Description
A young woman, Elizabeth Anne “Kelly” Kelleher, finds herself trapped in a car plunging into swampy “black water,” and the story unfolds in urgent flashbacks to the moments that brought her there. At a Fourth of July party, Kelly is drawn into a charged, intimate world—one that includes an older senator she admires—where desire, trust, and uncertainty collide in the space of a single night. Joyce Carol Oates crafts a taut, psychologically driven novella that examines how charisma and ambition can blur judgment, and how a person’s choices—and blind spots—can become irreversible. With Oates’s signature intensity and moral clarity, the narrative probes themes of fate versus agency, the seductions of power, and the fragile line between innocence and complicity.
Available Editions
paperback
Macmillan
Published Jan 1, 1992
154 pages
ISBN: 9780333580264
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Details
First Published
1992
Language
eng
Content Warnings
Content and trigger warnings for Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates.