Joyce Carol Oates, The Gravedigger's Daughter

Paola Trimarco (The Open University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2007

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Oates’s 36th novel,

The Gravedigger’s Daughter

(2007), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award for fiction and on the

New York Times

best-seller list. As with other works by Oates, it examines the complexity of American life and social integration against a background of dark, often violent circumstances (Thompson, 2007). Of particular interest to students and scholars of Joyce Carol Oates, the story is based in part on the life of the author’s grandmother, who emigrated from Europe, concealing her Jewish heritage. As Oates explains, “The novel is fiction, but it was generated by her [my grandmother’s] life as the gravedigger's daughter, and her life after her family was destroyed” (Crown, 2007). Like the story’s protagonist, Oates’s grandmother worked in a…

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1366 words

Citation: Trimarco, Paola. "The Gravedigger's Daughter". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 December 2018 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=26553, accessed 10 May 2024.]

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