Novels by Joyce Carol Oates, documentary by Stig Björk­man

Joyce Carol Oates (b1938) was born in N.Y state, daught­er of a tool des­igner. She studied English at Universities of Syracuse & Wisc­on­sin, then taught Eng­lish at Uni of Detroit (1961-7) and Uni of Wind­sor in Ont­ario (1967-78). From 1978 she taught at Princeton Uni. In 1961 she marr­ied Raymond Smith, a fellow academic and ed­itor. Tog­ether they published the literary magazine Ont­ario Review.

This American novelist was known for her vast literary production. Early in her career Oates wrote short stories for magazines and rev­iews, incl­uding for the Literary Rev­iew, and in 1963 she pub­lish­ed her first collection of short stor­ies, By the North Gate. Her first nov­el, With Shuddering Fall (1964) was followed by anot­her short-story collection, Upon the Sw­eeping Flood (1965). Other not­ab­le fiction works included A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967) and Them (1969), winner of a National Book Aw­ard.

In 2001 Oates published the short-story collection Faithless: Tales of Transgression, richly sinful. Wild Nights! Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James and Hemingway (2008) feat­ured fic­tion­al­­ised accounts of the final days of special American writ­ers. And her stories in Black Dahlia and White Rose (2012) were load­ed with menace; it fictional­ised the horrid 1947 Black Dahlia murder in Calif. Evil Eye: Four Novellas of Love Gone Wrong (2014) feat­ured tales expl­or­ing the sinister outcomes of romantic entangle­ment.

Note her de­pictions of violence and evil in mod­ern soc­iety. She typic­ally portrayed American individuals whose deeply experien­ced lives ended in self-destruc­tion owing to larger forces of violence. But why? Her life had been hard. Her severely autistic sister was institut­ion­alised and Oates never saw her again. Oates' maternal grandfather was murdered in 1917, causing Oates mot­h­er's ad­opt­ion; and Oates's pater­nal grandmother survived, at 14, her own father’s suicide. As a child, Oates’s next-door neighbour was guilty of arson and at­tempted murder charges against his family, and was gaoled in Attica. Her paternal grand­mot­h­er, Blan­che Wood­side, lived with the family and was very close to Joy­ce.

Raised as a Catholic, Joyce discovered later in life that her grand­mother Blanche had been a Jew who fled Ger­many and had kept her id­entity hid­­den for­ev­er. Granddaughter’s grief came from lamenting her lost cultural her­itage, while ack­now­ledging that her respect for cul­ture and art was indeed inherited from gran. Since she dis­covered her family’s history was Jewish only AFTER gran’s death in 1970, Oates later drew on aspects of gran's life in writing the nov­el The Grave­digger's Daughter (2007). When Joyce’s loved husband Ray Smith died of pneumonia in 2008, she was so grief-stricken and de­moralised that friends feared she might suicide. The pain never ended. 

Swedish documentary-maker Stig Björkman had been long asking Oates to let him make a doc­um­ent­ary about her life, but she always refused. Now, many years later, she finally agreed. The first half of the docum­en­tary (JCO: a Body in the Service of Mind) was Oates’ car­eer story, connect­ing her early work to her later fame and tackling its subject by going back and forth between different bits of her life. The second half focused on earl­ier mom­ents of family history. The viewers sat with her in her sanc­t­uary, the writing room.

As Oates has written 100+ books and became famous, Björkman wanted to know why she focused on city riots, domestic beatings and mur­der, mis­ery, mystery and yearning. Oates quietly gave careful analyses about the U.S’ violent history and con­temp­orary times. She wrote about how power cor­rupted, described the presence of viol­en­ce, told the forg­otten stories and examined the idea of ​​authentic­ity. Did it take constant work to maintain human virtues eg dignity and civilisation? Clearly yes, since brutal­ity­ shuddered under the thin veneer of civilisation.

Pres Barack Obama 

awarded the 2010 National Humanities Medal 

Björk­man moved with the same ease in his film as Oates did when she wrote: curious & knowledgeable! From her tough beginnings on a farm, her difficult childhood and prolific career, the reclus­ive Oates spoke to the cul­tural shifts that shaped her moral compass and her keen interest in social justice. Bjorkman gained great access into her life and studio, her second mar­riage, her hand­written work and her be­loved Jewish grand. Thus in this film, Oates carefully discus­s­ed the societal events that in­for­med her writ­ing.

In 2010 Pres Barack Obama awarded the National Humanities Medal at a White House ceremony to Oates for a lifetime of contributions to Am­er­ican literature. And she won the prestigious Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Ind­iv­idual in Society (2019), a biennial literary award given to writers whose works have best dealt with themes of human free­dom in society.

Thank you speech
2019 Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Ind­iv­idual in Society

Her blen­d­ing of history, fiction and memory was as much a respectful tribute as it was powerful film-making. Thank you, dir­ec­tor Stig Björk­man, the man who examined her life via her books. From the poor up­bringing on an upstate New York farm, via the boisterous university days and the long life of teaching and endless writing.

Australians can see the film from 6th Nov 2022.