May 6, 2010

I Lock My Door Upon Myself

Posted in Librarians' Choice at 5:32 pm by Sharon Moore

Recommended by Sharon

I Lock My Door Upon Myself  by Joyce Carol Oates
Library Call Number: PS3565.A8  I18 1991 

                 “My self is all to me.  I don’t have any need of you.”

Inspired by Belgian artist Fernand Khnopff’s painting, I Lock My Door Upon Myself (1891), this novella (of the same name) exudes Joyce Carol Oates’ trademark themes: Gothic passions, violence, fateful encounters, and scandal.

Set in turn-of-the-century Upstate New York, this is the story of Edith Margaret Freilicht (“Calla”), a self-absorbed, untamed, beautiful redhead who leaves her husband and children for another “outcast”, a “giant of a black man” named Tyrell Thompson.

Together, Calla and Tyrell embark on a visionary quest that tragically ends in disaster on the Chautauqua River.

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