Rape A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates

ISBN:    0786712945

Grade:   A+

Don't let the title freak you out and think this is a book for pervs.  Only JCO could get away with titling a book Rape A Love Story.  This is one of the best efforts from JCO that I have read full of damaged characters.  Some of the best JCO are books and short stories about truly damaged and imperfect characters, likable or not.  We Were the Mulvaneys and Missing Mom are two others that have been A+ reads with characters not only damaged, but dealt a crappy hand of life.  While I am an evangelist for JCO, there are enough people who think her writing atrocious in its peculiarity.  Her writing style is definitely unique, short choppy sentences are common as are long descriptive sentences.  In this novella, short and choppy sentences are the norm and they work perfectly with the story.

Not a particularly uplifting book, this is the story of a brutal gang rape and its after effects.  Teena Maguire and her 12 year old daughter Bethie are walking home from a 4th of July party when Teena decides to take a more scenic route home.  Teena and her daughter are viciously attacked by a pack of methed up low life hoodlums in the park mere minutes from their home.  Teena is beaten and raped repeatedly and left near death in a boathouse while her daughter, also beaten, hides for her life and listens to the sounds of her mother's sexual assault.  After Bethie thinks that the attackers have left, she crawls out of her hiding spot and stumbles around outside until she finds a police officer to tell him to please help her mom.

We get to read about Teena's long painful recovery and the legal process surrounding the sexual assault.  We get to know her daughter see her strength in a situation that would have most people pulling the blankets over their heads and checking out.  We also get to know the police officer who Bethie flagged down the night of the attack, who goes on to be an unsung hero of the story.

I won't say too much more other than the title will make complete sense by the end of the book.  If you're not a JCO fan after reading this, we are on totally different wavelengths.  This novella is 150 pages of near literary perfection that no other author is capable of writing.