The Lost Landscape

In The Lost Landscape, Joyce Carol Oates vividly recreates the early years of her life in western New York state, powerfully evoking the romance of childhood and the way it colors everything that comes after. From early memories of her relatives to remembrances of a particularly poignant friendship with a red hen, from her first friendships to her first experiences with death, The Lost Landscape is an arresting account of the ways in which Oates''s life (and her life as a writer) was shaped by early childhood and how her later work was influenced by a hard-scrabble rural upbringing. In this exceptionally candid, moving, and richly reflective recounting of her early years, Oates explores the world through the eyes of her younger self and reveals her nascent experiences of wanting to tell stories about the world and the people she meets. If Alice in Wonderland was the book that changed a young Joyce forever and inspired her to look at life as offering endless adventures, she describes just as unforgettably the harsh lessons of growing up on a farm. With searing detail and an acutely perceptive eye, Oates renders her memories and emotions with exquisite precision to truly transport the reader to a bygone place and time, the lost landscape of the writer''s past but also to the lost landscapes of our own earliest, and most essential, lives.

About the author

Joyce Carol Oates is a novelist, critic, playwright, poet and author of short stories and one of America’s most respected literary figures. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University and a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction.

Product details

• Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 10.09.2015
• EAN: 9780008153960
• ISBN: 978-0-00-815396-0
• Dimensions: 159 mm x 240 mm x 34 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; Non-fiction book > Art, literature > Biographies, autobiographies; USA, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary Figures, English, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, Autobiography: literary, United States of America, USA, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Autobiography: writers, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form