The Lost Landscape. Joyce Carol Oates

       Joyce at her first desk, five years old. At home in Millersport, New York. (Fred Oates)

       Praise for The Lost Landscape:

      ‘As profound, as thorough and, at times, as dark as anything Oates has ever done’

       Buffalo News

      ‘Offers a window into a highly original mind. While it is never a given that a writer’s personal story can illuminate her work, in Oates’s case, it very much does’

       Minneapolis Star Tribune

      ‘A window into one of our most powerful writers’ coming-of-age and the forces affecting how she sees and writes the world’

       Christian Science Monitor

      ‘Oates perfectly captures the unique confusion of childhood, brought on by the unsatisfying explanations of adults’

      Elle (US)

      ‘An exquisitely rendered glimpse of Oates’s childhood in rural upstate New York’

       Bookpage

       Copyright

      Fourth Estate

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.4thestate.co.uk

      This eBook first published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2015

      First published in the United States by Ecco in 2015

      Copyright © The Ontario Review 2015

      Joyce Carol Oates asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      Front cover photograph: Joyce Carol Oates in 1948, taken by her father, Fred Oates, and courtesy of the author

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008146610

      Ebook Edition © September 2015 ISBN: 9780008146603

      Version: 2016-09-08

       DEDICATION

       To my brother Fred Oates

       And in memory of those who have gone away

      CONTENTS

       COVER

       TITLE PAGE

PRAISE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I

WE BEGIN …

MOMMY & ME

HAPPY CHICKEN: 1942–1944

DISCOVERING ALICE: 1947

DISTRICT SCHOOL #7, NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK

PIPER CUB

AFTER BLACK ROCK

SUNDAY DRIVE

FRED’S SIGNS

       “THEY ALL JUST WENT AWAY”

       “WHERE HAS GOD GONE”

       HEADLIGHTS: THE FIRST DEATH

       “THE BRUSH”

       AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY: THE LOST FRIEND

       “START YOUR OWN BUSINESS!”

       THE LOST SISTER: AN ELEGY

       NIGHTHAWK: RECOLLECTIONS OF A LOST TIME

       II

       DETROIT: LOST CITY 1962–1968

       STORY INTO FILM:

       “WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” AND SMOOTH TALK

       PHOTO