Joyce Carol Oates - The Assassins: A Book of Hours

Dust Jacket Blurb

When a bullet strikes a powerful political figure, when the burial rites are over and done with, when all that remains of that great promise is his lingering charisma, when the affair is investigated, the verdict rendered, what of those who have stood silent in the churchyard—are their lives, too, ripped by the same bullet?

Has the deed been done by one assassin? Is there only one who has been destroyed? Or was there more than one who pulled the trigger, more than one whose life is shattered?

THE ASSASSINS is the story of Andrew Petrie, a wealthy right-wing political figure with a reputation for ruthless honesty. More, it is the story of his surviving brothers, Hugh and Stephen, and of his young widow Yvonne. Members of a large, prominent family, they are nevertheless isolated, each alone with his own enemy, his own assassin. In a state of frozen panic, they realize that Andrew's death has robbed them of the object of their hatred, love, religious compassion—all-consuming emotions that had previously cushioned them against the nightmare of their own emptiness. Their conflicting interpretations of reality—as well as the baffling, tragic events that overtake them—constitute a revelation of the contemporary world, both political and private.

Excerpt

He bathed and bandaged a cut on her foot. On the tender, inner part of her left foot, it had been. Barefoot, she had crossed a patch of sand and weeds, had been looking out at the ocean, had stepped on a piece of glass from a soft drink bottle. The pain was such a surprise, so incredible a sensation—she had been turning over and over in her mind a conversation she and Andrew had had, walking along the beach after breakfast—his passionate admission that, for him, ideas were the only reality—the only permanent reality—the rational side of mankind the only sacred side—never really explored except by a few individuals, isolated, uncertain of their connection with one another: the future of mankind was only through reason, logic, awakened capacities in the brain that were now dormant in nearly everyone. They had talked of Aristotle, whose works he had given her to read—his boyhood books, they were, the margins filled with comments—the lines heavily underscored—they had talked of Plato's Republic, which Yvonne had once studied—but without the necessary guidance and insight. And then— And now— She had been thinking of—had been rehearsing in her mind the several objections and questions she wanted to make— What did Kant mean by, why was he so obscure in, could it be interpreted that—

The pain, suddenly. Her left foot. How quickly it had happened, and how the blood spurted out onto the sand!

Other Editions

paperback

Epigraph

Everybody considers dying important;
but as yet death is no festival.

—NIETZSCHE

Note:

Working Title: Death-Festival

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 1975, p1084
Publishers Weekly, September 29, 1975, p42
Newsweek, October 27, 1975, p99-100
Booklist, November 1, 1975, p350
Library Journal, November 15, 1975, p2174
New York Times Book Review, November 23, 1975, p10
Christian Century, December 17, 1975, p1164-1165
National Observer, January 10, 1976, p19
Best Sellers, February 1976, p334
Ms, February 1976, p42-43
Time, February 23, 1976 p65
Commentary, March 1976, p54-57
Canadian Forum, May 1976, p33-34
Choice, May 1976, p370
National Review, September 3, 1976, p965-966
Yale Review, Autumn 1976, p148-150
Washington Post Book World, November 14, 1976, L5
Kliatt Paperback Book Guide, Winter 1977, p7
Sewanee Review, Winter 1977, p116-117
Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 1977, p17

The Assassins

A Book of Hours

by Joyce Carol Oates