Joyce Carol Oates writes dense, rich characters and tense yet satisfying scenes. I've loved her books in the past, and I loved The Gravedigger's Daughter. I kept only two quotes from this long novel. It's shows where my headspace is.
Page 46: The danger in motherhood. You relive your early self, through the eyes of your own mother. (So true!)
Page 303: She was lying awake in the dark, hands clasped behind her head. Thinking of her life strung out behind her like beads of myriad shapes, in memory crowded, confusing as in life each had been singular, and had defined itself with the slowness of the sun's trajectory across the sky. You knew the sun was moving yet you never saw it move.
I'm gripped.
