Solstice (novel)
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.jpg) First edition | |
| Author | Joyce Carol Oates |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | E. P. Dutton |
Publication date | January 23, 1984 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 214 |
| ISBN | 978-2234024632 |
Solstice is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates first published in 1984 by E. P. Dutton[1] and reprinted by Berkley Books in 1985.[2] Solstice is an examination of a tempestuous lesbian romance involving two heterosexual women, each striving to gain control of the relationship and their self-identity.[3]
The novel is written from third-person omniscient point-of-view with Monica Jensen and Sheila Trask as the focal characters.[4][5]
Reception
In a generally negative review, New York Times literary critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt detects Hemingwayesque male-male portraits in the platonic lesbian relationship between Monica and Sheila, thematically framed as an inverted Men Without Women (1927).
Uncertain as to Oates's literary aims in the novel, Lehmann-Haupt suggests it may be "meant to be nothing more than a tour de force...evoking its erotic power solely through its imagery" or alternately "that masculine-feminine bipolarity has little to do with the mix of gender." He concludes: "What is clear is that the ending of Solstice is unsatisfying. It seems to trail off, to disappear into itself...one is left to wonder if Miss Oates has not lost herself in her own artistic labyrinth."[6]