The Rise of Life on Earth (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780811212137)

Selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the most notable books of 1991, Joyce Carol Oates's The Rise of Life on Earth is a memorable portrait of one of the "insulted and injured" of American society. Set in the underside of working-class Detroit of the '60s and '70s, this short, lyric novel sketches Kathleen Hennessy's violent childhood--shattered by a broken home, child-beating, and murder--and follows her into her early adult years as a hospital health-care worker. Overworked, underpaid, and quietly overzealous, Kathleen falls in love with a young doctor, whose exploitation of her sets the course of the remainder of her life, in which her passivity masks a deep fury and secret resolve to take revenge.

Author: Joyce Carol Oates
ISBN-10: 0811212130
ISBN-13: 9780811212137
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Language: English
Published: 09/17/1992
Pages: 142
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.41lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.29w x 0.37d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 07/20/1992