Customer Reviews

Cybele

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...at least among those I've read, which is about half her output (that may be a quarter by the end of the week, at the rate she publishes.) I don't think it would be giving too much away to say Cybele deals with the human condition, more specifically its degradation. Most Oates novels do.

When Black Sparrow published Cybele in 1974, it was considered shocking, even in a time when tell-all fictional exposes were becoming increasingly common thanks to the successes of just-above-dime novels like Peyton Place in the decades before. And thus Black Sparrow, a press known for keeping books in print forever, let it lapse. Twenty-five years later, it still hasn't been reprinted, and that's a crime. Short (at least, shorter than most of Oates' novel output), engaging in the same way as a splatter film, unremittingly ugly in its honesty and forthrightness, as of now Oates has never again achieved the power she did in this novel. Do whatever you need to to seek a copy out, if you're a fan of Joyce Carol Oates.

The other reviewer is right on: Oates recent work (We Were the Mulvaneys, Middle Age, etc.) feels overly safe in comparison to this novel. J.C. Oates fans should definitely try and pick up this book somewhere to see what she's really capable of. It's horrifying yet impossible to put down.