1B: Joyce Carol Oates (b. June 16, 1938)

Joyce Carol Oates on the cover of Newsweek, December 11, 1972

  

"If you’re not afraid of much in life, you haven’t experienced life yet! There is much, much to be fearful of, though perhaps it is not a good idea to know this. The disasters that you might expect are not likely to happen, but others will, totally unexpected ones. Out of nowhere, they will come, and you will say, But I had no idea. That is the point: you have no idea. Just wait."

--Joyce Carol Oates, in The New Yorker, June 24, 2013

Celestial Timepiece: The Joyce Carol Oates Homepage  has extensive information about Oates. At this site you'll find a biography of her, interviews with her, and criticism of her work. The New York Times has written many articles on Oates. You can find a lengthy interview here with Oates, conducted in 1997, by the Academy of Achievement; the site includes videos and written transcripts of the interview.  Her stature in American and world literature is great; she is often one of the favorites to win the Nobel Prize in literature.  She teaches writing at Princeton University. She is prolific. Her full list of books is here.

Here are 10 Tips on Writing from Oates.

Oates on "Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
The inspiration for Arnold Friend of "'Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?' was Charles Schmid, the Pied Piper of Tucson:"

"[Oates's story is] loosely based upon the true story of Charles 'Smitty' Schmid (b. 1942; d. 1975), a serial killer in Tucson, Arizona, called the 'Pied Piper of Tucson.' He was able to lure girls into being with him, partly because he came from wealth. He had a house on his parents’ property, at which he often held parties. He wore pancake makeup and drew a mole on his face to make a 'beauty mark.' He died his reddish-brown hair black, and was known to have gotten several girls to dye their hair for him. He stood between 5’3’’ and 5’4’’ tall, but stuffed his boots with wadded up newspapers and crushed cans to make himself taller. In the end, he killed 3 girls (aged 17, 15, 13), burying their bodies in the desert. He was finally caught through a confession of a former confidante. When he killed the first girl, Alleen Rowe, he lured her out of her house while a friend of his waited in the car. "Smitty" was said to have virtually talked his victim into his car. He also claimed to have some hallucinogenic or psychic powers. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison; he was killed in 1975 by other inmates."--by Michael Kiggins, Nashville State Community College, at http://ww2.nscc.edu/kiggins_m/4-oates.pdf

Oates and Bob Dylan
Oates has said that her story, "Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?", was inspired by the Tucson murderer described above, not Bob Dylan, though she dedicated her story to him. However, she did say that she was listening to Dylan at the time that she wrote the story.   Here she is asked about the Dylan connection:

She has also written "Dylan at 60," a reflection on his career.  Now for some Dylan himself, around the time Oates wrote "Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?"

Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-65

Bob Dylan singing "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in a London hotel

from the film "Don't Look Back" (1965).  Dylan starts singing

 "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (at 2:20) after Donovan sings.

 Some say that Dylan's song shares a mood with the Oates story.  Do you agree?

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last

But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast

Yonder stands your orphan with his gun

Crying like a fire in the sun

Look out the saints are comin’ through

And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense

Take what you have gathered from coincidence

The empty-handed painter from your streets

Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets

This sky, too, is folding under you

And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home

All your reindeer armies, are all going home

The lover who just walked out your door

Has taken all his blankets from the floor

The carpet, too, is moving under you

And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you

Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you

The vagabond who’s rapping at your door

Is standing in the clothes that you once wore

Strike another match, go start anew

And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

Here are links to two other Dylan classics: the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video from 1965 and "Like A Rolling Stone" (studio version) and "Like a Rolling Stone" (live performance), the original recording from 1965. Dylan turned 72 on May 24, 2013. He is still recording new music and playing concerts around the world.  You can learn more about Dylan at his website.

If the above video from The New Yorker with
 Joyce Carol Oates does not work, try this link.

Oates on Fiction
In an  interview with The New Yorker, June 24, 2013, Oates has this to say:

Interviewer:
There’s been quite a bit of discussion lately about the notion of likability in fictional characters—and whether female writers are under pressure to consider it more than male writers are. It’s difficult to sympathize fully with either of these two characters [in "Mastiff"]. You refer to the woman in the moment of crisis as “the sort of woman you pity even as you inch away from her.” Do you feel you need to like—or, at least, sympathize with—a character in order to inhabit him or her for the space of a story?

Oates:
I sympathize with—and identify with—all sorts of people. I think that there is a measure of hypocrisy in those who profess surprise at flawed characters in fiction—virtually everyone is flawed, and everyone is, at one time or another, ignoble. The concept of a “hero” is unreal and of little interest. Also, we fall in love with imperfect people—some of us with actual criminals, murderers. This is a fact of life. Only in fiction are individuals supposed to be perfect—a woman must be “beautiful” to be a protagonist. In life, virtually anything goes. I think it should be thrilling—it should certainly be encouraging—to be assured that people who are deeply flawed can be nonetheless socially and sexually “successful,” admired, and beloved. If only perfect people were loved, where would that leave the rest of us? It’s hypocritical to expect of others that they be perfect when we know how imperfect we are ourselves. Maybe that’s a delusion of our species, an aspect of denial.

Interviewer:
Is it different if you’re writing a novel?

Oates:
In a novel, it is expected that people will change, over a period of time. The concept of change in personalities is fascinating—one sees definite change in young people, less obvious change in older people. (This is why so many of us like to teach: we can effect change—one hopes, for the better.) The novel is a sort of laboratory experiment in which numerous elements and conditions are brought together with results that should be both inevitable and somewhat unexpected. A short story is, by definition, a short “take,” but it may summarize a life, or it may suggest a life to come. In “Mastiff,” a woman and a man come together—somewhat unexpectedly to both. Under other circumstances, they might not even have liked each other; now, they are going to make a life together. If you don’t think that a marriage can begin in such a way, you are either not being honest or you haven’t had much experience. A marriage like this can be a very good one, since both wife and husband know that they will have to work hard to achieve the relationship: it didn’t come “naturally.”

Oates is Interviewed
Here is a selection of interviews with Oates: The Telegraph, The Washington Post, The Paris Review, Tavis Smiley  and C-SPAN. The last two interviews are videos.

Oates and her Influences
In her interview with Salon, Oates discusses her influences: "The great influences that came into my life when I was in my 20s, I suppose. James Joyce is a great influence in many ways. The Joycean sentence, the way Joyce combines different senses, the way he looked at the world. Oddly enough, Joyce never wrote, as you know, about violence in any way. He said he abhorred violence. He never wrote about that. But there is a kind of domestic violence in Joyce’s writing. So Joyce is certainly an influence. Kafka was a strong influence and Lewis Carroll — 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass' — the sensibility I really identified very much with Lewis Carroll. The sense of the absurd, a sort of comic absurd."

Joyce Carol Oates in the ring with World Heavyweight Champion Mike Tyson in Catskill, NY, Fall,1986. At the time Oates was working on her book On Boxing. Here is a selection from it. She also reviewed Tyson's Undisputed Truth.