Grass Roots Reading Group

Start: 05/01/2012 6:30 pm

This month’s Reading Group selection celebrates the work of Joyce Carol Oates, the recipient of the first Stone Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, presented by Oregon State University on May 10. Two graduate students from the English department at OSU--one an MFA in Creative Writing candidate, and one an MA candidate--will lead this discussion.

A Widow's Story illuminates one woman's struggle to comprehend a life absent of the partnership that had sustained and defined her for nearly half a century. As never before, Joyce Carol Oates shares the derangement of denial, the anguish of loss, the disorientation of the survivor amid a nightmare of "death duties," and the solace of friendship. Here is a frank acknowledgment of the widow's desperation--only gradually yielding to the recognition that "this is my life now."

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