To be able to write with such tearing astuteness about such fiercely contemporary issues – for it’s impossible to read this novel without thinking of #MeToo and, as the plot takes on an increasingly racist tone, #BlackLivesMatter too – would be a feat for any author of any age. Joyce Carol Oates is, astoundingly, well into her ninth decade and this, perhaps even more astoundingly, is her 59th novel. That she is willing – no, determined – to go to the darkest, least politically acceptable edges of human emotion and behaviour isn’t so startling if you know her work. But here, even by her own standards, she has taken a risk. For the question that lurks at the heart of the novel – why, after such a brutal and terrifying sexual assault, does Hannah go back for more? – is an especially queasy one ... the grip and pace of this novel – for yes, it’s also a page-turner – relies on events ultimately connecting up in the most satisfying, albeit grim, way ... As ever, Oates’s prose – almost insolently alive, littered with italics and exclamation marks, switching apparently recklessly back and forth through place and time – would seem to break all the rules. The result is nothing less than magical, a piece of work that is light yet dense, frenzied in its detail yet somehow also cool, measured and abstract. She’ll happily devote five pages to what can only amount to a minute or two of a character’s experience (one reason her novels are rarely short) but in so doing will take you straight to the heart of a moment – or, as here, the agonisingly strung-out minutes of a sexual attack – without remorse ... this is a wild and panoramic piece of work, the serial killer’s activities a mere backdrop to a pinpoint vision of a society with rottenness at its core. Definitely one of Oates’s finest achievements to date, Babysitter is an unforgettable portrait of an 'oblivion beyond even evil', one that ricochets around affluent, middle-class America but begins, all too distressingly often, with a priest and a boy in a darkened room.
... violent and vile, timely and terrifying ... resonates powerfully with contemporary concerns ... There is much to admire about Babysitter. Its pages are lit up by Oates’s searing rage about patriarchy’s toxic stain, the church’s enabling of and eager participation in the sexual predation of children, racism’s pernicious taint. Its characters are simultaneously repulsive and strangely sympathetic — both Hannah and Mikey do terrible things and yet we understand how insecurity, alienation, and a history of abuse make them vulnerable. Some sections are almost unbearably creepy; Oates’s ability to create a sickening sense of horror is as keen as ever ... And yet, as a whole, Babysitter is less enthralling or frightening than it might have been. Oates tips her hand far too early and makes her heroine not just naïve and vulnerable but downright nuts, because YK’s psychopathy and her extreme peril in his company are evident almost from the outset. A story about a compelling yet unsettling lover, the depths of whose evil is revealed only bit by bit, would have been more satisfying to read and more psychologically plausible. But by having Hannah return to a man who has assaulted her gruesomely, twice, with whom she has virtually no emotional or romantic connection, whom she condemns for his 'brutal behavior: crude, coarse, punitive, sadistic …misogynistic,' and whose henchman has also attacked her sexually, Oates strains credulity to its breaking point ... Moreover, overwrought repetition burdens the narrative. 'I get it!' I kept writing in the margins as yet another rant about patriarchy or passage about Hannah’s ennui and desperate need for attention and love appeared. Oates clots her pages with aphorisms about female vulnerability and male aggression as Hannah’s self-hatred is driven into our heads with numbing redundancy ... The ideological blatancy produces some stylistic infelicities. Joyce’s characteristically heavy use of italics is taken to an almost parodic extreme here, as is her reliance on verb-less sentence constructions. Ordinary English subject-verb word order is marginalized, often in favor of lonely, attenuated prepositional phrases standing in for sentences. The combination of moralistic fervor and strained style gives the book a sense of high-pitched excitement but also eventually of monotony and rhetorical thinness ... Oates’s righteous anger, her ability to invest her story with mythological resonance (surely Leda and The Swan looms), and her talent at creating eerie scenes all make Babysitter a worthwhile read. Harnessing the screed and subtilizing the situations could have made it a great one.
While Hannah’s plight in the novel is an easy one to sympathize with, Oates has created a character who is difficult to shadow. She has no discernible personality beyond being a privileged white woman ... 'Rarely do white mothers die in childbirth,' she thinks, unhelpfully, when her 4-year-old daughter falls ill. 'Much more frequently, Black mothers. Can’t happen to us. No.' This statement was one of many that pulled me out of Oates’s narrative. Why would Hannah regurgitate this simplistic demographic comparison when she is not giving birth, and her daughter is no longer an infant? ... Oates grants the odd, verbose chapter to other characters ... The Jarretts never rise above cliché ... In plot and theme, Babysitter is bleak and indulgent. Still, it is nigh impossible to fault Oates’s style. She writes beautifully. Hannah’s unreliable, elliptical narrative is seductive and compelling ... Oates masterfully manipulates the narrative timeline, without losing the reader in the process. She is in no hurry to trigger the action ... Yet despite her virtuosic storytelling, Oates is unable to resist spoon-feeding her readers ... It is as though Oates doesn’t trust readers to reach certain conclusions on their own ... Babysitter is not a novel for the faint of heart. It spares nothing in its violent account of every kind of horror one could imagine happening in a single story ... As unlikable as Hannah is, I was terrified for her, and for myself. A third of the way through the novel, it was clear that there could be no happy ending, and Oates barely ties up the loose ends. If it was her intention to leave us with more questions than answers, the effect is an acute sense of unease ... Read with care.
... dark, violent and tense. It also is a razor-sharp examination of social constructs like gender and power ... Oates never shies away from confronting the fear and terror of her characters or the harm they experience or perpetrate ... a disturbing exploration of the power of prestige, wealth and whiteness and the powerlessness of women, children and Black men in the U.S. Oates skews and lambasts ideas about women’s roles and expectations ... Violence and pain beget violence and pain in this brutal yet brilliant novel. Here is a raw and desolate story penned in Oates' signature style --- flowing and visceral prose --- that doesn’t allow characters or readers easy answers to the difficult questions posed.
... simmering yet swollen ... Oates doesn't stint on her usual themes--sexual predation, violence and racism--which tend to disgust more than they educate. Indeed, the roll call of damaged, passive women and the all-men-as-monsters motif wears thin after a while. What saves this bloated tale is Oates's superb prose, a jagged stream-of-consciousness that gets into the dark, crawling places of her characters' minds. Readers will be engaged--and enraged--to the very surprising end.
Oates contorts language in her descriptions of characters, creating unease as you second-guess who these people truly are, and who to trust ... Despite the horror of the story, Oates’ skill with narrative and her mastery of prose create a compelling study in the most ugly aspects of human desire. The brutal descriptions of violence against women and children can be unsettling and, arguably, unnecessary. Guessing the identity of the titular Babysitter does not require much in the way of investigative skills, but this is not the thrust of the narrative. The true horror of the novel comes less from the perverted child-killer than the torture endured in the futile search for connection.
This is partly a psychological thriller, partly an exposure of American attitudes to race and gender, and wholly the latest length cut from the seemingly endless unspooling of Joyce Carol Oates — this is her 59th novel, apparently, although I haven’t counted. Her prolificness and talent are the stuff of legend. Only at the very end do you see the extraordinary grip she has on her story and her characters ... Oates deals in familiar 'tropes' (she’s too classy for mere clichés), but cleverly uses the reader’s prejudices and assumptions to confound our expectations; Babysitter is never quite the novel we think it’s going to be ... The only hint of authorial laziness is that all roads seem to lead back to a children’s home run by the Roman Catholic church ... Oates’s greatest power lies in her genius for old-fashioned storytelling. Babysitter is a novel that pulls the reader along at a rattling pace, throwing out all kinds of thrilling twists, and with an ending that is as surprising as it is bleak.
The novel eludes easy classification. It most resembles a psychological thriller, but with dark, torturous, bloody undercurrents running through it. Oates risks losing squeamish readers here, but that’s hardly a surprise from an author who has long embraced edgy subject matter. Also unsurprising is the quality of the writing: carefully constructed sentences, pitch-perfect dialogue, and a central character who is simultaneously sympathetic and repellent. An outstanding novel from a true modern master who jumps across genres with unrivaled dexterity.
The book’s languorous pacing feels at odds with its pulp underpinnings, but on the balance, Oates paints an unflinching portrait of 1970s upper-middle-class America, touching on issues of racism, classism, and institutional abuse while exploring society’s tendency to value women solely in relation to the role they fill—be it wife, mother, or sexual object ... A searing work of slow-burning domestic noir.
... polished yet soulless ... Exquisite prose compensates only in part for characters with grating personalities who come across as mere shadows as they each careen along a collision course to disaster. This one’s only for Oates diehards.
