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I have begun reading Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates - finally available in an ebook version - but with one of the most hideous covers I've ever seen mis-applied to a book.
It's been years since I first read it, and I was quite curious to discover if it was as wonderful as I had remembered it to be. And it is .... wonderful. I'm continually bowled over by Oates' ability to seemingly channel Henry James and construct vivid living sentences that flow over page after page, their sinuous syntactical complexity mirroring the genealogical and behavioral complexity of the cursed Bellefleur clan! It's a wild historical tale of greed, madness, and curses that would fit into a volume of tales by Poe. A pet spider named Love. A giant cat that arrives during a thunderstorm. A crumbling mouldering family mansion. A demonic pregnancy. Feuds! Skeletons in every family closet!
I'd write more paeans for this volume, but I want to get back to my ereader - I'm only half way through.
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