Volume 46, Number 13 · August 12, 1999
Made in the USA
By Lorrie Moore
Broke Heart Blues
by Joyce Carol Oates
Dutton, 369 pp., $24.95
Our hungry manufacture and easy bestowal of fame (with its twin illusions of accessibility and inaccessibility) is a kind of communion: it brings the gods close and makes them edible. In the words of my four-year-old son, 'Stars are farther than outer space. They are farther than South America. They are in Russia'—a remark that, despite the decrescendo and uncertainty of its geography, rather effectively expresses the idea that glamour and mystery are so elusive, quick, arbitrary, and surprising as to be found residing nearer by than one might think. (Although nearer by may also turn out to be far.)
Review, 2304 words
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