What I Lived For [Paperback]

Joyce Carol Oates (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1995

In a stunning portrait of a powerful man's downward spiral to moral ruin, Jerome ""Corky"" Corcoran's violent act of vengeance precipitates his downfall. Reprint. NYT. PW.

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Another big novel from the prolific Oates, this tale of a successful middle-aged real estate developer whose hidden past surges up to wreak havoc on his present was one of PW's best books for 1994 and a PEN/Faulkner nominee.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Oates's latest novel is a big, breathless, complex, and sometimes painfully intense tale relating one man's every thought and move during the 1992 Memorial Day weekend. Corky Corcoran is a cocky, Irish Catholic, alcoholic, self-made millionaire as well as a city council member in Union City, New York. The turning point for Corky comes with the suicide of Marilee Plummer, a beautiful, politically ambitious black woman who had recently accused a black city council member of raping her. Even in his befuddled, alcoholic state, Corky wonders if his political friends had orchestrated Marilee's death and calls for a full investigation that antagonizes city government. Despite a somewhat contrived climax, Oates has created a remarkably detailed portrait of a man's life; however, Corky, an essentially stupid man whose actions are usually governed by his sexual or violent impulses, doesn't seem to merit such concentrated scrutiny. An interesting addition to Oates's body of work, this is recommended for public libraries.
--Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Pan Books Ltd (December 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0330336223
• ISBN-13: 978-0330336222
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,788,584 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

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Just another brick in the wall - a foreigner's perspective, May 21, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: What I Lived For: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

I read "What I Lived For" in Polish several years ago when it was freshly translated and published in a deluxe hardcover series in Poland. My impressions faded a bit in their freshness since that time, but I still remember what tickled me while reading this novel. Never having been to America beforehand, I tried to form the image of this country based on literature, motion pictures and third-hand information coming from people of my cultural heritage who have been there already. This novel by Joyce Carol Oates helped me form the initial expectations, adding just another brick in the wall of expectations, to borrow a phrase from Roger Waters. Much like the Floydian Wall, that house of cards fell down and disintegrated almost from the very first day of my visit to America, but after several years spent here, I think that if nothing else, Oates's novel is about the only remaining bastion of my old impressions. I still perceive the fictional world of Oates as representative for America, or to be precise, a slice from the overall cake of a picture. Her fiction, though never being pompous or in-your-face-yankee-style patriotic quasi-fiction of the engaged kind, it serves quite well as a door to America, to the anxieties specific to the upstart middle class, an endemic layer of the American society half of the country aspiring to, the newcomer generation in particular, the other half having just outgrown it and moved forward. There is a multitude of possible answers to a trite question what makes America so special, what makes it a magnet attracting people from all over the world. "What I Lived For" is one of these answers, and a compelling one at that. The book starts off with a brutal scene several decades ago, and we are introduced to the life of one "Corky" Corcoran, a son of the relatively poor Irish neighborhoods, whose life will soon turn about to be one long quest in the search for an escape valve from the maze of the labyrinth of his complexes, the inferiority complex with financial grounds being one of the most prominent ones. Corky moves upward, and as soon as he reaches one rung higher in the social ladder, he turns and faces his thus-far perfectly acceptable peers in condescending manner. As soon as he becomes a locally recognized man of moderate power, he decided to reach down to the bottom, and familiarize with the masses. There are few scenes in literature that depict the snobbish artificiality and resulting embarrassment better than many scenes in the second half of "What I Lived For". Oates looks very critically at the typical new-American upstarts for whom grace and tact are lost art. America attracts people of specific personality; by the laws of nature it is a self-selection process. The worst kind, and the most brilliant kind are attracted to come to that "golden land of opportunity". And then the second and third generations are not free from their inferiority complex, as this novel illustrates. While it's only one aspect of the American phenomenon, it is not a negligible one, and that is one of the reasons why this particular book is translated and popular in Europe. While the details fade away in time, the overall impression is long-lasting, and should you happen to be more familiar with the specifics this novel is rich with, the more sense it makes. Joyce Carol Oates has written a thought-provoking book that bitterly asks questions few people seem willing to answer.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book, November 19, 2001

By 

J. McWilliams (Bloomington, IN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What I Lived For: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

Oates fans will see familiar territory here: Alcoholism, emotional detachment, failed relationships, the dull thud of time as it drags us through a suburban existence. This is Oates' obsession, recycled for the ten-thousandth time.
What's new to this novel is Oates' ability to cause the reader to abandon moral outrage and identify completely with the main character, Corky Corcoran. He's shady and often crosses over into lewdness that embarrasses the reader. But - why is this? - you start to like him. You give in, not because he deserves your love, but because you want to give it to him. Only Oates could pull it off.
I'm an avid reader of the novelist's work, and this book is by far the best. Months after reading that final line of that exhausting novel, I still miss Corky Corcoran in my life.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Raw, uninhibited, excellent, July 21, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: What I Lived For: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

"Corky" Corcoran is not the best of men--a womanizer, not the most honest of politicians or businessmen, and a somewhat failing father and nephew--but as Oates develops Corky you begin to actually like him. You definitely will never love his character but you breathe with him, live with him, and feel his pain and his ecstacy over a non-stop Memorial Day weekend. Corky is always moving and sweet-talking in his expensive Caddy, in his expensive clothing, with a glass of Red Label whiskey in his hand. To tell of Corky's plight that drives him all over town during this Memorial Day weekend would be to ruin the reader's enjoyment of the book. Be warned though that Oates' prose is raw and uninhibited and speaks through Corky's male perspective. Her prose can be disconcerting at times with graphic expletives galore but get past that and you will find an excellent and engrossing novel that delves into Corky's psyche