A review by spinstah
Expensive People by Joyce Carol Oates

2.0

I think this was the first Oates novel that I've read and haven't liked all that much -- mainly because of the narrator. I'm not a huge fan of things written from the viewpoint of an unreliable narrator, and so that was one of the problems. Another thing that bothered me was the narrator's constant references to the fact that he was writing the account -- even going to far as to frequently talk about how poorly written it was, and how many digressions there were, and how the last three chapters really could have been cut out, etc. There was just too much of it, and it was too pathetic and ingratiating for my taste. (Normally the self-referential narrator doesn't bother me, but I don't think I've encountered it being done so heavily before.)

I think that the plot itself would have made a wonderful novella or short story -- there was enough going on that you'd have characters that were fully-developed enough for that purpose, but to my mind there wasn't enough development for a novel-length work (some of the room given to the narrator going on about how he couldn't write would have been put to better use if it was used for character development).

I read the original version of this, not the Modern Library re-release (Oates has gone through those and edited her young self). I can't help but wonder if my dislike of this book is because she wrote it so early in her career, before she really found her voice and her style. Who knows. If I liked it a little bit more I might immediately read the Modern Library re-release . . . but I don't, so there will be no comparison.