{"product_id":"broke-heart-blues-by-joyce-carol-oates","title":"'Broke Heart Blues' by Joyce Carol Oates","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"220\" data-end=\"622\"\u003eSet in the fictional town of Hammond, New York, \u003cem data-start=\"268\" data-end=\"287\"\u003eBroke Heart Blues\u003c\/em\u003e circles around a single figure: John Reddy Heart, a quiet, charismatic young man whose presence leaves a deep mark on everyone who encounters him.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"220\" data-end=\"622\"\u003eYears later, after a series of tragedies and rumours attach themselves to his name, the town reconstructs its memories of him through fragments—gossip, confession, speculation, nostalgia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"624\" data-end=\"1017\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"whitespace-normal\"\u003eJoyce Carol Oates\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e uses shifting voices and overlapping recollections to explore how communities manufacture myth from ordinary lives. What emerges is less a portrait of one man than a study of desire, moral panic, and the uneasy way adolescence calcifies into legend.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1019\" data-end=\"1217\"\u003eIt sits in the same corner of Oates’s work as \u003cem data-start=\"1065\" data-end=\"1088\"\u003eWe Were the Mulvaneys\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem data-start=\"1093\" data-end=\"1101\"\u003eBlonde\u003c\/em\u003e: American mythmaking examined through the lens of memory, violence, and the distortions of collective storytelling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1019\" data-end=\"1217\"\u003eFirst edition hardback.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44179307429971,"sku":null,"price":22.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/ScholarsCreatingDigitalMapsofSpinoza_sEthics-2026-03-10T213821.878.png?v=1773139112","url":"https:\/\/bowerbooks.com\/products\/broke-heart-blues-by-joyce-carol-oates","provider":"bower books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}