The Gravedigger's Daughter

“The daughter of a Holocaust survivor (the gravedigger of the title) who commits an incredible murder...But she is able to reinvent herself as a peppy salesclerk with a jazz-musician lover and become ‘a living, breathing, complex presence on the page” - New York Times

In 1936 the Schwarts, an immigrant family desperate to escape Nazi Germany, settle in a small town in upstate New York, where the father, a former high school teacher, is demeaned by the only job he can get: gravedigger and cemetery caretaker. After local prejudice and the family's own emotional frailty result in unspeakable tragedy, the gravedigger's daughter, Rebecca, begins her astonishing pilgrimage into America, an odyssey of erotic risk and imaginative daring, ingenious self-invention, and, in the end, a bittersweet—but very "American"—triumph. "You are born here, they will not hurt you"—so the gravedigger has predicted for his daughter, which will turn out to be true.

In The Gravedigger's Daughter, Oates has created a masterpiece of domestic yet mythic realism, at once emotionally engaging and intellectually provocative: an intimately observed testimony to the resilience of the individual to set beside such predecessors as The Falls, Blonde, and We Were the Mulvaneys.

In 1936 the Schwarts, an immigrant family desperate to escape Nazi Germany, settle in a small town in upstate New York, where the father, a former high school teacher, is demeaned by the only job he can get: gravedigger and cemetery caretaker. After local prejudice and the family's own emotional frailty result in unspeakable tragedy, the gravedigger's daughter, Rebecca, begins her astonishing pilgrimage into America, an odyssey of erotic risk and imaginative daring, ingenious self-invention, and, in the end, a bittersweet—but very "American"—triumph. "You are born here, they will not hurt you"—so the gravedigger has predicted for his daughter, which will turn out to be true.

In The Gravedigger's Daughter, Oates has created a masterpiece of domestic yet mythic realism, at once emotionally engaging and intellectually provocative: an intimately observed testimony to the resilience of the individual to set beside such predecessors as The Falls, Blonde, and We Were the Mulvaneys.

“Joyce Carol Oates’ uncompromising prose illuminates the stark landscape of our times” - Chicago Tribune

“The Gravedigger’s Daughter is Joyce Carol Oates at her very best: mesmerizing, intense and unique in her vision and power.” - The New Yorker

“Oates is our finest novelistic tracker . . . Everything in this book depends on Oates’ ability to bring a woman before the reader who is deeply veiled . . . and she does it with epic panache.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Oates is supremely atmospheric, erotic, and suspenseful in this virtuoso novel of identity, power, and moral reckoning.” - Booklist

“Joyce Carol Oates is a major one-woman industry. Constantly exploring new aspects of American life, Joyce Carol Oates has restlessly evolved as an artist.” - New York Review of Books

“The daughter of a Holocaust survivor (the gravedigger of the title) who commits an incredible murder, Oates’s heroine endures enough violence to fill a slasher movie. But she is able to reinvent herself as a peppy salesclerk with a jazz-musician lover and become ‘a living, breathing, complex presence on the page,’ our reviewer, Lee Siegel, wrote. Oates is sometimes compared to Theodore Dreiser, the author of Sister Carrie, Siegel continued, ‘but in the way her novels take off at the moment when her heroines break free, Oates is sometimes more like Carrie herself.’” - New York Times

“Hailed by many as her masterpiece, this latest novel from the prolific writer demonstrates again why she’s such a literary success…” - Body & Soul

“Oates writes evocatively about the explosive combination of regret and resentment… a writer of furious gifts…” - Minneapolis Star Tribune

“There is a lot to respect and admire about Joyce Carol Oates’ fiction. Foremost among her protean talents is the forceful imagination that has leapt out so often and illuminated all manner of situations and characters… Each time you open one of her novels — “The Gravedigger’s Daughter” is her 36th — you cannot help being struck by the sense that she is giving it her all…Perhaps Oates’ greatest achievement here is to make this rough specimen of womankind into a truly attractive character who receives the reader’s sympathy in the broadest sense of that term… an uncommonly satisfying novel.” - Los Angeles Times

“Oates writes evocatively about the explosive combination of regret and resentment… a writer of furious gifts…” - St. Petersburg Times

“Joyce Carol Oates’s 36th novel ranks among her most accomplished, atmospheric and personal… rich emotional and psychological insights…There’s much here to be moved and mesmerized by, not least Oates’s linguistic verve.” - Bloomberg News

“Oates’ vivid descriptions fill the senses… Strongest is Oates’ compassionate, disturbing portrayal of life in the troubled war years, when immigrants were seen as the enemy by some of their reluctant new countrymen, and of the decades that followed, when assimilation came at a soul-shattering cost.” - Indianapolis Star

“…a writer of furious gifts…” - New Jersey Star Ledger

“Oates’ vivid descriptions fill the senses…what is strong is Oates’ compassionate, disturbing portrayal of life in the troubled war years…” - USA Today

“With The Gravedigger’s Daughter, Oates has created an intense portrait of a woman that no one but she could write. Drawing on her long-standing interests in violence, women’s roles, recent American history and the influence of money and education -or lack of them - on the shape of a person’s life, Oates has worked all of her major themes into a compelling, fictional life story.” - Rocky Mountain News

“Joyce Carol Oates returns to her Western New York roots in what is surely her masterwork — “The Gravedigger’s Daughter.” This, her 36th novel, is a stunning tale of strength in the face of fury and foreboding… Oates’ sense of time and place is piercingly alive… the tale, like all of Oates’ tales, is simply told — and rushes at us, strong and unstoppable, in torrents of Oates words, Oates imagery. Its main characters are flat-out unforgettable…. There are shades of Theodore Dreiser and John Steinbeck in “The Gravedigger’s Daughter”…” - Buffalo News

“Oates’ vivid descriptions fill the senses…what is strong is Oates’ compassionate, disturbing portrayal of life in the troubled war years…” - Louisville Courier Journal

“In Rebecca Schwart, Oates has constructed an epic character study of an American-born immigrant who, after 600 pages, almost seems to transcend fiction with its honest and subtle conclusion.” - The Independent Weekly

“Joyce Carol Oates’ writing in her new novel, “The Gravedigger’s Daughter,” is spellbinding and raw. She is a mesmerizing storyteller who seems almost unnaturally able to enter the tormented inner lives of her characters, particularly when channeling the voice of Rebecca, surely her alter-ego here. Oates’ prose is exquisitely evocative of the early 1950s…” - Denver Post

““The Gravedigger’s Daughter” is unquestionably one of Oates’ finest novels, rendered in taut, vivid language, with an emotional power… Perhaps more than any other major contemporary writer, Oates is aware of the fraught dynamics of identity in “self-made” American lives…She honors her own complex heritage, and that of all Americans, in her extraordinary fiction.” - Chicago Tribune Books

“…there is much to admire in this bittersweet tale of one woman’s triumph of the will...engaging…” - New York Times

“In her masterwork The Gravedigger’s Daughter, Joyce Carol Oates combines gritty realism with a mesmerizing moment-by-moment creation of the title character’s psyche. I gobbled up this novel in two settings; the second one lasted till 3:30 a.m.—so compelling was the narrative. The transformation of Rebecca Schwart into Hazel Jones and back again shows the reader a dangerous and discontinuous world, ranging from global war to small town factory life to the classical concert hall. Joyce Carol Oates’s strategic use of suspense is dazzling.” - The New Yorker

“This is a remarkable novel from a writer who has given us many. But with The Gravedigger’s Daughter, Joyce Carol Oates has given us her masterpiece, a truly gripping testament to the resilience of the human spirit.” - The New Yorker

“…there comes a moment when you surrender to the overpowering force of Joyce Carol Oates’ virtues…gripping and fresh…you want to shout to the sky that Joyce Carol Oates is ‘a goldenish spot in the weariness of the world.’” - New York Times Book Review

“…immensely rewarding…Oates is an accomplished stylist, and her novel is filled with well-timed similes, vivid descriptions and effective characterizations…invigorating.” - Charlotte Observer

“For many novelists, quantity is damaging to quality, but Oates’s power springs directly from her prodigality. Her genius – the only word for the alarming thing that so evidently possesses her – happens to be a giant. And the reader’s intimation that this huge-handed, league-striding, voracious monster is somehow speaking, whispering, howling through her is what gives to her writing the illusion that it’s all real…Oates succeeds here, as she often does, in making such judgements feel simple-minded. What it all seems is true and therefore moving and somewhat terrible, but in an exhilarating way. Every aspect of the ungainly plot feels right, including its ungainliness.” - Washington Post Book World

““The Gravedigger’s Daughter” is unquestionably one of Oates’ finest novels, rendered in taut, vivid language, with an emotional power… Perhaps more than any other major contemporary writer, Oates is aware of the fraught dynamics of identity in “self-made” American lives…She honors her own complex heritage, and that of all Americans, in her extraordinary fiction.” - Chicago Tribune

“…This book is easy to admire… my reaction was…“Wow: What a writer.”” - Seattle Times

“Although the story rings with truth, there is magic to the prose that makes the piece unfold like a dark fairy tale, suspended just above the realm of reality. This may well be Oates’ masterpiece. It’s obviously a book very close to her heart.” - Portland Oregonian

“If you have not read a Joyce Carol Oates novel in a while, or are new to this writer, rush out and find a copy of “The Gravedigger’s Daughter.” Its mournful beauty and absorbing story may well become something you cherish until you reach your own demise… what I really want to say about “The Gravedigger’s Daughter” is that I traded sleep to be with her. The book casts a disorienting, intoxicating spell, that reading experience we all seek. Its haunting voice carries the ring of art.” - Cleveland Plain Dealer

“In her implacable determination and ambivalent triumph, Rebecca recalls the heroines of Wharton, Dreiser, and James…with this impassioned character study Oates reminds us of what James knew and many seem to have forgotten: You can build a great American novel around a woman’s consciousness.” - Elle

“Oates’s characters are vivid and mulit-dimensional, and the book’s surprise ending is moving and hopeful. This is a saga worth savoring.” 4 out of 4 stars - People

“…Oates confidently delivers another very American saga of lurid misfortune.” - Entertainment Weekly

“What you’ll love: It’s easy to identify with the main character’s struggles, and the elements of intrigue (secret identities, lost family histories) woven into the plot keep you engrossed.” - Washington Post

“In her latest, in a seemingly endless stream of novels, Joyce Carol Oates covers familiar ground, both geographically and psychologically. As usual, she makes the trip worthwhile.” - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

““The Gravedigger’s Daughter” is Joyce Carol Oates’ 36th novel, but this indefatigable writer seems to be going from strength to strength, as evidenced by her vituosity here… So bare is Ms. Oates’ prose, so precise in its clinical beauty, that when she does relent and give space to her characters to create a scene of filial bonding here, of mind-numbing violence there, the effect is heart-breaking. This book is a moving ode to the difficult choices people make in their lives, some of which leave no room for escape.” - Washington Times