The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates

While I’ve had mixed reactions to Joyce Carol Oates’ books in the past – I disliked We Were the Mulvaneys and Jack of Spades and liked Cardiff by the Sea, I loved The Falls and can now see what all the fuss is about this author.

The Falls began with a bridegroom throwing himself into Niagara Falls the day after his wedding, in 1950. The story of the wedding night was told from the point of view of the bride and of the groom and were similar enough in that they were both disgusted by and terrified of sex, at least with each other. Perhaps not surprisingly, Gilbert and Ariah’s versions of their wedding night experience also differed wildly.

For the next week, Ariah, who the media dubbed ‘the Widow Bride of the Falls,’ waited for Gilbert’s body to be found. Dirk Burnaby, a local businessman with a big heart stood vigil with Ariah, warding off the media and generally smoothing the way for the woman he had been instantly smitten by. Even Dirk couldn’t say why, as Ariah was plain, socially awkward and strange, notwithstanding the fact that her husband, whose name I had forgotten by about the twentieth page, had suicided after a single night with her.

Less than three weeks later Dirk turned up with flowers and champagne at Ariah’s home in Troy, New York and told her he was in love with her. Perhaps it was the champagne, but with Dirk, Ariah discovered sex and love, and despite the disapproval and condemnation of her parents and her first husband’s parents, she married Dirk and went to live with him in his luxurious townhouse at Niagara Falls.

Ariah and Dirk built a life together, and later when they had children, reconciled with her parents.

The ‘honeymoon’ section of the story was dreamlike, but the story and the emotions it generated eventually changed direction again. Dirk was a lawyer with a great many social and business contacts but when he took on a case to fight big businesses responsible for polluting a neighbourhood where an unusual amount of residents had cancer, he was ostracized socially and professionally. I felt terribly unsettled while reading this middle part of the story, but was still surprised when it ended with a murder.

The story and the character’s lives then dramatically changed again.

I loved the constant changes in this story and the twists and turns in the character’s lives. I loved Dirk, although was also frustrated by him being so good and idealistic that he risked his whole life for his cause. I also felt very attached to Ariah, even though she was far too prickly to love. She was the most frustrating, annoying, neurotic, yet fascinating character I’ve come across in a long time. The Burnaby’s children, when it was their turn to tell the story during the 1970s, were much more likeable than their mother but just as interesting.

The location was also fabulous (who doesn’t want to visit Niagara Falls?) and the writing itself was excellent.

I couldn’t put this book down, but it was so big that I read it for a solid week – luckily for me there was a long weekend during that week. I’ll probably wait a while before reading something else by Joyce Carol Oates, but I will read more eventually.