Rating: 
Summary: Interesting -- Mixed Feelings
Review: I am a John Updike reader and have heard from many JC Oates fans to read this novella for the powerful description and brilliance within the dialogue, so I did. Black Water is one of the only novellas I have read that could contain that much quality amidst the prose. However, though I do rate the novels I read on quality, my interest, then the balance between the two, I would have to lower the average and place a 3 among the crowd. It is great literature indeed, but I feel I could have been just fine without reading it. Subtly depressing in most parts, grotesque in many points of the story and failed to capture my interest as I voyaged past page 50. I did finish the book and out of mere dissapointment with the complete package...I read The World According to Garp, and spared the headache... I have read other JC Oates books and all I have to say is first rate...Her short stories are the greatest! Black Water just did not appeal to me, but hey, I'm human and proned not to enjoy things...Thanks...
Rating: 
Summary: Well written historical fiction
Review: Black Water was filled with wonderful imagery. The water is described throughout the book, it fits well with the title. It was a little slow to start, but once I got into it, it was a fast read. Joyce Carol Oates takes a true historical event and portrays the character of the girl that is left to die. Oates portrays The Senator as an awful person and Kelly Kelleher as an innocent, vulnerable, young girl. Joyce Carol Oates has a opinion of the events that happened that night, and she makes it very apparent through the diction she chooses. I can sense that The Senator got away with murder because he was a Senator. It is about the cover-ups that go along with politics. It is not fair and Joyce Carol Oates capitalizes on that. This was a very good book and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading historical fiction. I am 18 and reading this for my Advanced Contemporary Lit. Class. Learning about the actual event helped me to understand this book better. You can find out about what happened at your local library.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most powerful books I've ever read
Review: Brilliantly conceived, this novel both exhilirated and depressed me, as we go inside the mind of the young woman who's been left to drown in an overturned car by a drunk, selfish Senator. Brutal as hell, and unbelievably effective, It will knock your socks off.
Rating:
Summary: Someone's little girl
Review: Joyce Carol Oates has produced a relatively tasteful rendition of a tragedy filling U.S. headlines. She uses her imagination and writerly skills to reconstruct what could have happened. The story is told from the point of view of the young woman, victim, who catches the attention of the charismatic liberal political figure at a holiday party. Tellingly, the political figure and the accident victim share the same Irish-American identity. The young woman in Oates's story has an expectation the political figure will return to the scene of the accident and save her.
Rating: 
Summary: What if it were your daughter in the car?
Review: OK this is a hard book to read. You can read it in about an hour-it is short enough- but still, it isn't at all easy. The details of the horrifying last minutes of a young woman's life are repeated again and again -- like a refrain in a song. Sandwiched between these chilling moments of terror is the story of how she got there--in that car, filling with water, caught, the water slowly rising. And yes it is about Chappaquiddick --and no, it is not about the young woman's psychological development. It is about a senator who left her there, drowning, to die. The details about the young woman are backdrop that makes you realize she was a real person, with a real family, with real hopes and aspirations. This book is not about her except for the fact that, unexpectedly, her life was ended-because the Senator ran away-while she was left in the car, in the dark, waiting, while the water rose. To care about her you needed background about her life. So that story is told. But this character in the book could have been about any of us. Because what the book is about is the arrogance of power. Anyone of us might have gotten into that car, seduced by the allure of power. Any of us could have ended up being left there drowning. It isn't my preference to think about our famous Senator from Mass. as being the character in this story. But you'd have to be dishonest to deny it. Can he have done something this revolting and still do good later in his life? Could we / should we / ever trust a person with so little integrity &/or whose judgment is this far off course? - Run for cover; look for someone to spin the story to protect you; have another drink And how can we, those of us who would like to support liberal politicians (myself included) turn our backs on a needless death with an `Accidents happen' attitude. Indeed they do happen: especially if you provide the right ingredients I don't know how close this story is to the gist of the Chappaquiddick situation (not the detail but the larger actions.) But the story sure makes one ask a lot of questions that ought to be asked about what we expect from a political leader, about how class privilege functions, about how we let ourselves accept easy answers to difficult questions and compromise our own principles in the process...maybe not unlike the Senator - just on a different scale.
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