A review by tensy
A Book of American Martyrs by Joyce Carol Oates

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.