The Gravediggers Daughter: A Novel (P.S.)

Editorial Reviews. From Publishers Weekly. Starred Review. At the beginning of Oates's 36th novel, Rebecca Schwart is mistaken by a seemingly harmless man.
Table of contents

Learn more about Amazon Prime. Add to Wish List. This page works best with JavaScript. Disabling it will result in some disabled or missing features. You can still see all customer reviews for the product. One person found this helpful. Montour on October 30, Joyce Carol Oates is at once one of my favorite authors and also a challenge to read! I love her stories, but at times have to shake myself off and let go of the negative story line.

I like the detail she uses to describe a character; enough so that one feels they really know somebody and know when the character behaves in a way that we would not expect from them. There is not a lot happening here, but at the same time, a lot takes place. It is definitely a character driven tale and one that kind of takes it's time in the telling. It is a bit more linear than some of her other work, but she does like to float back and forth in time.

Overall I would recommend the book. Particularly if you have read other of her works, you will likely enjoy the story. By Dona Patrick on September 21, I'd never read anything by Joyce Carol Oates, although a friend recommended her books. The same friend chose this book for our book group read so I bought it for my Kindle. The first thing I noticed was something not related to the actual book, but the Kindle edition.

Anytime the author used an em dash the book on both a Paperwhite and HD Fire translated it as a question mark in a box.

Another non-book issue was that sometimes there was an extra space after a parenthesis open or before a parenthesis closed. Not that big of a deal, but it did not make for smooth reading. As for the story -- I would rather have read a 20 page article about Ms Oates' grandmother than this overly long, convoluted story.


  • The Microbes of Mars.
  • Ten Things You Thought You Knew About Golf Clubs;
  • .
  • Mastering Incoming Sales Calls;

The writing -- I didn't like the way Ms Oates used so many sentence fragments. Sometimes they worked, other times I had to re-read the passage to understand what she meant -- what mood she was trying to convey -- especially when Rebecca encountered the man in the Panama hat on the canal towpath. I doubt I will read another of Ms Oates books -- this one made me feel empty at the end -- and like I'd wasted my time reading it.

Top rated Most recent Top rated. All reviewers Verified purchase only All reviewers All stars 5 star only 4 star only 3 star only 2 star only 1 star only All positive All critical All stars All formats Format: Paperback All formats Text, image, video Image and video reviews only Text, image, video. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. There was a problem loading comments right now. One person found this helpful 2 people found this helpful. Find an author who can characterize as well as Oates. Michael Grossman on December 16, Look over her forty some books and marvel at the diversity of her characters, created with nuance as alive-on-the-page individuals. As a child mother reminded: Lest I forget comes the reminder in that, though nominated, Oates has not yet won a Pulitzer…though she surely will someday.

Whether she does or does not win one, anyone who reads a single, random page from Gravedigger will immediately discover what it means to see life created out of words. Holt on April 24, However, after the brutality of her first marriage, actually a lie on paper, she realizes she must escape with her son and form a new persona if she is to survive much like the Holocaust survivors because her heritage is Jewish, a truth her parents kept from her because she was born on a boat in NY harbor upon their arrival to America to escape persecution.

This is a superb novel again from Joyce Carol Oates whose epilogue will seal the theme regarding Freida who never arrived on time and denies the Holocaust as merely an accident in Time which it was not, more like a decision as is everything we do, consiously or not in this lifetime. By Mandee on May 7, I have been reading Oates books since High School.

Her short stories are my favorite among short stories. This book in particular I heard about from a professor I had a few years ago. I tried reading it from the library, but other priorities got in the way. So now that I have more time to read, I ordered this book right away. Still love how she uses words and writes accents within the story that paints a picture of being there.

Those are the really great books, the ones that paint the pictures of being within the story. Watching the family, one by one as described Who is this grave diggers daughter? Who or where she comes from? Where is she going, a story told before so many times. So why is this one so unique? Seemingly to be another story of all stories told of life, someones own life. With points and areas mirroring our own. This is different, why? A tale written in a way that grasps the readers attention with each turn of the page.

I guess I'll have to see where the second half takes me. Dec 22, Christina rated it really liked it Shelves: This is a book about identity, about coming to terms with your past and being who you are. About family, battered women and their husbands. About the immigrant experience. Oates details the story of Rebecca Schwart's life from her earliest childhood and on. Rebecca is the third child of poor, immigrant Jewish parents who arrived in the States in the 30 and Rebecca was actually born in New York Harbor, making her a US citizen as the only one in the family.

The book starts with Rebecca thinking back This is a book about identity, about coming to terms with your past and being who you are. The book starts with Rebecca thinking back on her parents - and we learn that her father came to a violent end, but not how - I was instantly hooked. He forbade Rebecca's mother to speak German and in that way stripped her of her ability to communicate and be an individual and he controlled everything in the house. In Germany, he was a teacher and a cultured man - in the States he works as the gravedigger doing manual labor and is not respected at all - he and his family are actually victims of some anti-semitic 'jokes', both real and imagined.

In Rebecca's current life, she is married and a mother - but her husband perhaps isn't all he claimed to be and Rebecca has to escape with Niley and she starts a new life - as Hazel Jones. She chooses that name because she meets a man one day who thinks she's Hazel Jones and she stars believing she could be. The truth of that encounter is revealed towards the end of the book - in a way, only Oates can pull off. But Hazel manages to - cunningly - create a new life and two new identities for her and her little boy, Zacharias who turns out to be a wonderful piano player - a skill he inherited from his maternal grandmother.

In the end, Rebecca comes full circle and face to face with her past. As always, I love the way Oates writes. She seems so in control of her language and her story and characters and everything works together beautifully. Her way of letting a person's thoughts and imaginations being part of the text but written in cursive, makes the characters have so much depth and this was another wonderful book by her.

I always say - and write - that Oates write about the American dream gone bad. In this book, she doesn't. Rebecca actually achieve the American dream - she creates a great life for herself and her son. She pays a huge price for this, her chosen way of life - and even though she had to go into hiding to get away from her abusive husband, the question remains whether the way she chose to do it was worth it in the end.

And she learns the wisdom of her father's advice: In animal life the weak are quickly disposed of. So you must hide your weakness, Rebecca. View all 6 comments. When I reached for my first book by Joyce Carol Oates, The Gravedigger's Daughter, I must admit I was expecting a somewhat sugar-coated and sweetened novel about a poor little girl, daughter of refugees from pre-war Germany, who grows up being mocked and bullied by her peers.

I was somewhat expecting a novel about pity and unfair treatment. Probably it was the book cover that added a lot in forming this wrong expectation of mine. And while in a sense, I did find pity and drama in this book, they When I reached for my first book by Joyce Carol Oates, The Gravedigger's Daughter, I must admit I was expecting a somewhat sugar-coated and sweetened novel about a poor little girl, daughter of refugees from pre-war Germany, who grows up being mocked and bullied by her peers.

And while in a sense, I did find pity and drama in this book, they were far from the sugar-coated and sweet, naive rendition I expected. This is a book with a lot of blood, guts, and madness in it. The Gravedigger's Daughter is a novel about growing up in an unhealthy environment, in which everyone slowly looses their mind, sense of reality, or sense of right and wrong. Rebecca Schwart grows up being a part of German disfunctional family of refugees that treat the outer world as a constant threat, everyone else them, the others as constantly mocking and will-intentioned, while the family itself is the only place you are being kept safe.

As long as you keep your mouth shut. German becomes a forbidden language even behind the closed doors of home, while English is a language still unknown and foreign. Background and history are never to be talked about and every memory of the old world is to be forgotten. The past has never happened and the future is something that "they, the others" have already taken. And while the family is trying to stay safe from "them, the others", it slowly grinds itself down into hatred, madness, and death.

Growing up in such a dark and cold environment in a corner of a cemetary until a tragedy follows as the result of a horrific and destructive crime, Rebecca is being dragged out into the open world of "the others" where years later, walking home to her 3-year-old son she meets Hazel Jones. The idea of Hazel Jones. In this novel we follow the struggle for survival of a young woman trying to keep her son safe, while constantly playing Tag with reality and sanity.

This gripping novel takes us through the thoughts and actions of a woman very close to losing her mind so many times, while at other times being extremely sharp and clear-minded. A woman trying to build a safe future for herself and her son, while still dragging the shackles of her past with her. A past she is doing her best to hide from, but one that closely follows her everywhere. I was so enthralled by this book that I could not stop reading it for days. But as much as I loved it, I must admit that the ending was a bit too vague for my personal taste.

Joyce Carol Oates is a remarkable storyteller, her prose is swift and silky, the story unravels in a perfect pace and with great detail that is rarely superfluous or tedious, but towards the last pages I felt a slight shift in its focus, a slight uncertainty in where it's all headed to. Even though I am not in love with the ending itself, however, I am still very fascinated with Oates writing and am already looking forward to reading my next book by her.

View all 5 comments. May 29, Lucinda K rated it it was amazing Shelves: If there were six or seven stars to give them to this book, I would think that not enough! It has more than earned a place on my Favorites shelf. And what is it about? But also memory, perspective, and history intersecting, specifically during and especially in the decades following World War II in a culture somehow drowning deep in and yet distant from the war's reality.

She never twists the plot, complicates a character, or even executes a sentence for the sake of showing us what she can do. I came with high expectations because of praise and recommendations from friends. But I came, nevertheless, to a book by an author whose assets I thought I had appraised quite well. What a priceless experience to be convinced me that one of my two favorite living authors is even better than I thought she was! I absolutely loved it! View all 4 comments. Apr 30, Ruth rated it it was ok. This was my necessary breezy read after the last one. It's the second thing I've read by this author, who seems to be really well-appreciated by the world, but I am still ambivalent about her work.

Customer reviews

It is easy to get into but also easy to fall right back out of- I guess that's what I will say. She is very prolific, though- it could be that I'm just reading the wrong things. This one is about a woman who has a really hard childhood and young adulthood and gets a lot of abuse, and then she goes on This was my necessary breezy read after the last one. This one is about a woman who has a really hard childhood and young adulthood and gets a lot of abuse, and then she goes on and makes a life for herself by having this kind of double identity and smiling a lot and never trusting anybody.

There are some interesting things about immigration, and maybe gender, the holocaust Dec 03, Deb rated it it was amazing. Joyce Carol Oates is probably our most prolific writer. I've read so many of her novels, and she always gets me in her spell. She often writes of troubled young women who become victims to brutish men because of making bad choices and having low self-esteem. She has killer lines, which she often uses as repetitive phrases or tropes effectively throughout the book. She can do so much in one line, for example: Chester Gallagher Each time she signed her new name it seemed to her that her handwr Joyce Carol Oates is probably our most prolific writer.

Chester Gallagher Each time she signed her new name it seemed to her that her handwriting was subtly altered. Raw and gritty and saucy and rich. The prose of life, of American life. Of a woman, told by a woman. After this book I want to read everything Joyce Carol Oates has ever written. I'm still up in the air about whether I liked this book or not.

I picked it up because I had heard of the author, but have never read anything by her before. It is the story of Rebecca, the daughter of German immigrants to America. The father was a Math teacher, but takes the only job that he can in America, digging graves. The family tries to assimilate to America, while at the same time maintaining their prejudices and believes about Americans. The story is very violent as Rebecca deals with an I'm still up in the air about whether I liked this book or not.

The story is very violent as Rebecca deals with an abusive and mentally unstable father and depressive mother. When she finally escapes, she marries an abusive husband. She then goes on the run from him with their son and assumes yet another identity. I found the book very negative, however I don't think the author meant it to be. I would read and think "What else?

What else can happen to this woman? And in a way, I didn't care for her because we never learned about the emotion and the drive behind her life choices. She was intensely private, so much so that a lot of her was shielded from the reader.

Yet I thought the story was fascinating and even though there were many twists and turns, I was intrigued by all of them. Aug 14, Sarah rated it really liked it Shelves: This story depicts the tale of the Shwarts who, in the mid s, fled Nazi Germany and have been reduced to life in a tiny cottage while their father, a former school teacher, can only find work as a cemetary caretaker. Perceived and actual intolerance by members of the community only exacerbate the family's frail mental health and, ultimately, tragedy strikes when our protagonist, Rebecca, is only 13 years old.

The reader witnesses Rebecca's trials of youth, her struggles to escape an abusive This story depicts the tale of the Shwarts who, in the mid s, fled Nazi Germany and have been reduced to life in a tiny cottage while their father, a former school teacher, can only find work as a cemetary caretaker. The reader witnesses Rebecca's trials of youth, her struggles to escape an abusive relationship to save herself and her son, and her attempts to eradicate her past and create a new life for herself.

The book is emotionally provocative and touches many heavy themes: I was moved by the book and touched by the ending. Aug 03, Angie rated it it was ok. I'm guilty of needing books with "purpose". Not necessarily happy endings, but at least fulfilling on some level. This left me feeling empty and adrift. Not satisfied in any way. I thought it was magnificent. So raw and frighteningly truthful. It caused me to seek out her other works. It actually gave me a headache. I don't know, maybe it was just too much of a Just finished. I don't know, maybe it was just too much of a cultural difference for me to "get it".

Maybe it's just too deep for me. It was certainly a disappointment. Oates' style is the most beautiful I've yet encountered, non-sophisticated, but appealing at the same time. It's not plain, but not overabundant in complicated words either. The descriptions aren't boring, the story goes smoothly and the characters are 3D. Intrigued to read other Oates' books. Dec 14, Bruce rated it really liked it. This novel is narrated by the main character, Rebecca, in the third person, primarily using free indirect discourse. The initial section of the first of three parts of the book reveals Rebecca as a young woman of about 23, working in a sweatshop factory to support herself and her three-year-old son.

Her husband, Niles Trignor, is often away from home at unknown locations for days and weeks This novel is narrated by the main character, Rebecca, in the third person, primarily using free indirect discourse. Her husband, Niles Trignor, is often away from home at unknown locations for days and weeks at a time and is narcissistic and abusive, Rebecca accepting the passive role as her lot and making no attempt to challenge him or extricate herself from the situation. References are made to her hatred of her deceased father, who seems to have died violently.

Her parents were immigrants from Germany in , settling in rural upstate New York. Her two older brothers traveled across the Atlantic with her parents, but she was actually born on the ship in NY Harbor, just as they arrived in the US. Her father, a university-educated high school math teacher in Germany and the narrative suggests that the family is Jewish, although the parents deny and hate Judaism , is given the job of cemetery caretaker and gravedigger. After a few chapters outlining her life during the following few years, Niles Tignor enters the story.

He and Rebecca eventually marry, largely because she will only submit to him sexually if they are married. One wonders how her background has driven this dynamic. During the following few years, Hazel establishes a new identity, gradually becoming less vigilant about being found by Tignor. She is romantically pursued by Chet Gallagher, a well-to-do jazz pianist who is emotionally estranged from his wealthy family and very needy in his own right.

Zack, in the meantime, is proving to be a musical prodigy, excelling at the piano. But Hazel continues to be wary, refusing to commit herself to a new relationship and hiding all aspects of her background. Eventually, though, she and Zack move in with Gallagher.

See a Problem?

Later, Hazel learns that Tignor is dead. Part III, containing an Epilogue, is by far the shortest part of the novel. The denouement is as fitting as it is unexpected and thought-provoking. Mar 24, Laurie rated it really liked it. This was a very hard book to read. From the time she is a small child, fear rules her life. Daughter of immigrants who fled the Nazis, she lives in horrible poverty, her father being reduced from a high school math teacher in Germany to a cemetery caretaker in America. Understandably bitter by their reduced circumstances an This was a very hard book to read.

Understandably bitter by their reduced circumstances and the way they are treated by Americans, her father is authoritarian and abusive, taking his anger and defeat out on his family. Rebecca learns to be what her father wants her to be to keep things running smoothly. After tragedy turns her out on her own, she uses this talent of being what others want her to be to her advantage. It keeps her alive through brutal marriage; it enables her to run and start a new life.

Sadly, although Rebecca now living under the name of Hazel Jones- even that name is a case of her becoming what someone else wants her to be manages to make her way to a good life, she loses herself. While she certainly has standards- she is firm as to what lines she will not cross- she does not present her real self to a single person. She is more mirror than human. After getting involved with her first husband, she has not pursued a single thing she really wanted to do other than raise her beloved and musically gifted son.

In this novel of pages, we never do find out what Rebecca wanted out of life other than to raise her son safely. I found it painfully long and slow, but could not stop reading, wondering if Rebecca could keep up the act and not make a misstep that would cause her house of cards to tumble down. If you want to see some of the psychological effects of being in an abusive, manipulative, relationship are, read this book. If you have been in that kind of relationship, you might find this book to be very triggering. Dec 27, Debbie rated it really liked it.

I've read her short stories but this is my first novel. She can surely write. I love her style and while the story is quite graphic in its violence and abuse, it was not gratuitous, but necessary, handled well. It was a story of survival, escape. One family escapes the holocaust only to confront isolation and prejudice in America, eventually leading a father to insanity and self-destruction. Still, she manages to survive by using the male's vulnerability to sexual manipulation to her advantage.

She also survives by giving up her identity in order to hide from her first abusive relationship. That she escaped persecution of Jews only to be forced to give up her identity to escape persecution from an abusive man is rather ironic. In fact, this irony comes back at the end of the novel. The irony of two types of persecutions. Two ways of escape. The other family in the background until the end are Rebecca's cousins, who do not escape Germany. Rebecca's cousin, close in age to Rebecca, loses her family to the holocaust; however she survives.

Unlike Rebecca, she embraces her identity, even writes a book about her tragedy, exaggerating in order to exploit. The irony of this story of escape and survival is complex and fascinating. I love how Oates turns it around, shows the communication in the end as a way of revealing the similarities and differences of character, the similarities and differences of different types of persecution.

An interesting and complex way of ending the story. Jul 11, Joy H. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I have finished reading TGD. As I have said, it was a great story, stylishly written In the final pages we read letters from a cousin of the main character. The cousin was a holocaust survivor and in her letter makes some vague references to the holocaust. One letter reads as follows: The pious fantasizers wish to claim tha I have finished reading TGD. The pious fantasizers wish to claim that the Nazi's genocidal campaign was a singular event in history, that it has elevated us above history.

There are many genocides, so long as there has been mankind. History is an invention of books. I wonder what Joyce Carol Oates was trying to say by including that passage in the final pages of the book. It seemed to suddenly shift the emphasis of the story in some way. I was left off balance. I had expected closure of some sort for the main character. She had finally survived her terrible life's journey and had also located her long lost cousin.

But the long lost cousin takes the book into what seems to be an ambiguous and unsettling tangent. Could it be that Oates had intended the book's ending to be unsettling and controversial? View all 9 comments. Aug 04, Alisa rated it really liked it. The first half of this novel was so angry, practically dripping with Jacob Schwart's spittle-rage and Tignor's controlling misogyny!

The unpleasant feeling of reading about all this anger, together with the deft anxiety-inducing plot, made me read fast, fast, fast, barely skimming some sections. It is a tribute to the author's ability that I kept reading at all. A less well-written book I certainly would've put down. But Rebecca's unique survival story, one in which she crafts a new identity to The first half of this novel was so angry, practically dripping with Jacob Schwart's spittle-rage and Tignor's controlling misogyny! But Rebecca's unique survival story, one in which she crafts a new identity to serve as a camouflaged flak jacket, was compelling enough to keep me going.

I found the ending just as satisfying as a novel like this can provide. No, it doesn't paint a rosy picture of long-lost cousins hugging and becoming the true selves they've been hiding for decades. To do so would be counter to the grim reality of the book. If you are an optimistic reader, feel free to imagine that happy scene and the happy life of married-with-children Zack. Or not, if you aren't so optimistic. I love Joyce Carol Oates. This book, though, like some others she has written, left me with a hole.

There were several unresolved issues in the book. I can understand why some of the issues were unresolved, such as Rebecca's parents' stories and backgrounds in Germany. I can even understand why the brothers were never found. But there were these phrases that Oates kept returning to, such as the final one, "There should be some reason she survived," p.

leondumoulin.nl: Customer reviews: The Gravedigger's Daughter: A Novel (P.S.)

I feel like Oates was trying to bring more realism to her story, because people are always questioning their lives, etc. Jewish immigrants flee Nazi Germany and the daughter is haunted by the old world ways of her immutable parents. The story begins in with year-old Rebecca telling of her undying love for and marriage to Niles Tignor ; a traveling salesman for the Black Horse Brewery; a man you do not say "No" to.

Tignor is often away, days or weeks at a time and he's installed Rebecca in an old farmhouse near Chautauqua Falls, New York. Tignor is not providing enough to live on so Rebecca takes a job at the local factory. On this particular day, as she walks home, there's a man wearing a Panama Hat who's following her.

Byron Hendricks and he's insistent in his belief that she's Hazel Jones.


  • Chris Deer!
  • .
  • The Gravedigger's Daughter!
  • Governance, Management, and Accountability in Secondary Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank .
  • The Gravedigger's Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates.

Years earlier Hazel or her mother did work for his father and maybe they were wronged. He says she's been remembered in his father's will. Later in the story we learn Byron is nuts and a serial killer who's been killing Hazel Jones look-alikes. After his death, 6 graves are found on his property. Rebecca fortunately runs away from him. Rebecca also reminisces about her immigrant family who came to ruin. She says she's pleased her poison-word father will never see his grandson.

She loved and hates her parents. The often cited idiom, "You've made your bed, now lie in it," is for a time Rebecca's fate. In Germany Jacob was a respected teacher and intellectual. In he goes through great difficulty and expense to escape the country and board an ocean liner to bring him and his family to New York Harbor; he's changed their name to Schwart. His wife Anna goes into labor and Rebecca is born aboard ship--the first American in the family May The only job Jacob can find is that of cemetery caretaker, a gravedigger in Upstate New York; in the town of Milburn.

Since time immemorial the Milburn area has had a tradition of tormenting whoever is Gravedigger ; in this case it's the Schwart family; Jacob and Anna and their three kids; Herschel , August " Gus " and Rebecca. They're provided a small cottage to live in, located on the cemetery property, a dank, stone hovel.