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 My Sister, My Love
The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike
by Joyce Carol Oates
New York: Ecco Press
Expected publication date: June 24, 2008
562 pages
Dust Jacket Blurb
New York Times bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates is back with this dark, wry, captivating tale, inspired by an unsolved American true crime mystery.
Joyce Carol Oates's most controversial novel to date, and certainly her most satirical, My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike recounts the saga of a murder through the eyes of the nineteen-year-old "survivor" of a family torn apart by intense media scrutiny. In this ingeniously constructed novel—part mystery, part elegy for the narrator's murdered six-year-old sister, and part exposé of the pretensions of upper-middle-class suburbia—Joyce Carol Oates explores with unexpected sympathy and subtlety the intimate lives of those who dwell in Tabloid Hell.
Excerpt
TABLOID HELL I
EX-CON PEDOPHILE CONFESSES
"I KILLED BLISS"
35-Yr-Old Fair Hills, NJ Sicko
Paroled After 18 Months of 3 1/2-Yr Sentence
New Jersey Sentinel
February 10, 1997
"I KILLED BLISS TO SAVE HER"
CLAIMS EX-CON BABY RAPER RUSCHA
6-Yr Old Skating Prodigy Slain
While Family Sleeps Upstairs
Star Eye Weekly
February 10, 1997
SLAYER OF 6-YR-OLD BLISS RAMPIKE CONFESSES
Ex-Con Child Molester Ruscha Indicted in Fair Hills, NJ
"I Killed Bliss Because I Loved Her"
The Trentonian
February 11, 1997
HOW VALID IS RUSCHA CONFESSION?
Fair Hills Police: "Investigation to Continue"
The Star-Ledger*
February 12, 1997
*Reader, repeat these headlines, accompanied by full-page tabloid photos of beautiful little Bliss Rampike and her purported slayer Gunther Ruscha, ad nauseum. And photos of Betsey Rampike and Blix Rampike. And that Rampike family photograph taken for our 1996 Christmas card. If you can stomach this crap, fine. Not for me! Though it's true that I grew up in the seething penumbra of tabloid hell, and that the very name "Rampike" was borne by me as one might bear the ignominy of an obscene figure branded into one's forehead. I was able to shut it out. Mostly.
TABLOID HELL: A NOTE
JUST TO ASSURE THE READER: NONE OF THIS WILL EVER HAPPEN TO YOU. Never will you know how "anonymous sources" including your friends will spread terrible lies about you like bats erupting from their mouths and if asked why, why lie, why hurt another person, the answer is Because I am anonymous, that's why.
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Reviews
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See Also:
"JonBenet Ramsey, America's Most Famous Little Girl"
"The Mystery of JonBenét Ramsey"
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Page address:
http://jco.usfca.edu/works/novels/sister.html
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