Volume 29, Number 16 · October 21, 1982
Wonder Woman
By Denis Donoghue
A Bloodsmoor Romance
by Joyce Carol Oates
Dutton, 615 pp., $16.95
Interviewers like to ask Joyce Carol Oates, presumably in the accent of awe, how she finds time to write all those books: fourteen novels, counting A Bloodsmoor Romance, eleven collections of short stories, six books of poetry, counting Invisible Woman: New and Selected Poems 1970-1982, two plays, and three books of criticism. The question isn't as innocent as it sounds. With a slight change of tone, it could come out differently, as if it asked: 'Don't you think your reputation would be even higher than it is if you took more time, let the typescripts stay on your desk for a year or two before sending them to the publisher? Think of E.M. Forster, a classic novelist on the strength of one book, eked out by a few short volumes and many years of silence.' Oates has answered the question, in its implied second form, by saying: 'I write with the enormous hope of altering the world.' You might as well take as many shots at that target as you think you need, especially if proof that you've altered the world doesn't come merely because you send for it. Oates might also deal with Forster by saying: think of Balzac, think of James.
Review, 3906 words
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