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mujerdee's review against another edition
3.0
Told from multiple POV‘s, it’s a multiple train wreck of interconnecting stories. This book examines parental selfishness in its myriad and frequently insane faces: workaholism, emotional withholding, addiction, pride, inconstancy. The purple prose became a little much at points. The arguments on both sides of the issue of abortion the characters make are both nauseating and self satisfyingly smug. The ending is too pat to be believable. Not my favorite Oats book.
jenniferstringer's review against another edition
4.0
Not an easy book to read, and not an easy topic to talk about. But Joyce Carol Oates portrays these martyrs in the fight over abortion with nuance and respect. Neither martyr is vilified nor lauded. Both families are convinced of the righteousness of their cause. Both martyrs act without much thought or care about how their actions might affect their families. Both of their families suffer immensely in the aftermath of the calamity. In the end, I'm left feeling that martyrdom, at least in the abortion debate, just isn't worth the pain. It changes nothing and pain is all that is left in its wake.
pattiillbee11's review against another edition
2.0
while the writing was good as usual for ms. oates, i was put off by the characterization of the pro-life family as struggling uneducated male dominated , hypocritically religious, it was a copout. I am a pro choice supporter and was offended by the portrayal of the Dunphy family. and it ruined the book for me. that and the boxing. not interested.
kidoma's review against another edition
5.0
A thoughtful and complex novel of the collision of two families. Well worth the read despite some parts that were a bit long.
ridgewaygirl's review against another edition
4.0
Because he'd seen, and not forgotten.
Because there is so little we can do. Yet it is our duty, to do it.
Because he had not lost faith and because I am hoping to learn what faith is.
So [[Joyce Carol Oates]] has written a big, meaty novel about abortion. [A Book of American Martyrs] isn't what I had expected it to be, but does JCO ever cater to expectations? Here JCO tells the story of two men, and then of two families and finishes by focusing on the daughters of the two men.
Gus Voorhees is a public health doctor working in women's clinics, vocal and visible enough to have worked his way onto the ten most wanted lists of the more radical right-to-life groups. Luther Dunphy is a carpenter who attends a fundamentalist church and who had once had dreams of becoming a minister himself. He's active in the right-to-life movement, often joining with those protesting at the clinic in his small Ohio city. The novel opens with Dunphy firing his shotgun, first at Voorhees and then at the clinic escort who had arrived at the clinic with the doctor.
Oates then goes back and forth in time, showing the lives of both families before and after the murder. The trial forms the backbone of the book. But Oates's attention is less on abortion than on how the sudden removal of the father from a family can destroy it, and on mothers who are unable, for different reasons, to be mothers and what that does to children. Oates's writing style keeps the reader at a short distance from her characters and thank goodness for that, the book is emotionally exhausting as it is. I will call the author out for her classism, where the poor are not just lacking money, but also intelligence and curiosity. The novel might have been stronger for allowing the Dunphys to be more than they were.
carolynfc's review against another edition
5.0
This is not an easy read, but it is an important one. A grim story of two very different families ripped apart by one violent act and also, improbably, a beautiful story of redemption.
I thought it was an ingenious commentary on the way that bipartisan politics and the ultra-polarized climate in contemporary America ultimately damns everyone involved.
However, this was not for the faint of heart, it was not light reading, and I wouldn't recommend this one for readers who have trouble getting into books with unlikeable characters.
I thought it was an ingenious commentary on the way that bipartisan politics and the ultra-polarized climate in contemporary America ultimately damns everyone involved.
However, this was not for the faint of heart, it was not light reading, and I wouldn't recommend this one for readers who have trouble getting into books with unlikeable characters.
katie_esh's review against another edition
4.0
Oates’s talent is evident as both sides of one of our country’s largest debates are handled with equal depth and care. The book was in need of some editing; she could have had the same impact in 500 pages that she did in 700. Even though it’s too long, I can’t rate it any lower because the story is so raw and powerful.
tensy's review against another edition
3.0
This book started as a 5 star read and then disintegrated into a 3. Oates is a wonderful writer and perfectly describes the cultural milieu of American society in the late 2oth Century. The novel centers around two men and their families. Both men are committed to either side of the abortion debate. One day, Luther Dunfy shoots and kills Gus Voorhees, who is a doctor working at a Women's Clinic. This part of the novel is amazing, and you totally fall into the grip of the psyche of Dunfy and Voorhees. After the shooting and trial, we then get the story of what happens to their families, who are the collateral damage of the shooting. This is where the book radically veered off for me. Oates' editor did her a disservice by not tightening up many repetitive sections of the book and overly long expositions about women's boxing. The manner in which several of the mothers are portrayed in the story is so bizarre and their reactions so unrealistic that you begin to disengage from the plot. Another negative for me, is that I listened to the audio version, and the ensemble narrators of the female characters (especially Naomi) are so incredibly annoying that this may have influenced my dislike of all the female characters in the novel.
cheraford's review against another edition
3.0
700+ pages that was a struggle to finish towards the end. Dense writing style and I felt no empathy for any of the characters.