Black Water

BLACK WATER
by Joyce Carol Oates

 Nominations: National Book Critics Circle 1992, Pulitzer 1993

 Date Read: May 16, 2020

 I have to be honest and say that in my unwise youth, I have gotten in the car with a man who I probably shouldn't have, who had probably drank more than prudent and with an uncertain destination. Kelly made a choice that so many of us make when we're young, lured by an instant connection, a feeling of being wanted for more than your body, undeniable heat and the ages-old draw of power.

 Oates captures so exquisitely that lure, that although you know whatever is happening isn't forever, no lasting relationship at the end, but you can't say no either. Lust mingling with the knowledge that your youth is at an apex of perfection, a sense of the forbidden and Oates serves up a recipe for disaster.

 Stealing away with The Senator, brilliantly never named because his name is truly irrelevant, with a cocktail in hand and an extra "for the road," the car predictably veers off the "short cut" of a dirt road and lands in a lake. While The Senator swims free, Kelly is left in the car to drown. He never tries to save her.

 The thoughts that rush through her head as she fights to breathe are incredibly relatable. The aliveness of your body in life, the love poured from the heart, the strive for normalcy amidst high societal standards, friendships, past relationships, desires all mingle as Kelly slowly drowns. The most wrenching of these thoughts, not wanting her parents or grandparents to know she has died, wanting desperately to save them that heartbreak. 

 Modeled on the incident with Senator Edward Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick, Oates skillfully puts life and breath into a real-life incident that, although everyone knows is tragic and shameful, otherwise would pass as just another tragedy.

 Looking Forward: Because It Is Bitter & Because It Is My Heart, Expensive People, A Garden Of Earthly Delights, The Gravedigger's Daughter, Them, What I Lived For, Wonderland

 Looking Back: Blonde

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