Bookoholics

I am so disgusted with Joyce Carol Oates and i don't think that any author should be protected from slandering just because of writing a disclaimer "this is a work of fiction" - I can't believe I kept reading, but I did and just got madder and madder and I think it's awful that this should come out the month that Patsy Ramsey died - I'm just glad she died before anyone could tell her about it! The mother in the book is "Betsy Rampike" and the murdered child is an ice skating child wonder (from the age of 4).(Not a beauty contest winnder as the real Ramsey child) There is no way that a reader can fail to think that the author is really writing about the Ramsey's and poor Patsy (under the name of Betsy) is portrayed as an almost sadistic mother of a seriously troubled child - the father "Bix" in the "fiction" is portrayed as a womanizer and a drunk and the brother "Skyler" is a troubled youth who is neglected while the mother devotes all of her attention to "Bliss" -

Bliss is a bed wetter (wonder where that information came from?) and both she and her brother were totally ignored by the father - who was portrayed as a successful high finance type - I think the whole thing is scurrilous and should never have been published! I may be over -reacting and I hope someone else has read it and can clue me in - if I am off base - and if you haven't read it - DON'T It is so obviously the Ramsey's and at the end the mother dies (the paper said cancer, but the father said it was a failed "liposuction procedure" and her she left her son (who is now 19) and note saying that she killed the little girl - by accident -and wrote the "kidnap" note in an effort to force the father to pay attention to them!
Skyler thought all along that he had killed his sister while in a mental fog from sleeping pills which had been given to him (by his mother) because the sister had wet her bed and tried to get him to help her clean it up and he refused to help her - I'll never read anything of Joyce Carol Oates again!

Joyce Carol Oates is one of our best American writers and deserves a Nobel. Every author from Shakespeare to Dickens to writers now base books on events in the news. Better Joyce Carol Oates than all these lame detectives or even the Ramseys with their poorly-written cheapjack books. If you never read Oates again, you'll be missing some great literature. Like I said the roman-a-clef has been with us forever. "Primary Colors" was a recent example and now "American Wife." Dominick Dunne used the Martha Skakel murder as a basis for one of his books. The Macbeths actually existed. Artists are allowed to take poetic license.

Berrie, a lot of what you said is true, but regardless, everybody has their own inner set of regulators that sometimes, against any logic, just is completely unable to accept certain books, no matter how talented a particular author may be.

I've read American Wife and Primary Colors and did not have the same reaction - but My Sister, My Love is so mean spirited and paints a picture of a family with so much venom and just a feeble attempt to disguise them - I know Oates reputation and got the book because it was written by her - but i won't anymore!

I think it's a bit of over-reaction. While I am sorry that little Jon-Benet is dead, I felt only a modicum of sympathy for her parents who sexualized an innocent child with those inane beauty pageants and made themselves suspects through their own bizarre, stubborn behavior. No artist should be sued for slander for the reasons described or writing novels will be put under intense legal pressures. My "internal regulator" is far more concerned with right-wing non-fiction trash,censorship, racist and sexist rants, praise for a terrible war foisted by a president on a misled public. I'm very liberal when it comes to fiction; little beyond books like "the Turner Diaries" bothers me. Read and let read, I guess. If one thinks Oates is a monster for satirizing the press's (and the public's) nearly-obscene obssession with a sexed-up tot's demise, don't read her book then. Your call. But save the outrage for worthier topics like genocide in Darfur and the rise of the Taliban in Afganistan. The Ramseys have moved on, albeit in different ways. Patsy's dead and John is dating Natalee Holloway's professional victim mother. He probably cares less than you do.

Well! I got it out of my system! and my responder is quite right in her reaction, too! that's the beautiful part about Bookoholics - disagreements are beautifully written and well thought out - and informative! I have no personal knowledge of their life after Jon-Benet - and agree that the child had a tragic life - the book just seemed to make everything worse! Anyway! Glad I vented as a "spoiler" - I'm back to listening on my Ipod! (A Thread of Grace - Mary Russell)

JaneFrances, A Thread of Grace was one of my faovorite books of last year... let me know how you like it...

It has one of those OMG moments near the end when you can't believe that actually happened... I never saw it coming...

Be sure to read the page up front which tells who all the characters really are... I delved right into the story and didn't see that until the end so had a lot of confusion going on which would have been cleared up by reading that page... lol