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Middle Age: A Romance Paperback – October 1, 2002

by Joyce Carol Oates (Author)

204 customer reviews

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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?

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Hilarious and mournful. [Oates’s] realism is laced with suspense, her mastery of storytelling on full display.” (Newsweek)

“A magnificent treat.… Middle Age is the work of a master in her prime.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

About the Author

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and has been several times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award, and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. Her most recent novel is A Book of American Martyrs. She 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.

Product details

Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Ecco; Reprint edition (October 1, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780060934903
ISBN-13: 978-0060934903
ASIN: 0060934905
Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1.1 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 204 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #791,658 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3553 in Books > Deals in Books
- #21190 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary
- #44142 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

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"How smart, how precious, how privileged, how locked it time."

July 7, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is the story of a wealthy community living in the aftermath of the death of Adam Berendt, one of the charming and eccentric inhabitants of their community. Little is known about his background or where he came from, yet they all loved him and were drawn to his mystery.

Joyce Carol Oates clearly despises the rich, liberal inhabitants of this quaint upper New York State community. "....how smart, how precious, how privileged, how locked in time, like a smart fashionable watch ticking with self-importance, yet no true importance." Divorcées with "a busy social calendar and no soul." "Rich women ravaged by loneliness as by sexual desire, afflicted with a compulsion to talk as physical as a tic, with mysteriously remote husbands and grown children who'd proved disappointing." I got the point. I hated them all. I hated the spoiled adolescent children, children who berate their mother for gaining 25 pounds rather than sympathize with the angst of journeying through life without the husband who left her. I concur with Ms. Oates: "Adolescent children. It was a true bond like hemophilia or hemorrhoids ." I hated the men, men who worry about other's reaction to a wife's breast cancer rather than how the cancer will affect her. And yet, I liked the book. Ms. Oates characters are often dark or grossly flawed, but she draws you in to a story, no matter how sordid the characters. You can always shower afterwards.

4 people found this helpful

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Middle Age:A Romance:A Romabce....by Joyce Carol Oates

August 17, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

When I started this book, I did not think I would like it. It began with the death of a man who every other character either liked or loved, but was very mysterious. Once I got into it, I couldn't put it down. It is about the successful and wealthy inhabitants of an affluent New York town, where the middle aged couples are all friends who socialize together. They are variously happy or sad, loving or hateful, fulfilled or lethargic. It is about their various relationships - husbands and wives, children, lovers, platonic and not. A very good read!

3 people found this helpful

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Thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end

July 6, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end. The heroic but unnecessary death of one man - Adam Berendt - sets in motion startling events in the lives of the women who loved him unrequitedly which in turn affects their husbands and families. This author writes beautifully and the dialogue and characters are brilliant. 'Unbelievably believable' is one way of describing the feelings and subsequent actions of the people who knew and loved Adam, in a well-to-do suburb, where money and privilege abound. The description and events surrounding the adolescent children of some of these couples makes me shudder! Hopefully, most American children are not anywhere near as ghastly as depicted by the characters in this book. I will be reading more of this author and my only regret is that I have now finished reading this engrossing and very well written book.

One person found this helpful

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Surreal Reality

September 19, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I first discovered Joyce Carol Oates in high school; a short story in an anthology and the slightly disturbing, oddly romantic timbre of that story has stayed with me for thirty years. Middle Age revives some of that same feeling with a more hopeful ending. As if, having endured and survived into middle age (and beyond), Oates understands the need for hope grounded in pragmatism. Perhaps this book touches me because I am fifty. I, like these characters have experienced sudden loss. And that loss tends to prompt reflection of one's life and the realization that while youth is gone, there is a responsibility to one's self to make what time is left count. Middle Age explores a community of people suffering shock, loss, and re-examination of self. Some win through to a greater truth and some deluxe themselves further. And some do a little of both. Beautifully, honestly written, Middle Age will make you uncomfortable and hopeful, cringe in embarrassment and delight in rediscovery.

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Brilliant! I loved this book

July 29, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Joyce Carol Oates pours so much life into each event and scene! She loves each of her characters completely, even if she may not like what they do. I get the feeling that JCO has no choice - she MUST write to be alive. Her characters are, of course, flawed; but, they fight valiantly to navigate through the shifting landscape of middle age - where surprises are sometimes unpleasant. Her writing is crisp, efficient, and her words permeate to the heart of the reader. She is brilliant. I love JCO, and I love this study of loves and heartbreaks - some, with recovery - set in the rich cloth of middle age.

One person found this helpful

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Ms. Carole L. Sustak

A lengthy read...

September 3, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

It took me longer than usual to get through this book. The story line focused around several women, their families, and how it all intertwined around a man named Adam Berendt. The women all loved Adam; the men were jealous of Adam. After a long sub-story on each of the selected women, the story finally twined back to the real Adam. While I found the overall story intriguing, I found the sub-stories to be a bit boring and too detailed for the overall storyline. But then I reminded myself this is Joyce Carol Oates. She never tells stories in a straight line. 😉

One person found this helpful

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Worthwhile Read

May 7, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Always have hard a hard time reading JCO, but I thought this book was more easily readable than others, and it really spoke to me. Middle age is tough for men AND women, and the figures in these stories of affluent couples living in suburbia aptly convey many of the struggles of accepting age, loss, failure, boredom with ourselves and our spouses. The characters were introduced by way of their relationships with a mysterious, almost mascot-like artist who lived in their midst and is suddenly gone. He acts as a catalyst for them to begin looking at their lives differently and opens choices and journeys that molds their later years and decisions.

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Amazon Customer

Complicated is not Always Better

June 16, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I had high hopes for this book, but overall it just frustrated me. I could not recommend it, especially if you, like the characters in it, are middle aged and mildly depressed by how complicated life can be. I could never grow to like or really identify with any of the many crazy lonely or mean people here.

6 people found this helpful

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