Joyce Carol Oates’ Success

by Richard Kostelanetz (August 2012)

From modest beginnings in way western New York State, Oates went in the 1950s to Syracuse University, where her contemporaries included the poets Lyn Lifshin and Dick Allen. The latter remembers her as a campus literary star, publishing visibly. After graduating as the valedictorian, summa cum laude, Oates speedily took her M.A. at the University of Wisconsin within a single year and then, though lacking a doctorate, taught for several years at the University of Detroit (Catholic) before moving in 1968 to the University of Windsor (Ontario, Canada) that incorporated the earlier Catholic college called Assumption. (Marshall McLuhan taught in the latter, along with the British writer Wyndham Lewis, in the 1940s.)

Oates writes so much fiction because plots apparently come easily to her, perhaps fully formed, often from news stories, sometimes from campus incidents. However, distinguished language seems more problematic for her. Her prose lacks aphoristic punch or high style. Notice how rarely even favorable reviewers quote from it.

Just as Waugh was a literary celebrity, so has Oates become. Needless to say perhaps, the descendants of George Orwell constitute another line.

NNDB.com, Wikipedia.com, and Britannica.com, among other distinguished directories. Otherwise, he survives in New York, where he was born, unemployed and thus overworked.

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