Broke Heart Blues is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates published in 1999 by E. P. Dutton.
Contents
- KILLER BOY
- MR. FIX-IT
- THIRTIETH REUNION
Plot
Reception
Literary critic Daniel T. Max at The New York Times regards Broke Heart Blues as one of Oates's lighter novels, but which "displays great inventiveness and a justified belief in its relevance to our own emotional lives."
Writing in Salon.com, critic Michelle Goldberg laments that Oates has abandoned her "psychological acuity" for sentimentality and a "cloyingly nostalgic atmosphere." As such, the novel resembles Gothic The Big Chill:
Theme
The theme of the work is simple: "It's about how lonely, unhappy people mythologize their adolescence."
Oates offered her own retrospective take of her novel's thematic elements:
Footnotes
Sources
- Goldberg, Michelle. Broke Heart Blues. Salon magazine, July 28, 1999. https://www.salon.com/1999/07/28/oates/ Accessed 10 April 2025.
- Max, Daniel T. 1999. Class Reunion. New York Times, August 8, 1999. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/08/08/reviews/990808.08maxlt.html Accessed April 7, 2025.
- Oates, Joyce Carol. 1999. Broke Heart Blues. E. P. Dutton, New York.
- Oates, Joyce Carol. 2024. "Intoxicating Nostalgia of High School." Joyce Carol Oates on Writing Broke Heart Blues. Literary Hub.https://lithub.com/a-valentine-to-the-intoxicating-nostalgia-of-high-school-joyce-carol-oates-on-writing-broke-heart-blues/ Accessed 10 April 2025.