A garden of earthly delights - Joyce Oates

An epic novel of the rough, tough and wild 'garden' of America - the back country which
hosts a brutal way of life for immigrants. This is the
jungle where men are violent and goaded to kill, where women have to learn to look after themselves, and where love is something to be wary of...

'This savage account of the child Clara...is impressive in its truth and power...where THE GRAPES OF WRATH was angrily sentimental, Miss Oates is calmly bitter...A powerful narrative engine drives the story along' - SUNDAY TIMES
'Joyce Carol Oates is a good novelist in the ranging, naturalistic American tradition...but A GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS is inward-looking enough to bring Miss Oates home to the novelist's true concern...it is this human reality that makes the book so valuable' - THE GUARDIAN