The Assassins: A Book of Hours
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 First edition | |
| Author | Joyce Carol Oates |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Vanguard Press |
Publication date | 1975 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 568 |
| ISBN | 978-0814907672 |
The Assassins: A Book of Hours is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates first published in 1975 by Vanguard Press. A Fawcett Publications paperback edition was issued in 1976.[1][2]
"The Assassins is the story of Andrew Petrie, a wealthy right-wing political figure with a reputation for ruthless honesty. More, it is the story of his surviving brothers, Hugh and Stephen, and of his young widow Yvonne. Members of a large, prominent family, they are nevertheless isolated, each alone with his own enemy, his own assassin. In a state of frozen panic, they realize that Andrew's death has robbed them of the object of their hatred, love, religious compassion—all-consuming emotions that had previously cushioned them against the nightmare of their own emptiness. Their conflicting interpretations of reality—as well as the baffling, tragic events that overtake them—constitute a revelation of the contemporary world, both political and private."[3][4]
Reception
Contemporary reaction to the novel varied widely. Newsweek's Peter S. Prescott deemed The Assassins "a very bad, nearly incoherent novel." Critic Leo Robson at The New Yorker characterizes The Assassins as an "unfairly derided mystic-politico-psycho-sexual thriller."[5]