The Accursed is a Very Large Book. Strange things are afoot in Princeton, New Jersey in the 1900s.
I’m liking
I enjoyed learning a bit about the United States in the 1900s, which is not something I know a lot about. This book gave me a good feel for the time, with labour relations, immigration, socialism and race relations being mentioned, as well as women’s suffrage. There were some real people mixed into the story as well, which added interest for me.
There were a lot of characters and I found that the author got a range of personalities across well, although some of them were very convincingly annoying! There were convincing passages featuring innocent young women, troubled people in various roles, and a particularly annoying invalid.
I liked the general atmosphere of the novel – the feeling that people were going on with perfectly normal lives with all the associated small and large issues, but that there was something else going on behind the scenes…
Things that made me go hmmmm
This book is Very Large. It is 667 pages long, and more than 5 cm thick, so reading it is quite a commitment. I found it mostly very quick and easy to read, but there was a certain point when I started wondering when I was going to actually find out about the curse and what it involved. I do think that some parts could probably have been cut (such as some of the diary entries from Adelaide Burr) and I found that there were slightly too many characters (I could never remember who the FitzRandolphs were!).
I thought that the cover was a bit unfortunate. It looks a bit too much like it is trying to cash in on the current vampire fascination (and maybe it is) and I felt that my fellow train passengers might judge me for reading a “bite and bonk” book! I think a picture of some Princeton people in the 1900s would set the scene a bit better.
It took me a little while to settle in to the idea of the novel as a “history book” and to figure out what was going on with the author’s notes. I would also be interested to read some other books by Joyce Carol Oates to see how much the style of this book resembles or is different from her others. The narrator’s style involved quite a lot of parentheses and italics, which I found strange at first, but I think that was part of conveying the character.
I found it particularly strange that the book had the usual disclaimer saying “Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.” but there are clearly real historical figures in the story, involved in the events of the curse. I would be interested to know what their families would think of that!
The ending was a bit unsatisfying. I still had a lot of questions and there were things that I was expecting to be resolved that weren’t. I have seen some reference to the book being one of a series, so if that’s true, maybe the answers are in the other books (but you’d have to be keen to read lots of 600+ page book!).
The conclusion
I would recommend this book to people who are interested in American life in the 1900s, or people who like historical novels, particularly if they also like a bit of a horror story. I didn’t find the horror too disturbing (and this is coming from someone who doesn’t want to read the Millennium trilogy or watch Game of Thrones because I think I’d find them too disturbing) – most of it is implied rather than stated.
I had been wanting to read something by Joyce Carol Oates for a while, so I’m glad I’ve been able to. I would be interested to find out how this one compares to her other books.
This book would be good to read more than once, as I think there are lots of hints and clues that are easy to miss. I’ve just read the introduction again and already had a few “a ha” moments.
I wouldn’t recommend this book for people who aren’t willing to take on a very large novel!
