Middle Age: A Romance [Paperback]

Joyce Carol Oates (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2002

In Salthill-on-Hudson, a half-hour train ride from Manhattan, everyone is rich, beautiful, and -- though they look much younger -- middle-aged. But when Adam Berendt, a charismatic, mysterious sculptor, dies suddenly in a brash act of heroism, shock waves rock the town. But who was Adam Berendt? Was he in fact a hero, or someone more flawed and human?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A romance? The hero dies in the opening pages, adolescents renounce their parents and the grownups aren't true to themselves, much less each other, because they have no idea what they are. In the Lexus-crowded town of Salthill-on-Hudson, husbands and wives share beds in which the linens meet more crisply than the bodies. "How eternal is a single night, and of what eternities are our long marriages composed!" And yet romance is deep in the bones of this soaring epic of renewal and redemption, an Easter of the flesh, a Viagra of the soul. Sculptor Adam Berendt goes into cardiac arrest while saving a child from drowning, and so redeems the 50-somethings of Salthill with his death; he confers the idea and the actuality of grace on their lives. It may be said of Oates's oeuvre that it is a long marriage between author and reader, composed of many eternities. Her sentences seem to contain more sentiment per word than anyone else's. She punishes us with terrible truths: Death lurks at every window and Eros is a demon, worshiped at awful cost. In marriages charged with such import, one must cheat in order to breathe, as Augusta Cutler discovers after Adam's death, when she leaves her husband, Owen, to ferret out the truth about Adam, and herself, and to find respite. Reminiscent of her powerful Black Water, but equipped with a happy ending, Oates's latest once more confirms her mastery of the form. (Sept. 10)Forecast: Of late, Oates can do no wrong. Deep in her career, she is pulling out the stops again. Since the success of Blonde, and Oprah's February 2001 selection of We Were the Mulvaneys, more readers than ever will be gravitating to her new work (and her backlist, too), and they should be thoroughly satisfied with her latest offering.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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

From Library Journal

Death has a curious side effect. For some people it is an impetus that awakens one's zest for living; for others it forces open doors to the past; for still others, death is a reminder of one's own mortality, the grief and anger giving way to fear and then eventual renewal. When Adam Berendt dies performing a selfless act, the community of Salt Hill is stunned. Adam was loved by women and respected by men, and his death has a profound impact on those left behind. The affluent community of middle-aged adults finds itself undergoing an unexpected rebirth as they realize that they are headed inexorably to that place Adam has already gone but that they need not go softly. Mary Peiffer reads with deliberate distance, not wanting to influence the lyrical nature of the writing. Her crisp diction is layered with her audible pleasure in the story. A very long audio, but Oates disciples will be pleased by its rendering. Jodi L. Israel, MLS, Jamaica Plain, MA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; First Paperback Edition edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060934905
• ISBN-13: 978-0060934903
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #268,675 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

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Adam Berendt Who are You?, October 8, 2001

By 

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

This review is from: Middle Age: A Romance

Almost immediately, at the very beginning of Joyce Carol Oates, "Middle Age, A Romance," you come upon her dedication which reads: "To my Princeton friends, who are nowhere in these pages." Oates is, of course a professor of Humanities at Princeton University.More importantly, this dedication serves as Oates notice to her readers that the characters in "Middle Age" are a breed, a type, of a world... apart from herself and her friends. She is setting up a barrier between herself and her characters. As a general rule, in most cases this would not be a good sign for the reading to come. But because Oates has proven to be masterfull at best and interesting at least we take the dedication with a grain of salt and read on. "Middle Age" is Oates ode to middle age among a tightly-knit group of mostly wealthy residents of Salthill-on-Hudson in upstate New York. The catalyst for the various stories is one Adam Berendt whose death prompts a flood of tears and concern among the women and men of Salthill that propells the novel through it's various chapters. Add to this the fact that Berendt appears to be without family, has always been mysterious about his background and the source of his income, that the men seem as attracted to him as do the women and that he has not had sex with any of his many admirers, and you have the beginnings of a fascinating novel. Oates, though seemingly detached from her flood of characters is nonetheless very sympathetic towards them and as a result we are also. The style of "Middle Age" is a departure for Oates: very much unlike the furtive, paranoid, sexually explicit "Man Crazy" or the technicolor, movie-like "We Were the Mulvaneys." In "Middle Age" Oates is removed yet ultimately attracted to her characters: longing for their lifestyle yet damning of their foibles. It is ultimately not a great novel in the sense that "Mulvaneys," "Because it is Bitter and Because it is my Heart" or "What I Lived for" are for example. But a good Joyce Carol Oates novel is worlds above most author's best and because of this a must read for anyone serious about contemporary fiction.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Characters Worth Knowing, April 15, 2002

By 

John Standiford (Cypress, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Middle Age: A Romance

First off, I find it hilarious when people criticize Joyce Carol Oates' work for being overly long... The business of every day living is often interrupted mercilessly by tangents out of our control. Oates' writing often takes on that characteristic as it delves into the thoughts and feelings of its main characters. Yes, it often takes away from the urgency of the plot, but the people in Oates' books are important and you get to know them at their pace.

This brings me to her newest novel, Middle Age. What's fascinating about this book is that the main character, Adam Berendt is killed off in the first few pages of the book. The aftermath of his fatal accident sets off a chain of events among his social circle which is comprised of the upper crust of an upscale enclave in New York State. During this examination of relationships, the plot often takes a number of Oates' normal tangents. At times, it's uncomfortable but it exposes you to the same state of mind shared by the characters.

The reactions and subsequent foibles of these charaters is memorable and worth every minute you spend with this book. Sure, some of these characters are vapid and have very little to offer the world but there's value in reading what happens to them. Others become so twisted based on the death of Adam Berendt that they come close to throwing away their lives. The book is billed as darkly comical but I rarely laughed because I saw so many glimpses of real life in these people. Some of it was inspirational, a little bit of it was funny, and some of it was disturbing. In short, it's a lot like many of her other books.

The only downside of the book was after I finished and asked myself what she was trying to say in writing this book. The overall ending and message left me a bit empty, although it could be described as being somewhat positive. The future for many of the characters in this book, much like the future many ofus face in similar situations, is somewhat unclear and I don't think Oates' provided a strong sense of message or purpose.

That being said, I still heartily recommend this book much like I would for many of her books. The main body of the book reveals a lot about human nature and relationships and the stress brought on by tragedy. This book is a winner but given it's ending I'm interested in seeing which direction she takes in her next work.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Starting New, September 5, 2001

By 

Eric Anderson (London, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Middle Age: A Romance

Middle Age is about several upper class characters exploring potential new paths at the mid-point of their lives. At its centre is Adam Berendt whose life is unexpectedly cut off, but whose influence and Socratic interrogation of life acts as a catalyst to transform his friends in the tight-knit community of Salthill. Their lives, as they understand them, dissolve upon his death to be reformed. The mystery of Adam's past is threaded throughout the novel opening dozens of different possible beginnings to his life at the same time as multiple endings to the other characters' lives are imagined. Oates' tremendous skill is to draw a multitude of realistic detail while emotionally constructing her characters' thoughts. This method works to unearth strange revelations in her contemplation of mortality and the depthless possibilities of experience. The characters tear off the costumes of their present identity to wear new masks and reconstitute their sense of being. Marina Troy's potentiality as an artist has lain dormant for many years, but, through Adam's bequest of a residence for solitude, she is given the possibility of expressing her vision. Augusta Cutler leaves her secure life to pursue dangerous new possibilities and trace Adam's past. These stories as well as those of the other characters are told in a revolving narrative focus that juxtaposes the characters' intentions with the dramatic realizations of their experiences. Their middle age lives turn out not to be about just endings, but multiple beginnings as well. The novel gives a heartfelt portrait of characters that identify themselves alternatively as amorphous and fabled beings and desperate to break from their identification of an ordinary life.