Marya: A Life [Hardcover]

Joyce Carol Oates (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 12, 1986

Successful author and famous intellectual Marya Knauer did not always occupy such a secure and comfortable position in life. Her memories of her childhood in Innisfail, New York are by turns romantic and traumatic. The early violent death of her father and abandonment by her mother have left her with a permanent sense of dislocation and loss. After decades apart, Marya becomes determined to find the mother who gave her away. In searching for her past, Marya changes her present life more than she could ever have imagined. Vividly evoking the natural beauty of rural upstate New York, and the complex emotions of a woman artist, Marya: A Life is one of Joyce Carol Oates's most deeply personal and fully-realized novels.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Some formative scenes from the "life" of an American writer and scholar: At eight, Marya is deserted by her mother when her father is killed by union strike-breakers. Raised by an uncaring aunt and uncle, she is sexually abused by their son. A young priest, the first of Marya's spiritual mentors, dies. At a high school graduation party given partly to celebrate her winning a college scholarship, three classmates cut off most of her hair. Though she distinguishes herself academically at the university, Marya is betrayed by her only female friend and later suffers the death of her first lover, a professor some 30 years her senior. Her next lover, a married publisher who has introduced her to the literary life of New York, dies as well. It is as if Marya's life is fated to rise from the ashes of everyone she cares for. Yet another rebirth seems slated at book's end, when she receives a letter from her long-lost mother which may "change" her life. One doubts it. Regardless of the events described, Marya's character undergoes little revision. From the first, she is a dry-eyed, gritty observer of a world whose depradations are presumably more safely viewed from behind the walls of academe. This latest novel from Oates (Solstice is unrelievedly grim. Literary Guild featured alternate. February 24
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Unlike Oates's recent gothic and Victorian excesses, Marya is a fairly straightforward narrative closer in style to some of the earlier novels, such as Them and A Garden of Earthly Delights , that established her reputation as a leading American novelist. Constructed on a more intimate scale than those books, it is a stark, well-drawn portrait of the title character told in "scenes from the life" style, from Marya's early days of poverty, her life as an abandoned child raised by an aunt and uncle, through hard-won college success and an academic career. Marya's development and her innermost fears and insecurities are revealed in a very personal, almost autobiographical manner. A major work by an important writer, this belongs in most libraries. Ann H. Fisher, Radford P . L . , Va.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 310 pages
• Publisher: E. P. Dutton; 1st edition (March 12, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525243747
• ISBN-13: 978-0525243748
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,386,493 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

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars True to form, the last sentence came through., January 16, 2002

By 

Karen A. Lawson (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marya: A Life (Hardcover)

I read this book and couldn't help thinking that I was just "hearing" an account of someone's life. I felt as if I was missing something which I was. And it came out in the last sentence of this amazing and I don't know how she does it book by Joyce Carol Oates. Between "Them", "Do With Me What You Will". "You Must Remember This", and Short Stories written by this woman, I don't know how she knows, how can she get into "our" lives, "our" minds, "our" thoughts, and write so knowingly and correctly about life with such feeling and understanding, I'll never comprehend, just wish if only I had the insight and ability she has. A friend years ago said this book was written as if about my personal family and knowledge she had about our life, but this book was everyone's story, no one could not relate. Again, I thank Joyce Carol Oates for her knowing. I am sure she would understand the previous sentence.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good but Oates has done better, June 28, 2002

By 

R. Tiedemann "Sunnye" (Bellevue, NE USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marya: A Life (Mass Market Paperback)

It was Virginia Woolf who decried the lack of literature about the lives of the masses, the everyday folk: "All these infinitely obscure lives remain to be recorded," she said. Of course, she didn't promise to read them!

In MARYA, A LIFE, Oates attempts to fill that void. Marya is a portrait of a modern woman from a bewildered childhood to a womanhood that commands admiration, respect and love. She is a loner, bright and different from the people around her. She strives for self understanding and fulfillment.

Joyce Carol Oates is a meticulous storyteller and a vivid writer. I wonder if this is autobiographical. If so, the Woolf reference becomes irrelevant. Oates is definitely ordinary folk -- she is one of the finest and most recognized writers on the contemporary American literary scene.

But if you're in the mood for a book about a woman growing up and "making it" on her own, you'll enjoy this one.

Sunnye Tiedemann (aka Ruth F. Tiedemann)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Dark, Mysterious and Bizarre Side of Human Nature, May 6, 2009

By 

Bonnie Brody "Book Lover and Knitter" (Port St. Lucie, FL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Marya: A Life (Mass Market Paperback)

The atmosphere in this book is similar to that in other of Oates' novels - - it borders on Gothic Modern.

The protagonist is a brilliant, somewhat bizarre loner, a survivor of a dysfunctional family. Her life is spent in proud, purposeful separateness. This becomes so natural for her that the reader does not know if other possibilities or options exist.

There is always the threat of a hurricane of emotions behind the facade of calm. It is always understated but we know that only the surface emotions are portrayed. The protagonist shays she's never cried because she's afraid that if she does she will never stop.

I love the work of this author. This book will not disappoint if you enjoy the dark, mysterious and bizarre side of human nature. Oates gets this just right.