The Falls

by Joyce Carol Oates

Book Overview

A stunning, major achievement from Joyce Carol Oates, "one of the great artistic forces of our time" (The Nation). A haunting story of the powerful spell Niagara Falls casts upon two generations of a family, leading to tragedy, love, loss, and, ultimately, redemption.

A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. A newlywed, he has left behind his wife, Ariah Erskine, in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060722282
• ISBN13: 9780060722289
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Beautiful Niagara Flow

This is one of my top books this year. I loved the story(ies), the characters and the setting. Ms. Oates characters are beautifully defined with enough room to form one's own mind with persoanl fill in here and there. I could see these characters. I often felt like I was in the room with them (behind a curtain, of course). It is a terrific saga with hidden innuendos and opinions that the reader learns about in its appropriate time. I learned a lot about the Niagara Falls area. Having been a visitor there once, it expanded my own idea of the place-its history, socio-economics, its evolution from an old, grand tourist destination to a modern one and the environs. I learned about struggle. I was reminded that often where we sometimes believe someone's heart is, is not really where it is at all. I was reminded that one's life can change in a flash, not only one's circumstances, but one's entire belief system. And again, how quickly it will or can change again. And through it all am reminded how humans cope, and how differently they cope. The struggles, the triumphs, the pain, the joy were all here. I liked every one of these characters. I felt like I knew each one, and in fact wanted to know each one. Ms.Oates led the pace of the story well. Her ending was appropriate and left room for more. I highly recommend this book, and am delighted that Ms. Oates is a premiere American writer who I know I can look forward to reading more of her works in the years ahead. Thank you, Ms. Oates for a great book, well written and so well crafted.

Ms. Oates goes a little overboard, but worth the ride

If you've ever been to Niagara Falls and felt overwhelmed by the brute force of the rushing water, imagining the awfulness of unwittingly falling in a bit upstream where it's too late to extricate yourself from your own downfall, then you will feel some empathy for Ariah on the morning after her wedding day when she discovers her new husband missing. Chances are this may be the most sorrow you'll feel for this woman whose neck you'll want to wring more often than not. What a woman of admirable and shameful traits; self-knowledge and cluelessness. I loved this novel. What a movie it will make! Play cast the characters as you read it. I'm old enough to remember Love Canal, but what a history lesson for the younger generation (this is not the forum for a political rant). Yes, the novel goes in several directions - is Ariah, being damned, responsible for the fall (man's greed)? Or is she just a simple human being, like the rest of us flawed mothers, subject to drawing incorrect conclusions (she couldn't have known her first husband was gay) that end up having the force of gravity that almost takes several additional family members over the falls. Still, through the grace of God, the children, though damaged by Ariah and her groundless need for keeping family secrets, have their own free will - and boy do they use it - ensuring a smooth ending to a bumpy ride

Doesn't "fall" down

I couldn't stop reading this one. Oates is the kins of author who can get into the innermost feelings of her characters, as no other authr can; she explores the hidden aspects of personality and meakes her reader think deeply about what he or she is reading. In all the years I've been reading JCO, no other book (except maybe Foxfire) has touched me as deeply as The Falls has. Right from the first page, the reader is sucked in (no pun intended). Like the waterfalls, around which this book is centered, this book has a magnetic effect. In 1950, Ariah, a newlywed, goes on honeymoon with her husband to Niagara Falls. While there, Gilbert Erskine throws himself into The Falls. While searching for the body, Ariah meets Dick Burnaby, a locally well-known lawyer, who she falls in love with and marries. Together they have three children. By 1962, however, things change. Dick becomes wrapped up in a lawsuit involving a young woman and the death of her dauther due to radiation poisoning. He becomes so deeply involved, in fact, that he ends up ruining his professional reputation, as well as his marriage. How the details of a case, combined with the characters Joyce Carol Oates presents to her readers are only a small part of this fine, wonderful book.

Niagara

Niagara Falls and its many cataracts (Horseshoe Falls as in this novel, for one) has always been an easy target for those who feel there is no way out but suicide. And in Joyce Carol Oates new novel, "The Falls" it is Gilbert, husband of Ariah who does just that. The gatekeeper of Horseshoe Falls says of the Falls' mesmerizing attraction: "Like we're sick of ourselves. Mankind...this is the way out." After the suicide of her husband, Gilbert, Ariah feels that her life is doomed. This is the 1950's in a small American town and she is looked at as the cause rather than the victim. Then she meets Dirk Burnaby, a lawyer (called "the Savior) involved with the victims of the Love Canal: a place filled with air that pollutes and kills and obviously represents all that is wrong with humanity...it's a wellspring of moral and physical decay. Burnaby is head-over-heels in love with Ariah and at first he only watches while she mourns: "He wanted to stand close behind her...and put his arms around her. He wanted for himself this ferocity of attention, this loyalty. He couldn't believe that Erskine deserved it. He hated the man, detested him, that, though dead, he should captivate the woman...So deeply in love with Ariah, he could barely see any longer; as one is unable to see one's own mirror reflection, pushed too close..." Oates is after something different here and she uses the Love Canal disaster as a backdrop to track the Burnaby Family and her keen sense of the psychological makeup of character and her brilliant sense of social and familial mores makes "The Falls" a major work in the Oates canon. She uses all of her powers here: the facility with the family and its politics (Mulvaneys), her use of violence and degradation ("I'll Take You There") and her sense of the Gothic (The Barrens). Anyone who has stood in a crevice of one of the cataracts of the Niagara Falls can identify with what Oates writes about that ethereal feeling: "Here, your veins, arteries, the minute precision and perfection of your nerves will be unstrung in an instant." With this novel, Oates is at the zenith of her writing powers and not only is her prose fat, juicy and unbelievably gorgeous, it is also both lyrical and forceful. In "The Falls," she's after the recreation of Life, of Love and most importantly of Hope and inevitably, Redemption.

Buried Secrets and Individual Responsibility

At the beginning of this novel we are introduced to Ariah Erskine who is an intensely creative and complex individual. She is nonetheless very naive and is led into a marriage because she thinks it will enhance her own self worth. When the marriage ends abruptly during the couple's honeymoon to Niagara Falls in the first few pages of this novel she suddenly becomes a hapless victim and she believes herself to be damned. In actuality the reason for her husband's death has nothing to do with her personally, yet the guilt is still affixed to her and she feels that she has failed him. The shadow of that naive personality is turned into a local legend known as "The Widow Bride of the Falls". But the spirited individual remains and she is in a sense brought back to life by a charismatic, well-known member of the community called Dirk Burnaby. The two decide to forge a life for themselves despite Ariah's humble background and Dirk's influential, wealthy family. Although they are successful at first, submerged problems well up causing difficulties. When Dirk becomes involved with an enormously contentious community problem, it threatens the safety of their beloved family and extremely difficult choices need to be made. A powerful question arises: Where does personal sacrifice end in the pursuit of justice? Oates used the historical Love Canal incident as a reference point in this novel. If you aren't already familiar with the case, it's useful to know that the Love Canal was a neighborhood near the city of Niagara Falls that was built upon a severely polluted landfill. The families who lived in this community suffered terribly for almost three decades because they were lied to from officials, could not afford to move away and had their cases dismissed by the justice system. Only in 1978 were they able to receive some compensation for their suffering. By this point, many of the victims were dead or had contracted severely debilitating medical conditions. Oates' fictional character Dick Burnaby becomes heavily involved in the controversy surrounding this case. Rather than giving us a full picture of the victims, Oates shows us someone outside the event who has a choice to make a real difference in helping to change it. He is even someone who could be said to have been implicated in the continuation of this disaster through his business associations. With tremendous power and stamina, the author writes in this novel about the ways in which a sense of social responsibility can at times supersede the loyalty one feels to his or her own family, friends and colleagues. Oates wrote a similarly themed novel called Do With Me What You Will which has now been sadly forgotten and I would suggest that anyone who enjoys this novel try to obtain a copy of it. She is able to write with razor sharpness about the complex way our lives become entangled with events we may feel morally ambivalent toward. For all the dark aspects of life that this powerful novel portrays, th