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What I Lived For
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What I Lived For
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What I Lived For
Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

What I Lived For

Written by Joyce Carol Oates

Narrated by Jay O. Sanders

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Coming soon...
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 17, 2008
ISBN9781598877205
Author

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the 2019 Jerusalem Prize, and has been several times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

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Reviews for What I Lived For

Rating: 3.6111120000000003 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

45 ratings2 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A day in the life of Jerome “Corky” Corcoran is quite a day indeed. It’s Memorial Day, 1992. Marilee Plummer, a black woman who had recently accused a black city council member of raping her, has apparently committed suicide. Corky doesn’t make any political friends when he calls for a full investigation. Nothing’s going right for Corky. He feels betrayed by his lover, his financial empire is in trouble and his troubled step-daughter is causing him grief. Corky has never gotten over his father’s cold-blooded murder and he may soon discover some answers.Joyce Carol Oates is one of my favorite authors but I can’t say that this is one of my favorite novels of hers. It’s a very uncomfortable book to read and Corky is a very hard character to like. He’s a womanizer, he’s patronizing, he’s conceited although he also hates himself, he’s racist and he has a horribly foul mouth. I felt like I was being assaulted by the hard language used throughout this story. On Corky’s behalf, he’s a self-made millionaire and has come a long way from his difficult start. This book is over 600 pages (it’s a reprint, having first been published in 1994) and there were times I wasn’t sure I could spend any more time with this guy. I’ve always known that Ms. Oates is a brave author and I think this is probably one of her bravest efforts. But I’m not at all sure that Corky warranted such attention. I wish I could have come to care about Corky. The first chapter of this book is a heartrending one but it wasn’t enough for me to justify what Corky becomes as an adult. This must be the first Joyce Carol Oates book that I didn’t love. Sorry, Ms. Oates. I do appreciate the opportunity to read this work of a well-loved author.This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    How does Oates do it? For 600+ pages, she not only crawls into the male psyche, but into an alcoholic male's mind and body, and produces a credible/incredible novel. I admire her workmanship tremendously. With all that said, I despised the crappy ending.

    1 person found this helpful