Unholy Loves Author:Joyce Carol Oates In UNHOLY LOVES, Joyce Carol Oates turns her piercing eye upon the men and women who people a prestigious upstate college, probing the marriages, affairs, and comic intrigues that lie beneath the school's serene exterior. Among this year's faculty is Albert St. Dennis -- visiting Distinguished Professor of Poetry -- a written-out lio... more »n who has been persuaded by money to become the college's most honored guest. At Woodslee, after a brilliant career in England, he spends his winter of decline. Here he meets Brigit, a passionate divorcee, and Alexis, a pianist and composer, who have embarked on a disastrous love affair.
In this novel Joyce Carol Oates sees the academic world with both irony and compassion -- a world of innumerable secrets, circles within circles, where love affairs and academic politics are shaped at party after party amid much "festive" celebrating that frequently leads to unanticipated results. In this smaller world is mirrored the larger, filled with paradox, hidden drama, and uncertainties. It is a world full of inner strains and anxieties, told with the understanding, intensity, and penetration for which Joyce Carol Oates has gained her high repute in the world of letters.« less