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| | Middle Age: A Romance, Joyce Carol Oates - HarperCollins (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20) |
 | | Calling this darkly comic novel "a romance," Joyce Carol Oates kills off her hero on the first page, brings his spirit back to comment on his own death, and makes his memory a catalyst to change the lives of his Lexus-driving, privileged, and morally mixed-up friends. |
 | | When Adam dies in an act of heroism -- or foolish recklessness, his death at first shocks his friends then provokes grief, anger, and baffling questions. |
 | | One interview question that gets a prickly response from Joyce Carol Oates is: "Why is your writing so violent?" She calls the question "insulting" and "always sexist." However, even in this romance, she includes a healthy dollop of violent, one might even say grisly, events. |
| harpercollins.com /authorintro/catalog/guide_xml.asp?isbn=0060934905 (457 words) |
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