Carthage
A young girl’s disappearance rocks a community and a family, in this stirring examination of grief, faith, justice and the atrocities of war, from literary legend Joyce Carol Oates.
Cressida Mayfield has gone missing. The desperate search yields but one clue; she was last seen in the company of Corporal Brett Kincaid, Iraq veteran – and the ex-fiancé of Cressida’s sister. As the deeply traumatized Kincaid struggles to mount a defence, he finds his memories of that terrible night are tangled with those of the most appalling wartime savagery.
Dark and riveting, the nerve-shredding Carthage unravels the devastating consequences of violence on two young lives, while probing the very limits of our capacity for forgiveness.
”'[Joyce Carol Oates] is simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going, as far as I’m concerned” - Gillian Flynn, author of 'Gone Girl'
”'The ever-prolific Joyce Carol Oates is at the top of her game in this suspense-filled thriller … about guilt, punishment and forgiveness” - Financial Times
”'A substantial book that deals with truths of the type that we often do not want to confront … Oates is an ambitious writer of huge confidence … The characters … are brilliantly drawn … but what keeps you going is the writing … Oates writes about America’s big themes. Her prose is elegant. She is the mistress of all she surveys” - The Times
”''Carthage' is not just the suspense thriller it had seemed at first sight … what it attains is a profound and poignant vision of American guilt, and its potential for some kind of absolution” - John Burnside, Guardian
”'A gripping exploration of a community in crisis after a young girl disappears” - Stella Magazine, Sunday Telegraph
‘The prolific Joyce Carol Oates is back doing what she does best - exposing the darkness of the human heart' Good Housekeeping -
”'Joyce Carol Oates is … a rare example of a prolific author who has managed to maintain her reputation as a serious literary novelist … 'Carthage' is an immensely proficient novel, with careful and elegant prose, and interesting experiments with form … an intriguing and unpredictable read. Oates succeeds in portraying the complex damage done to the fabric of a society by war - no matter how far away it is” - Frances Perraudin, Observer
”'Her characters are created with a Dickensian sharpness of detail, and their relationships with one another are often involving; her language is rough-hewn and lovely; her plots are suspenseful and artfully made … Her new novel is her most substantial in some time” - Edmund Gordon, Sunday Times