MY SISTER, MY LOVE: The Intimate
Story of Skyler Rampike by Joyce Carol Oates
Reviewed by Gary Couzens
Reviewed by Gary Couzens
Fourth Estate 2008
Joyce
Carol Oates’s new novel is a strange one. Although Oates has never been much
troubled by considerations of conventional good taste or political correctness,
‘My Sister, My Love’ seems particularly disconcerting, as it is a black comedy
inspired by a notorious – and unsolved - American murder case, that of
six-year-old skating prodigy JonBenet Ramsay.
Of course names are changed – the murder victim is now Bliss (née Edna
Louise) Rampike. Yet the potential for disaster looms large: how can someone
write a comic novel about a particularly distressing recent crime? Yet somehow
Oates manages it. The novel is presented as an account by Bliss’s older,
neglected, brother Skyler, written ten years after the fact. Oates uses a
mixture of techniques: narratorial digressions, footnotes, deliberately
“missing” material. An account of the relationship between Skyler and Heidi,
another damaged celebrity offspring, is presented as a very much “written”
story within the story.
Oates’s targets are clear: the lure of celebrity and its price, and the
feeding frenzy of modern fame culture. In this, ‘My Sister, My Love’ is of a
piece with Oates’s earlier work, even if it unusually shaped. In particular it
recalls her reimagining of Marilyn Monroe’s life ‘Blonde’ in that fame’s price
is exacted on a female body. Poor young Bliss is prodded and poked, suffers
injections that make her unable to sit down comfortably, is encased in a tight
costume with more than a frisson of pre-pubescent sexiness (not for nothing
does Oates mention more than once “a peek of white panties” as Bliss skates).
Behind all this is the monstrous figure of Bliss’s mother, who drove both her
children to become the champion skater she could not herself be, and neglects
Skyler when he fails to live up to the task – and continues a career in the
media after Bliss’s death. In a final twist, the wages of fame exact a price on
her as well, as her macho husband looks on helplessly. In its black comedy, and
by being filtered through the son’s narrative voice, this novel also recalls a
very early Oates novel, ‘Expensive People.’ Oates is not everyone’s idea of a
humorous writer, and she can be heavy-handed for every time she hits her
target.
But this is not a cold-hearted novel: Oates does have compassion for her
damaged, often deluded cast of characters. She also leaves us with some hope of
healing, in a final scene that’s a little obvious but still effective. ‘My
Sister, My Love’ shows that Oates, at the age of seventy, is still firing on
all cylinders: while the favourite themes are present, she has yet to repeat or
parody herself.
© Gary
Couzens
Reproduced with permission
Reproduced with permission
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