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 Angel of Light
by Joyce Carol Oates
New York: Dutton, 1981
434 pages
Dust Jacket Blurb
In her highly acclaimed novel Bellefleur, Joyce Carol Oates traced the American dream to its origin deep within our individual imaginations. In Angel of Light, she explores our political heritage and gives us a novel of mounting drama with all the import of Greek Tragedy. It is a story of loyalty, betrayal, revenge, and finally, forgiveness.
Maurice Halleck, Director of the Commission for the Ministry of Justice, is accused of wrongdoing and then dies in a suspicious car accident. A suicide note and confession are found. But are they legitimate, or was he coerced into writing them before he was taken out to be killed? Although the official investigation finds Maurie guilty and his death a suicide, his children Kirsten and Owen are convinced he was betrayed. They have reason to believe their own mother, Isabel de Benavente, and her lover (Maurie's closest friend and second-in-command), Nick Martens, are involved. Joined together in a blood pact, they vow to uncover the truth and avenge their father's death.
The Hallecks are direct descendants of John Brown, who was hanged in 1859, a martyr in the struggle against slavery. "He is an Angel of Light," Thoreau said of him. Thoreau also said, "I do not wish to kill or be killed but I can forsee circumstances in which both of these things would be by me unavoidable." This is the state of mind into which Kirsten and her brother Owen Halleck are driven by events near at hand but beyond their control.
Joyce Carol Oates weaves a strand of history throughout—the quest for justice against those in power begins with America's founding—but dominating the novel is the story of this highly placed family whose private lives are played out in a public arena.
Excerpt
 Brean Down isn't the place we would have chosen for you, Father. That swamp. That bog. Muddy water in your lungs, alcohol in your blood, we would have chosen better for you, Father, you were well loved, you will not be forgotten.
I sent Owen a message. Unfortunately it took me a long time to construct. Maybe I wasn't well. There were wild loony nights. Very very long days. You know what to do, I told him.
I splashed water on my arms and legs to baptize myself. The kiss on the mouth—the corpse's kiss that smelled of talcum powder—wasn't quite it, I preferred the swamp water, I was already high but I got higher still guzzling algae and rot and death.
Swamp birds were calling to one another. I must have disturbed them. There were frogs too. And insects. A small cloud of mosquitoes gathered around my head and shoulders. Began to bite. Greedily, ravenously, you can't blame them, it is only nature. Mosquitoes and gnats whining in my ears.
But you know all this, Father.
You know, you have gone first. You inhaled it, the teeming life. Breathed it in. Teeming life, pullulating life, I love that word I first used in ninth grade, pullulating, you were proud of me, you loved me, I disappointed you in the end but you loved me, you were the only one—the only one.
Is the event reversible?
We will see.
Awards
- New York Times Notable Books of the Year
Other Editions
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Epigraph
What we call Evil in this World, Moral as well as Natural, is the grand Principle that makes us sociable Creatures, the solid Basis, the Life and Support of all Trades and Employments without Exception: That there we must look for the true Original of all Arts and Sciences, and that the Moment Evil ceases, the Society must be spoiled if not totally dissolved.
—MANDEVILLE, The Fable of the Bees, 1714
Reviews
- Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 1981, p758
- Publishers' Weekly, June 19, 1981, p94
- Booklist, July 1, 1981, p1369
- National Review July 24, 1981, p850
- Saturday Review, August 1981, p44
- Washingtonian, August 1981, p17
- New York Times Book Review, August 16, 1981, p1
- Washington Post Book World, August 16, 1981, p5
- Newsweek, August 17, 1981 p74
- Time, August 17, 1981, p83
- Cosmopolitan, September 1981, p24
- Saturday Review, September 1981, p79
- Library Journal, September 1, 1981, p1648
- Best Sellers, October 1981, p248
- Washingtonian, October 1981, p19
- Wilson Library Bulletin, October 1981, p145
- New Yorker, October 5, 1981 p192
- America, November 21, 1981 p325
- Quill and Quire, January 1982, p39
- Times Literary Supplement, January 29, 1982, p105
- New Statesman, February 5, 1982, p25
- Spectator, February 6, 1982, p26
- Observer, February 7, 1982, p28
- Listener, February 11, 1982, p24
- Illustrated London News, March 1982, p51
- Christian Century, March 3,1982, p248
- Quarry, Spring 1982, 83
- World Literature Today, Spring 1982, p339
- Michigan Quarterly Review, Fall 1982, p677
- National Forum, Winter 1983, p42
- Southern Review, Winter 1983, p209
- Classical and Modern Literature, Fall 1989, p56
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Page address:
http://jco.usfca.edu/works/novels/angel.html
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