The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art [Hardcover]

Joyce Carol Oates (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 23, 2003

A tribute to the brilliant craftsmanship of one of our most distinguished writers, providing valuable insight into her inspiration and her method

Joyce Carol Oates is widely regarded as one of America's greatest contemporary literary figures. Having written in a number of genres -- prose, poetry, personal and critical essays, as well as plays -- she is an artist ideally suited to answer essential questions about what makes a story striking, a novel come alive, a writer an artist as well as a craftsman.

In The Faith of a Writer, Oates discusses the subjects most important to the narrative craft, touching on topics such as inspiration, memory, self-criticism, and "the unique power of the unconscious." On a more personal note, she speaks of childhood inspirations, offers advice to young writers, and discusses the wildly varying states of mind of a writer at work. Oates also pays homage to those she calls her "significant predecessors" and discusses the importance of reading in the life of a writer.

Oates claims, "Inspiration and energy and even genius are rarely enough to make 'art': for prose fiction is also a craft, and craft must be learned, whether by accident or design." In fourteen succinct chapters, The Faith of a Writer provides valuable lessons on how language, ideas, and experience are assembled to create art.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 12 short thematic essays and an interview, all previously published, the hyper-prolific author of novels (Blonde), story collections (Faithless), plays (In Darkest America) and poems (Tenderness) examines the writing life, aiming to focus on "the process of writing more than the uneasy, uncertain position of being a writer." Oates advises young writers to read widely, takes a nostalgic glance back at childhood influences, waxes poetic on the joys of running and its relation to writing, and tackles the inner trajectories of the creative process. The essays are peppered with anecdotes concerning writers' trials, doubts and influences; these well-selected snippets form the most enjoyable and illuminating aspect of the book. If Oates's own insights don't always live up to the wit and beauty of such quoted authors as T.S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence, it may be because she gives herself comparatively little room to wrestle with such broad concepts as inspiration and failure. Oates's suggestion that writers as a breed apart may irritate the "ordinary reader" she refers to (whom, she suggests, might not know that "no story writes itself") and may even make writers uncomfortable (to write, she says, is to "invite angry censure from those who don't write, or who don't write in quite the way you do....Art by its nature is a transgressive act, and artists must accept being punished for it"). But Oates obviously understands the faith that writing, that "juncture of private vision and the wish to create a communal, public vision" takes, and young writers especially may find words of wisdom here.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Few can match Oates in the breadth, depth, and passion of her literary experiences and expertise. In her newest and most confiding essay collection, she generously shares the private side of her story-steeped life, musing over the one-room schoolhouse in rural New York State she so loved, the now cellular influence of Alice in Wonderland, and the nearly symbiotic connection between running and writing ("Joyce runs like a deer!" she recalls a boy exclaiming, a memory not as benign as it might seem, given the brute intentions of her pursuers). Art is a mystery, born most often of pain, Oates attests as she shrewdly and beguilingly dissects the quirkiness of inspiration and the unexpected felicity of failure, the enigma of the imagination and the necessity of craft. Gloriously well read and unfailingly curious about those who have shared her obsession, most notably Woolf, Lawrence, James, and Faulkner, Oates is commanding in her knowledge and deeply moving in her candor, such as when she notes that people always ask how she writes so much, rather than why. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; First Edition edition (September 23, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060565535
• ISBN-13: 978-0060565534
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #976,635 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joyce Carol Oates is the author of more than 70 books, including novels, short story collections, poetry volumes, plays, essays, and criticism, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. Among her many honors are the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the National Book Award. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Muse is Caught Briefly by Oates., January 28, 2005

By 

Bohdan Kot (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art (Hardcover)

Joyce Carol Oates is a prodigious talent, both in volume and quality. One is in awe of the numerous titles from various genres - novel, poetry, play, essay and novella - for which she has published and received critical acclaim within the past forty years. Who is more qualified than Oates to assemble "The Faith of a Writer," a collection of essays written over a large span of years (many published earlier) that explore the craft of writing? Oates says the collection is "meant to be undogmatic, provisional."

This is not a how-to write book, but rather, a personal take how Oates and other writers like Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and several other notables approach the craft of writing. The most interesting essay, "Notes on Failure," examines the helpful role failure can play when striving for memorable writing. Oates discusses James Joyce's difficulty in getting his first novel published before he wrote the classic "Ulysses." In response to the repeated rejections, "Joyce retreated, and allowed himself ten years to write a masterpiece."

Oates also ponders topics such as inspiration, her early childhood influences, reading as a writer, and self-criticism. Her tone throughout each short essay is crisp and direct, often compelling and endearing, like a schoolteacher who always demands the best. Oates stresses that writing when done well, like any other artistic endeavor, is a craft. She believes, "inspiration and energy and even genius are rarely enough to make `art': for prose fiction is also a craft, and craft must be learned."

Oates' slender volume is a beautiful rumination and worthy addition to her large catalog of work. She manages to pin down and examine the elusive nature of the muse.

Bohdan Kot

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Master Speaks, October 12, 2003

By 

MICHAEL ACUNA (Southern California United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art (Hardcover)

Since I have read so many of JC Oates' works over the years, it was with a little trepidation that I approached "The Faith of a Writer." Reading a lot of any writer's works gives you the feeling that you know the author as well as any member of your family or your circle of best friends. So, reading something directly from Oates about her inspirations, her craft and how she goes about actually producing her works was a bit scary for me. It's like meeting a favorite movie star in a one-on-one situation: what if she isn't as smart, as witty, as nice, as perceptive, as devilish as he appears on screen...or in Oates' case, on the written page.
But like listening to a good friend relate stories of her life and how she goes about her craft, Oates enlightens rather than frightens: she adds additional insight to her works of fiction rather than tear down my perceptions of them.
Oates on writers: (they have)..."an affinity for risk, danger, mystery, a certain derangement of the soul; a craving for distress, the predilection for insomnia." And as an extension Oates states these are the people who create "the highest form of the human spirit, Art."
Going against the common notion that we should write what we know (and Oates's works certainly support this contention): "The artist can inhabit any individual for the individual is irrelevant to art."
Like most great artists, Oates writes because she can't help it, it's in her blood and anyone who has read any of her works would have to agree that there are drops of blood as well as sweat on each page of her work.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Memoir, January 19, 2005

By 

Sprix "Sprix" (Harrisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art (Hardcover)

This is a lovely piece, not meant to be a guide on how to write, which I think the negative reviewers are in need of, but rather it is a brief glimpse at her creative process. She is in love with the written word, and this book is no less eloquent than any of the novels or short stories she has written.