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PEOPLE & ARTS Monday 13 May 2019
Oates haunted by family denial of Jewish roots

By ISABEL DEBRE it was more about how the
Associated Press “future looks like global
JERUSALEM (AP) — Ameri- control through enormous-
can author Joyce Carol ly wealthy corporations.”
Oates says her family’s Her upcoming novel, “My
denial of its Jewish roots Life as a Rat,” which comes
haunted her for decades out next month, grapples
and has shaped her into with the personal repercus-
the famously prolific writer sions of a racist hate crime.
she is today. Oates described the new
Oates, who is making her book as familiar territory for
first-ever trip to Israel to re- her, dealing with her trade-
ceive the prestigious Jeru- mark theme of painful fam-
salem Prize, said that her ily dynamics and set in rural
Jewish grandmother fled New York, where she grew
persecution in her native up in a working-class fam-
Germany to rural upstate ily with a severely autistic
New York in the late 19th sister. Oates says her writing
century. But she repressed is “motivated by social jus-
her trauma and Jewish her- tice,” and she often tackles
itage for the rest of her life. timely topics such as the
Oates, who was raised abortion debate and sex-
nominally Catholic yet dis- ual violence, in addition to
connected from religion, criticizing President Donald
said she learned of her Trump’s policies on Twitter. American author Joyce Carol Oates poses for a photo in Jerusalem, Sunday, May 12, 2019.
grandmother’s secret only But she rejects the label of Associated Press
after her death in 1970, political writer.
when a biographer began “I’m not writing political
digging into her ancestry. novels. I’m writing about
“I felt an immense loss and people,” she said. “You
sympathy because I never can be concerned with a
really knew that my grand- society in which you live
mother was Jewish, so my without being aware of a
whole cultural inheritance larger political structure.”
was lost,” Oates told The Oates also steered clear
Associated Press in an in- of the Israeli-Palestinian
terview at the Jerusalem conflict, saying that Jeru-
International Book Fair on salem was “obviously a city
Sunday. “But it’s the Jew- of great diversity” but that
ish respect for culture and she “can’t make any judg-
art that I inherited from my ment.”
grandmother ... so that’s She said that being in Je-
actually beautiful.” rusalem would likely influ-
Oates said her grandmoth- ence her next project. “I’m
er played an instrumental excited to be here, listening
role in her career choice, to the Hebrew language,”
giving her a copy of “Alice she said. “I’m very interest-
and Wonderland,” a library ed in that culture and iden-
card and a typewriter tity... and trying to see how
when she was a teenager, I could write about it.”
inspiring her to pursue writ- The most recent upheaval
ing. “No one else in my in her life was the death
Hungarian and Irish family last month of her second
had any interest in books,” husband, professor of neu-
she said. “There’s a trage- roscience Charles Gross.
dy at the loss of my grand- She said it was too soon to
mother’s history but then a discuss her grief.
joy in this connection.” The death of her first hus-
At 80, Oates is still writing band, the editor and lit-
novels, expanding a vast erary publisher Raymond
and varied oeuvre that has Smith, motivated her to
brought her wide acclaim. memorialize him in her cel-
Her political thriller “Haz- ebrated 2011 memoir, “A
ards of Time Travel,” pub- Widow’s Story.”
lished last winter, repre- Oates has written nearly 60
sented her first real foray novels, won the National
into dystopia, imagining Book Award and received
America’s grim future as five Pulitzer nominations,
a totalitarian surveillance among other honors. But
state. Reviewers called she called the Jerusalem
it reflective of the Trump Prize “the high point” in her
presidency, but Oates said career.q