Broke Heart Blues is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates published in 1999 by E. P. Dutton.
Contents KILLER BOY MR. FIX-IT THIRTIETH REUNION
Plot Max, 1999: Plot summary
Reception
Literary critic Daniel T. Max at The New York Times regards Broke Heart Blues as one of Oates's lighter novels, but which "displays great inventiveness and a justified belief in its relevance to our own emotional lives."Max, 1999
Writing in Salon.com, critic Michelle Goldberg laments that Oates has abandoned her "psychological acuity" for sentimentality and a "cloyingly nostalgic atmosphere." As such, the novel resembles Gothic The Big Chill:
Theme The theme of the work is simple: "It's about how lonely, unhappy people mythologize their adolescence."Max, 1999
Oates offered her own retrospective take of her novel's thematic elements:
Footnotes
Sources Goldberg, Michelle. Broke Heart Blues. Salon magazine, July 28, 1999. https://www.salon.com/1999/07/28/oates/ Accessed 10 April 2025. Max, Daniel T. 1999. Class Reunion. New York Times, August 8, 1999. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/08/08/reviews/990808.08maxlt.html Accessed April 7, 2025. Oates, Joyce Carol. 1999. Broke Heart Blues. E. P. Dutton, New York. Oates, Joyce Carol. 2024. "Intoxicating Nostalgia of High School." Joyce Carol Oates on Writing Broke Heart Blues. Literary Hub.https://lithub.com/a-valentine-to-the-intoxicating-nostalgia-of-high-school-joyce-carol-oates-on-writing-broke-heart-blues/ Accessed 10 April 2025.