aliud452

Joyce Carol Oates managed to write an entire novella that, in real-time, takes place in the course of about five minutes. And very artfully done. It’s a book that can easily be consumed in a single sitting: yesterday I bought it, walked to the park and sat down on a bench, and finished it about an hour and a half later. It’s the type of read that’s broken into short segments, each segment leading you to automatically turn to the next. The rhythm of the prose synchs with the terror of the novella’s circumstances, which is a characteristic I love so much about Oates. Black Water tells the story of an all-American type young woman (Kelly) who meets a senator at a friend’s barbecue. She leaves the party with him, and his car plunges into sewages, enclosing the car in a vessel of filthy, rising waters. This is where present time begins: the moment of the wreck. The reader is then taken back in time to learn random details of Kelly’s past, along with the day’s events that lead up to the wreck. We even learn that she’d written her college thesis on the senator himself. Although nearly every page references politics, Black Water is less of a political story and more about truth/deceit, and outer appearances vs. true personality. I didn’t realize it as I read, but the scenario closely resembles the famous Chappaquiddick incident of 1969—although the book obviously isn’t directly about this incident, considering it takes place in the early 90s.

2020-12-31 12:17