The Sacrifice

(Paperback)

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Description

Best-selling author Joyce Carol Oates blends sexual violence, racism, brutality, and power in her latest incendiary novel.
When a fourteen-year-old girl is the alleged victim of a terrible act of racial violence, the incident shocks and galvanises her community, exacerbating the racial tension that has been simmering in this New Jersey town for decades.

Unfolding in a chorus of multiracial voices from the police to the media to the victim and her family which gather to reach a tense crescendo at the novels climax, THE SACRIFICE offers a shocking new understanding of power and oppression, innocence and guilt, truth and sensationalism, justice and retribution and the primal decisions we make to protect those we love.

A chilling exploration of complex social, political, and moral themes, THE SACRIFICE is a major work of fiction from one of our most revered literary masters.

Reviews

[Joyce Carol Oates] is simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going, as far as Im concerned Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl

A powerful novel We see how, in the hands of a great writer, a gripping story can be torn from the poisonous rubble Rose Tremain, Guardian

Visceral and hypnotising simmers with barely concealed rage at the impotence inflicted on people by race and gender inequalities Lesley McDowell, Independent

Oates demonstrates a fearlessness in her writing. The book has the energy and force of a river in full flow, filled with dangerous undercurrents and eddies Victoria Moore, Daily Mail

A savage satire on race relations and the culture of sensationalism The Sacrifice ranks among Joyce Carol Oates best novels Robert Rorke, New York Post

With great energy and a cold eye for contemporary American race relations offers a mix of fiery drama and the cold bone truths of race as we all live it today Alan Cheuse, NPR Books

Oates firecracker of a novel explores the minefield of race relations in thought-provoking style Max Davidson, Irish Mail on Sunday

Beyond daring, highly provocative . . . a blend of sizzling drama and the brutal truths of racism. Oates writes with the ease of a master of language, uncoiling the bitterest of stories with barely a word wasted Lorraine Courtney, Belfast Telegraph

Explosive Jon Michaud, Washington Post

Author Bio

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award and the PEN / Malamud Award, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her books include We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, Carthage, A Book of American Martyrs and Hazards of Time Travel. She is Professor of Humanities at Princeton University.