The Accursed

by Joyce Carol Oates

I'm still not sure whether or not I actually liked this book. I think I did. It was certainly well-written. It just wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be. Although I try not to buy books anymore (I get most of my reading material from the library, borrowing from friends and family, and when I do make a purchase, it's usually for my kindle), this one caught my eye when I was at the Book Table. I like the Book Table and enjoy supporting it, so rather than getting the book cheaper in a digital version or for free at the library, I went ahead and bought a hard copy. Part of the reason I bought it is because I had been hearing a lot of good things about the author lately and had not yet read any of her books, so I thought it was time I introduced myself to her material.

The other reason I bought it is because the description on the back cover said, "Vampires and ghosts haunt the dreams of the innocent and a powerful curse besets the families of the elite". This sounded to me like urban fantasy meets historical fiction, which is kind of accurate, but I was hoping, based on what I had heard of the author, that this would not be a typical urban fantasy novel, and it certainly wasn't. Not that I have any problems with urban fantasy, it's just that I think I've kind of ODed on them for now and it just wasn't what I was looking for.

It turns out that the urban fantasy meets historical fiction description is pretty accurate, but it's also not your typical urban fantasy novel. In modern urban fantasy, the paranormal has been made human, so I guess that's what I was expecting. You know, vampires are really humans who just happen to be nocturnal and drink blood, but they're very sexy and usually disgustingly wealthy, and ghosts are just misunderstood and all they really want is a way out of here so they can go into that bright white light.

This was not the case here. Vampires are scary. Demons come in all forms, including voices in your head that tell you to murder your spouse and ghosts entice you to try new things like jumping off of rooftops. It is implied that two different mysterious people are actually the same demon, but it's never confirmed. The demons in this novel retain an air of mystery that I'm just not used to seeing any more. While that took some getting used to, I think I really liked it. It reminded me of the truly scary ghost stories I used to read/watch as a kid.

I'm still not entirely sure how the curse worked. It was mostly explained in the epilogue (which was, hands down, the best part of the entire book), but that really only explained why four people were affected. It didn't really explain to me why the rest of the town was affected, and I'm still trying to figure out how Upton Sinclair fit into everything. Oates managed to tie him in with some of the main characters at the very end, and while I was gratified by that, I'm not sure it was necessary. It leaves me wondering if Oates was using the curse to make some sort of commentary on capitalism and the Gilded Age. I think she was, but I'm not sure.

Don't rely on my dense opinion, though. Read the book and decide for yourself, because I just wrote myself into it: I really liked this book.