing over each other like a violent thunderstorm. It's a masterpiece of voice, and as I prepare to take another trip into Oates country shortly, I know going in that she'll scarcely be able to match the intensity level of What I Lived For. Highly recommended.
January 23, 2021
Look into the male psyche of small-time politician Irishman Corky Corcoran in upstate NY city. Joyce makes a convincing portrayal and it looks like men are pigs. Corky's obsessions and foibles bring to mind the venality of the US president in the late 2010's.
The story takes place over a long weekend, but covers his complete history via reflection and triggered memories. The character reflects through his upbringing at various points in the story and it brings to mind ones own childhood and the murkiness of the memories, but the feelings are there. Institutional memories of Memorial Day parades and their fading over time in popularity.
Joyce makes cultural observations through various characters.
Engaging. I like Joyce's little mechanisms of setting off the interior thoughts of her protagonist with italics and a little recurring phrase: 'then this: ...'.
The story takes place over a long weekend, but covers his complete history via reflection and triggered memories. The character reflects through his upbringing at various points in the story and it brings to mind ones own childhood and the murkiness of the memories, but the feelings are there. Institutional memories of Memorial Day parades and their fading over time in popularity.
Joyce makes cultural observations through various characters.
Engaging. I like Joyce's little mechanisms of setting off the interior thoughts of her protagonist with italics and a little recurring phrase: 'then this: ...'.
August 24, 2020
An interesting glimpse into the life and mind of a successful Irish-American man in the early 90's. Oates does an amazing job balancing the reader's concern for our protagonist with an intense frustration with him. Corky Corcoran is decadent, egotistical, chronically late, and hypocritical to the point of infuriation, but we still want -- need -- to read what happens, maybe only in the hopes of redemption for our not-quite hero. Set against the urban backdrop of real estate corruption, political immorality, racial tension, and gentrification, this novel could have been set in our current times.
June 13, 2020
Incredibly well written as is standard for Joyce. In fact I would probably rate it higher if I wasn’t comparing it to some of her later works. The main problem I had is with the anti-hero protagonist. A very real character but not one I would choose to be in the head of for that many pages. Typical of the kind of bigotry I grew up with in the 80s as well as fantastically sexist, alcoholic and narcissistic. Exhausting to stay with him but nevertheless the way Joyce writes him it is impossible not to read to the end.
April 24, 2020
Very slimy main character--egomaniac, sexist, and racist. Knowing a little about this type of person is useful, but the book goes on and on, long past what is necessary, especially in terms of this man's sexual activities. Whole passages are repeated almost word for word over and over again. Gave up on the book many times. The best thing I can say about it is I'm done with it. Don't waste your time!
June 21, 2008
I wanted to hate this book. So many times I wanted to stop reading it, Corky drove me completely mad all the way to the very end. But, now that I've finished reading it, I find myself missing the testosterone driven roller coaster ride...
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