Two reviews edited from Amazon.com customers:
Cybele deals with the human condition, more specifically its degradation. Most Oates novels do.
When Black Sparrow published Cybele in 1974, it was considered shocking, even in a time when tell-all fictional exposes were becoming increasingly common thanks to the successes of just-above-dime novels like Peyton Place in the decades before. And thus Black Sparrow, a press known for keeping books in print forever, let it lapse. Thirty-five years later, it still hasn't been reprinted, and that's a crime. Short (204 pp), engaging in the same way as a splatter film, unremittingly ugly in its honesty and forthrightness, as of now Oates has never again achieved the power she did in this novel. Do whatever you need to to seek a copy out, if you're a fan of Joyce Carol Oates.
Oates' more recent work (We Were the Mulvaneys, Middle Age, etc.) feels overly safe compared to this novel. This book sshows what she's really capable of. It's horrifying yet impossible to put down.
Cybele deals with the human condition, more specifically its degradation. Most Oates novels do.
When Black Sparrow published Cybele in 1974, it was considered shocking, even in a time when tell-all fictional exposes were becoming increasingly common thanks to the successes of just-above-dime novels like Peyton Place in the decades before. And thus Black Sparrow, a press known for keeping books in print forever, let it lapse. Thirty-five years later, it still hasn't been reprinted, and that's a crime. Short (204 pp), engaging in the same way as a splatter film, unremittingly ugly in its honesty and forthrightness, as of now Oates has never again achieved the power she did in this novel. Do whatever you need to to seek a copy out, if you're a fan of Joyce Carol Oates.
Oates' more recent work (We Were the Mulvaneys, Middle Age, etc.) feels overly safe compared to this novel. This book sshows what she's really capable of. It's horrifying yet impossible to put down.
