The Gravedigger's Daughter

by Joyce Carol Oates

Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1936, the Schwarts immigrate to a small town in upstate New York. Here the father—a former high school teacher—is demeaned by the only job he can get: gravedigger and cemetery caretaker. When local prejudice and the family's own emotional frailty give rise to an unthinkable tragedy, the gravedigger's daughter, Rebecca heads out into America. Embarking upon an extraordinary odyssey of erotic risk and ingenious self-invention, she seeks renewal, redemption, and peace—on the road to a bittersweet and distinctly “American” triumph

(From Publisher).

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and the Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and she has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

Oates takes the reader to places in the imagination that are frequently uncomfortable. At the end of the novel there is a strong sense of having undergone a transformative experience, along with her characters.

Out of a great tragedy the young girl endures and becomes a woman of great courage and strength.