Sacrifice

Best-selling author Joyce Carol Oates blends sexual violence, racism, brutality, and power in her latest incendiary novel. When a fourteen-year-old girl is the alleged victim of a terrible act of racial violence, the incident shocks and galvanises her community, exacerbating the racial tension that has been simmering in this New Jersey town for decades. Unfolding in a chorus of multiracial voices – from the police to the media to the victim and her family – which gather to reach a tense crescendo at the novel’s climax, THE SACRIFICE offers a shocking new understanding of power and oppression, innocence and guilt, truth and sensationalism, justice and retribution – and the primal decisions we make to protect those we love. A chilling exploration of complex social, political, and moral themes, THE SACRIFICE is a major work of fiction from one of our most revered literary masters.

‘[Joyce Carol Oates] is simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going, as far as I’m concerned’ Gillian Flynn, author of “Gone Girl” ‘A powerful novel … We see how, in the hands of a great writer, a gripping story can be torn from the poisonous rubble’ Rose Tremain, Guardian ‘Visceral and hypnotising … simmers with barely concealed rage at the impotence inflicted on people by race and gender inequalities’ Lesley McDowell, Independent ‘Oates demonstrates a fearlessness in her writing. The book has the energy and force of a river in full flow, filled with dangerous undercurrents and eddies’ Victoria Moore, Daily Mail ‘A savage satire on race relations and the culture of sensationalism … The Sacrifice ranks among Joyce Carol Oates’ best novels’ Robert Rorke, New York Post ‘With great energy and a cold eye for contemporary American race relations … offers a mix of fiery drama and the cold bone truths of race as we all live it today’ Alan Cheuse, NPR Books ‘Oates’ firecracker of a novel explores the minefield of race relations in thought-provoking style’ Max Davidson, Irish Mail on Sunday ‘Beyond daring, highly provocative . . . a blend of sizzling drama and the brutal truths of racism. Oates writes with the ease of a master of language, uncoiling the bitterest of stories with barely a word wasted’ Lorraine Courtney, Belfast Telegraph ‘Explosive’ Jon Michaud, Washington Post

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her books include We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.