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A review by honnari_hannya
A Fair Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates
4.0
TW: Adult-minor relationship, mentions of (potential) incest, sexual violence,
Joyce Carol Oates is quickly become one of my favorite authors. There is something about her that just speaks to my id—particularly in that she doesn't seem to try and reign hers in, and I completely fuck with that.
This is the story of Katya Spivak, a 16-year-old Jersey girl who is working as a nanny one summer in an upscale seaside town. There, she meets a much older man whose inappropriate interest in her is something Katya is quite familiar with—having been subjected to such advances nearly all her life. But the intensity of their relationship quickly ramps up, and Katya slowly realizes that Marcus Kidder has designs for her beyond being a pretty young model he wants to draw.
The premise of this is immediately intriguing to me, because I love examinations of intensely skewed power dynamics—and JCO makes it seem like this could go either way. Kidder, of course, is predatory simply by nature of him being an older man seeking out a relationship with this much younger woman. This is something that we, as readers, understand. But Katya as well revels in the power of her youthfulness and sexiness—especially in older men—which is a certain kind of power too when you are a teenage girl, which JCO so carefully unfolds as something that can be extremely exploitable (and then not so carefully). This appeal is what makes her feel safe in Kidder's home, his presence, as his model—even when all signs point to the predatory nature of their relationship.
I've mentioned before how much I enjoy how JCO writes women. Never overplaying the "headstrong" angle, nor the "too easily persuaded." She goes right up there with Du Maurier for those that write complex female characters for me. Katya doesn't necessarily mistake one thing for another, but she thinks certain things are equivalent when she shouldn't. Things like affection/attention, lust/love, romance/romantic, and especially being in love and being paid. That last is especially important to her character as a working-class girl.
But what I found most intriguing here was the way she chose to characterize Marcus Kidder—very old, a little whimsical, a children's book author, kind of grandfatherly in Katya's eyes. Almost as if to temper the reader's impulse to romanticize the situation from the get-go, even though she will complicate that later with all his talk of soulmates and the inherent romanticism of that sentiment.
There were a couple of things I wasn't quite on board with. The pacing was a little off, too slow in some parts and the sinister build wasn't necessarily all there for me. But I do appreciate the turns this took toward the end—how JCO turned My Fair Lady to Death and the Maiden to Death as the Maiden. Clever and intriguing.
Spoiler
chronic illness, assisted suicideJoyce Carol Oates is quickly become one of my favorite authors. There is something about her that just speaks to my id—particularly in that she doesn't seem to try and reign hers in, and I completely fuck with that.
This is the story of Katya Spivak, a 16-year-old Jersey girl who is working as a nanny one summer in an upscale seaside town. There, she meets a much older man whose inappropriate interest in her is something Katya is quite familiar with—having been subjected to such advances nearly all her life. But the intensity of their relationship quickly ramps up, and Katya slowly realizes that Marcus Kidder has designs for her beyond being a pretty young model he wants to draw.
The premise of this is immediately intriguing to me, because I love examinations of intensely skewed power dynamics—and JCO makes it seem like this could go either way. Kidder, of course, is predatory simply by nature of him being an older man seeking out a relationship with this much younger woman. This is something that we, as readers, understand. But Katya as well revels in the power of her youthfulness and sexiness—especially in older men—which is a certain kind of power too when you are a teenage girl, which JCO so carefully unfolds as something that can be extremely exploitable (and then not so carefully). This appeal is what makes her feel safe in Kidder's home, his presence, as his model—even when all signs point to the predatory nature of their relationship.
I've mentioned before how much I enjoy how JCO writes women. Never overplaying the "headstrong" angle, nor the "too easily persuaded." She goes right up there with Du Maurier for those that write complex female characters for me. Katya doesn't necessarily mistake one thing for another, but she thinks certain things are equivalent when she shouldn't. Things like affection/attention, lust/love, romance/romantic, and especially being in love and being paid. That last is especially important to her character as a working-class girl.
But what I found most intriguing here was the way she chose to characterize Marcus Kidder—very old, a little whimsical, a children's book author, kind of grandfatherly in Katya's eyes. Almost as if to temper the reader's impulse to romanticize the situation from the get-go, even though she will complicate that later with all his talk of soulmates and the inherent romanticism of that sentiment.
There were a couple of things I wasn't quite on board with. The pacing was a little off, too slow in some parts and the sinister build wasn't necessarily all there for me. But I do appreciate the turns this took toward the end—how JCO turned My Fair Lady to Death and the Maiden to Death as the Maiden. Clever and intriguing.