Joyce Carol Oates: A Widow's Story

Joyce Carol Oates experienced both intense emotional pain and physical exhaustion. She describes herself as "a raw stump of bleeding flesh." Unable to sleep, she spent the night keeping a journal of her day to day thoughts and experiences.

A Widow's Story (Harper Collins) is an assemblage of those journal entries. In this conversation, as we explore the memoir, she describes how she "impersonated herself" and how she eventually became a person she never imagined she would be.