What I Lived For is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates published in 1994 by E. P. Dutton. The work is a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 and a 1995 finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Plot
Reception
Kirkus Reviews deems What I Lived For "a dazzling novel, brilliant both stylistically and in its depiction of a man running desperately for his life."
Theme
New York Times literary critic James Carroll provides this thematic compendium:
Footnotes
Sources
- Carroll, James. He Could Not Tell a Lie. New York Times, April 2, 2000.https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/04/02/specials/oates-livedfor.html Accessed 12 April 2025.
- Johnson, Greg. 1996. A Reader's Guide to the Recent Novels of Joyce Carol Oates. E. P. Dutton, New York. in Celestial Timepiece: https://celestialtimepiece.com/2016/01/24/what-i-lived-for/ Accessed 10 April 2025.
- Oates, Joyce Carol. What I Lived For. E. P. Dutton, New York.