The Sacrifice (Oates novel)

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The Sacrifice
OCLC
945404090

The Sacrifice is a 2015 novel by the American writer

Tawana Brawley case, and takes place in a part of New Jersey still suffering from the aftermath of post-war deindustrialization and the 1967 Newark riots
.

Following some of Oates's previous work, the novel explores themes of race,

racial inequality
, while others felt it lacked nuance and empathy.

Plot

Semi-abandoned buildings in Newark in the mid-1990s. The Sacrifice takes place in a similar setting.

On October 7, 1987, in Pascayne, New Jersey, a badly beaten young Black woman is discovered in the cellar of an abandoned factory. She is partially naked and caked in dried blood with feces smeared in her hair and racial slurs written on her body in marker. The ambulance crew notes a few details that they find odd: she seems to be pretending to be unconscious, and the words written on her body are upside-down.

At the hospital, she is identified as Sybilla Frye, a 15-year-old girl who has been missing for the past several days. Sybilla's mother, Ednetta, arrives at the hospital and demands that they release Sybilla into her custody. She refuses to allow a rape kit to be administered to Sybilla, but consents to a police interview on the condition that the police officer be a Black woman. Sybilla communicates to the assigned officer, a young Puerto Rican woman named Ines Iglesias, that she was abducted, raped, and left for dead by a group of five or six white police officers. As Sybilla is largely uncommunicative and Ednetta is hostile to Iglesias, the interview ends quickly, and Ednetta insists on taking Sybilla home.

Ednetta takes Sybilla to Sybilla's grandmother's house to hide and refuses to tell the police where she is. She tries to conceal the attack from Anis Schutt, her common-law husband who has harbored a deep hatred of the police since they killed his brother, and she rebuffs the entreaties of neighbors and civil rights lawyers to pursue the case against the police.

A month after Sybilla was discovered, word of the alleged attack reaches the ears of Marus Mudrick, a Black preacher and prominent civil rights activist. Mudrick spots an opportunity to capitalize on the crime, and reaches out to Ednetta and Sybilla offering to represent them and publicize their case. Ednetta and her daughter are hesitant, but eventually given in to Mudrick's charm.

Mudrick quickly drums up outrage over the attack and the inaction of the Pascayne police, with the hesitant support of his twin brother Byron, a respectable lawyer with a milder temperament who somewhat resents Marus's success. A rally that Mudrick convenes in Pascayne turns violent when he urges them to march on the city hall. In the ensuing chaos, Iglesias, who is attending the rally off-duty, is injured, loses her service weapon, and is subsequently reassigned to a different division as punishment.

In December, rookie police officer Jerold "Jere" Zahn kills himself after finding out that he has been let go from the force. Seizing on the news, Mudrick compels Sybilla to identify Zahn as one of her rapists. When the district attorney challenges the accusation, Mudrick accuses him of participating in the rape, too. Meanwhile, Mudrick has increasingly taken control of Ednetta and Sybilla's lives, moving them from their home and even confiscating a Rolex watch that Mike Tyson gave as a gift to Sybilla. At the height of the crusade, Mudrick is stabbed and nearly killed by an agent of one of his rivals, the militant leader of the Kingdom of Islam known as the Black Prince.

A few months later, Sybilla has joined the Kingdom of Islam and the Black Prince has taken up her cause. In a series of flashbacks, it is implied that Sybilla and Ednetta concocted the story of the gang rape after Anis beat Sybilla brutally. At a rally for Sybilla organized by the Black Prince in Pascayne, Anis is stopped by the police. After hesitating, Anis shoots two of them and is instantly killed by a barrage of return fire.

Background

Joyce Carol Oates

Oates in 2013

1967 Detroit riots.[4] Several of her previous books were based on real-life events, notably Blonde, about Marilyn Monroe, and Black Water, a roman à clef that parallels the Chappaquiddick incident.[5][6] According to Alan Cheuse, The Sacrifice was published in the midst of a "national trauma on police and unarmed victims",[7] and a subsequent novel by Oates, Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars., would also address racism and police violence.[4] Greg Johnson, who wrote a biography of Oates, notes that she is willing to take on themes of race more directly than most other white authors.[8]

Tawana Brawley

On November 28, 1987,

Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason), who alleged a large-scale cover-up. A grand jury later concluded that Brawley fabricated her story,[9] although Brawley continued to maintain that she was telling the truth.[10] The plot of the novel closely follows the Brawley case.[11]

Setting

The novel is set in the fictional town of Pascayne (based on

urban blight contributed to Newark's status as "a symbol of America's decaying cities".[15]

Themes

According to Roxane Gay, the novel's title refers to the fact that "nearly all of the characters sacrifice something – faith, hope, dignity, truth, justice."[11] More literally, Alan Cheuse points out that the detective Ines Iglesias wonders if she is going to be made a "'sacrifice' to public opinion",[7] and at one point Marus tells Sybilla that she is "a race victim, a martyr, and a sacrifice".[13] A central theme of the novel is how individual people and events are transformed into symbols and "are made to surrender their unique complexities as human beings", sometimes resulting in the obfuscation of facts in service of a larger purpose.[13] According to Kirkus Reviews, the novel raises the question of whether the truth or falsity of Sybilla's story makes "racism... any less true".[16] In an academic review, Eric K. Anderson links The Sacrifice to Oates's earlier novel Them and its "understanding of how specific incidents of racial conflict cannot be viewed only in isolation".[13] Anderson also notes that the battle of wills between the Mudrick twins recalls similar dynamics between twins in previous novels by Oates.[13]

Race plays an important role in The Sacrifice, not only in the conflict between white and non-white communities – exemplified by the

police killing of Anis Schutt's brother as well as by Sybilla's case – but also in internal tensions within communities of color, such as Ednetta Frye's distrust of Iglesias, the Hispanic detective. Rose Tremain of The Guardian views the violence that breaks out during Mudrick's crusade as "mirroring an internal labyrinth of fear".[3] A review in The Independent found that the novel depicts the "powerless of women" in a male world, and "simmers with barely concealed rage at the impotence inflicted on people by race and gender inequalities".[17] Multiple reviewers noted the parallels between the novel and contemporary racial tensions in the United States.[7][18]

Reception

Writing in The New York Times, Roxane Gay offered measured praise for Oates's ambition but criticized the novel for its "lack of empathy" and "utter disregard for nuance", singling out inaccuracies in Oates's rendition of African-American Vernacular English.[11] Kirkus Reviews found that the multiple perspectives employed by the novel failed to offer "nuance or fresh insights", and concluded that "Oates revives an old scandal without making it new."[16]

Publishers Weekly similarly criticized the lack of nuance in its "heavy and overt focus on race", and described the narrative as "fragmented and often repetitive".[19] A review of Oates's later novel Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. noted that Oates's engagement with "the subjects of race, violence and socioeconomic status" has had only "intermittent success" and that The Sacrifice in particular was "marred by a lack of empathy and worse".[4]

In a review for

racial prejudice written in her "characteristic visceral and hypnotising style".[17] The Washington Post's Jon Michaud and The Guardian's Rose Tremain found the Mudrick brothers particularly compelling.[5][3]

References

  1. ^ a b Oates, Joyce Carol (2015). "Afterword". The Sacrifice. Ecco Press. p. 310.
  2. ^ a b Hoby, Hermione (9 January 2016). "Joyce Carol Oates: 'People think I write quickly, but I actually don't'". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  3. ^ a b c Tremain, Rose (12 January 2015). "The Sacrifice by Joyce Carol Oates review – gripping and powerful". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  4. ^ a b c Johnston, Bret Anthony (9 June 2020). "Joyce Carol Oates Takes On Racism and Grief in Her New Novel". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  5. ^ a b Michaud, Jon (29 January 2015). "Book review: 'The Sacrifice,' by Joyce Carol Oates, inspired by Tawana Brawley case". The Washington Post. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  6. ^ Oates, Joyce Carol (24 October 2003). "Off the Page: Joyce Carol Oates". The Washington Post (Interview). Interviewed by Carole Burns. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  7. ^ a b c d e Cheuse, Alan (26 December 2014). "Joyce Carol Oates Wades Into Troubled Waters With 'The Sacrifice'". NPR. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  8. ProQuest 2244011456
    .
  9. ^ "Evidence Points to Deceit by Brawley". The New York Times. 27 September 1988. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  10. ^ Yardley, Jim (3 December 1997). "After a Decade, Brawley Reappears and Repeats Charges". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  11. ^ a b c d Gay, Roxane (30 January 2015). "'The Sacrifice,' by Joyce Carol Oates". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  12. ^
    ISBN 9780814795637
    .
  13. ^ a b c d e Anderson, Eric K. (2015). "Review of The Sacrifice". Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies. 2. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  14. ^ Rojas, Rick; Atkinson, Khorri (11 July 2017). "Five Days of Unrest That Shaped, and Haunted, Newark". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  15. ^ Rojas, Rick (8 August 2017). "A Revival Comes to Newark, but Some Worry It's 'Not for Us'". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  16. ^ a b "The Sacrifice". Kirkus Reviews. 5 November 2014. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  17. ^ a b McDowell, Lesley (24 January 2015). "The Sacrifice by Joyce Carol Oates – book review: Raging for the powerless". The Independent. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  18. ^ Courtney, Lorraine (21 February 2015). "Brilliant tale inspired by infamous rape claim; The Sacrifice". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  19. ^ "The Sacrifice". Publishers Weekly. 261 (48). 24 November 2014. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
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