FICTION: Eileen Battersbyreviews My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler RampikeBy Joyce Carol Oates, 4th Estate, 562pp, £12.99
EXCESS IS THE target here. US writer Joyce Carol Oates, the author of so many books by now that even her various publishers merely list a token number, has taken on several dark themes; a horrific murder, child exploitation, commercialism, delusion, tabloid voyeurism, sin and oh yes, marriage as a joke. This shrill, unpleasant and queasy book treading dangerous territory is a response to all of these things, but unfortunately the methodology itself is excessive, sickening and all too often bordering on caricature.
At the heart of the story is the vicious murder of a child, yet that crime frequently gets lost in the jumble of a stockpile narrative akin to a video nasty "inspired" by though not based on a real life murder of a child beauty queen, JonBenet Ramsey, a case that has never been solved.
Skyler Rampike, psychologically disturbed and physically damaged, is the son of a couple from hell: Dad - Bix - is an all-American egomaniac destined to make it big in business and with the ladies. Mom, for some reason irritatingly referred to throughout as "mummy" in this an American novel - in fact there is no mommy in this novel until the second last page and that is a different mommy - is pretty, vain, insecure and at the mercy of her fleshy body.
But for the Rampikes as a couple, their marriage begins with a child, the narrator, who soon becomes mommy, sorry, mummy's "little man". Betsey wants to be important; she yearns to be accepted by the community. She dreams of invitations. It's fine for her husband, after all, all of the women are willing to sleep with him. But how about her? Directly from the opening, Oates ensures she is making no pitch for easy sympathy. One day Betsey takes "her little man" on an outing. Their destination is an ice rink and Betsey, true to her obsessive nature, has kitted both her and "her little man" out in new skating gear.
The boy is terrified, but mom - sorry - mummy used to be pretty good. She takes to the ice, intent on showing off. But time is cruel, and the ice is hard. She may have been able to skate twenty years earlier but now she can't and is devastated. The narrative voice is harsh and knowing; it is also inconsistent. At times it sounds as if it is the disturbed Skyler speaking: "Me, I'm the 'surviving' child of an infamous American family but probably after almost ten years you won't remember me: Skyler." But the voice often drops into the third person while Oates also uses sarcastic footnotes.
So into Betsey's empty life of social frustration comes a second baby, a little girl given the unattractive name of Edna Louise. The little girl does not interest Betsey until the child reveals a passion for skating. Suddenly all of Betsey's pathetic ambitions have a chance of becoming real - through her daughter whom she quickly renames "Bliss."
As for "her little man", she forgets him. The little skater is a tragic figure, sent out to compete in adult costumes and heavy makeup. Her injuries are dismissed as "phantom pain." Ironically, the little girl - who has a bit of a nervous stutter and who bravely skates her heart out, becomes an icon, has no life and is re-created every time she steps out on the ice - emerges as the only real character in a book of caricatures. Moral judgements should not impinge on textual criticism yet if one were to compare this novel with American Pyscho which was published to some moral outrage in 1991, Bret Easton Ellis's novel is far superior, far more convincing and interestingly, far less extreme.
My Sister, My Love is intended as a mystery, did poor tormented Skyler kill his sister in a fit of jealousy? Why bill this book as a mystery? It is obvious who killed the child even if Oates thinks she has kept this a secret to the end. She hasn't. She would have been far more successful had she reined in her relentless approach to storytelling, a relentlessness that has served her so well in so many other novels, but not here. Instead of Oates's characteristic urgency, many of her narrators speak compellingly from the heart of their hurt. This narrative borders on gleeful hysteria.
One of the many problems with this grotesque book is its satirical intent, the knowing tone that grates on the reader, the asides addressed to "the alert reader" and the awkward sliding between first and third person which reduce Skyler's credibility as a narrator or even a witness.
Joyce Carol Oates is immensely experienced. One of her finest works, The Gravedigger's Daughter which was published last year, appeared on the 2009 International Impac literary award longlist this week. My Sister, My Love lacks her precision, she often writes at length, but rarely does she sprawl as she has here.
Little Bliss's ice-skating career opens a marketing door to her mother. Admittedly the crazier the mother becomes in refining her "product" - debating whether the child should have her hairline raised to facilitate a future in modelling - the more sane Bix, the ever absent, clichéd, sexually marauding father, appears. He objects to the procedure. Yet Oates focuses on the obsessive behaviour of Betsey who turns increasingly to God while at the same time exploiting her daughter.
In one of the few human moments in the book, Skyler mentions that although many expensive dolls had been purchased for Bliss she remains loyal to her old scruffy favourite. "Skyler asked Bliss what was the name of her doll, for no one seemed to know the name of this battered, old doll; and Bliss shook her head vehemently saying it was a "sec-ret". But Skyler, leaning over the backseat of the car, persisted, promising he wouldn't tell, until at last Bliss admitted hugging the doll to her flat little chest, "Her name is Edna Louise."
Here again though the narrative moves into the third person. As a storyteller, a campaigner, a critic and essayist Joyce Carol Oates is the unsung hero of American and probably international letters; she invariably brings energy and a powerful consciousness to any narrative. All of which makes the disappointment of this angry, shockingly banal performance all the more painful.
• Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times