Review: Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates

 

Title: Daddy Love

Author: Joyce Carol Oates

Published: Grove/Atlantic  January 2013

Synopsis: Dinah Whitcomb has everything: a loving husband and a smart young son named Robbie. Then one day their world is shattered when Robbie is abducted from a parking lot and Dinah is run over by the kidnapper’s van, mangling her body nearly beyond repair. The kidnapper, a reverend named Chester Cash, aka Daddy Love, has for years abducted, tortured, and raped young boys. Daddy Love renames Robbie as ‘Gideon,’ brainwashing him into believing that he is Daddy Love’s real son, and any time the boy resists or rebels he is met with punishment beyond his wildest nightmares.  As Robbie grows older he becomes more aware of just how monstrous Daddy Love truly is. Once terrified of what would happen if he disobeyed Daddy Love, he begins to realize that the longer he is locked in the shackles of this demon, the greater chance he’ll end up like Daddy Love’s other ‘sons’ who were never heard from again. Somewhere within this tortured boy lies a spark of rebellion . . . and soon he will see just what lengths he must go to in order to have any chance at survival.

Status: Read from January 06 to 07, 2013 — I own a copy {Courtesy Grove/Atlantic/Netgalley}

My Thoughts:

I have had an awkward track record with work by Joyce Carol Oates, despite the acclaim she has received, and primarily I requested this novel in yet another effort to connect with her writing. Oates has published more than 50 books, many of which probe sensitive, dark subjects. In Daddy Love, Oates explores the shocking abduction and abuse of five year old Robbie Whitcomb by a sadistic pederast who keeps him captive for six years.

The story of Daddy Love was no more than what I expected, confronting, disturbing and thought provoking. It is difficult to read of Diane’s despair at the loss of her son, her misplaced feelings of guilt and shame. It is horrendous to read of Daddy Love’s justifications for his deviant behaviour, his remorseless manipulation and abuse of young children and to know that such monsters walk amongst us undetected. It is utterly heartbreaking to imagine the fear, pain and sense of utter helplessness experienced by Robbie whose innocence is destroyed and will never be the same.

And yet somehow Oates fails to move me, my reactions are dictated by the subject matter rather than the way in which she tells the story. I find her style spare and distant, even dry at times. Perhaps that is necessary in writing about such an emotive issue to reduce the risk that the reader will be overwhelmed by the sheer, shuddering horror of the situation but for me the result was a disconnect I am hard pressed to articulate.

Even though Daddy Love left me with a painful ache in my chest, and desperate to keep my children a little closer to my side for a little longer, I think I will have to admit I am defeated by Joyce Carol Oates.

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