Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart

Name: Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart
Author: Joyce Carol Oates
ISBN: 9780452265813

Joyce Carol Oates

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Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart

Joyce Carol Oates

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At the heart of the story are two people, Iris Courtney, who is white, and handsome Jinx Fairchild, the black basketball player who, in protecting Iris, kills a white man. Iris is the only witness to the crime. The two of them are growing up in the early 1950s in a New York industrial town where racial boundaries keep people apart—or bring them together in explosive scenes of fear or desire. The secret link between Iris and Jinx is not only their attraction to each other, but a murder. A bond of passion and guilt is formed between them. How this one irrevocable, tragic act shapes their lives and alters their destinies becomes the central concern of this novel.

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