In Princeton, New Jersey at the turn of the twentieth century, things are not as they seem. Back in the Pine Barrens that border Princeton, an evil lives, its world vast and terrifying. As a curse falls on the elite families of the town, their daughters begin to disappear. When a young bride is seduced before she can wed and taken by a strange shape-shifting prince, the curse spreads. Her brother sets out to find her and finds himself stumbling upon such historical figures as Grover Cleveland and Upton Sinclair during his pursuit.
Ms. Oates' indelible, immaculate yet restrained and simplistic prose fills this book from start to finish, leaving her signature style blazing in its wake. The use of the particular narrator who had lived through this harrowing time was brilliant and served to separate the distinction between author and character well. THE ACCURSED fits nicely in the gothic genre. This is a complex story with many lines and characters, but if you can keep up with it all, you will be richly rewarded.
A major historical novel from "one of the great artistic
forces of our time" (The Nation)βan eerie,
unforgettable story of possession, power, and loss in
early-twentieth-century Princeton, a cultural crossroads of
the powerful and the damned
Princeton, New Jersey, at
the turn of the twentieth century: a tranquil place to raise
a family, a genteel town for genteel souls. But something
dark and dangerous lurks at the edges of the town,
corrupting and infecting its residents. Vampires and ghosts
haunt the dreams of the innocent. A powerful curse besets
the elite families of Princeton; their daughters begin
disappearing. A young bride on the verge of the altar is
seduced and abducted by a dangerously compelling manβa
shape-shifting, vaguely European prince who might just be
the devil, and who spreads his curse upon a richly deserving
community of white Anglo-Saxon privilege. And in the Pine
Barrens that border the town, a lush and terrifying
underworld opens up.
When the bride's brother sets
out against all odds to find her, his path will cross those
of Princeton's most formidable people, from Grover
Cleveland, fresh out of his second term in the White
House and retired to town for a quieter life, to soon-to-be
commander in chief Woodrow Wilson, president of the
university and a complex individual obsessed to the
point of madness with his need to retain power; from the
young Socialist idealist Upton Sinclair to his charismatic
comrade Jack London, and the most famous writer of the era,
Samuel Clemens/Mark Twainβall plagued by "accursed"
visions.
An utterly fresh work from Oates, The
Accursed marks new territory for the masterful writer.
Narrated with her unmistakable psychological insight, it
combines beautifully transporting historical detail with
chilling supernatural elements to stunning effect.
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