The Falls

"This big, enthralling novel recaptures the gift for Dreiserian realism that distinguishes such Oates triumphs as What I Lived For, and We Were the Mulvaneys. It's her best ever, and a masterpiece."  -  Kirkus Reviews

A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. A newlywed, he has left behind his wife, Ariah Erskine, in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. "The Widow Bride of The Falls," as Ariah comes to be known, begins a relentless, seven-day vigil in the mist, waiting for his body to be found. 

At her side throughout, confirmed bachelor and pillar of the community Dirk Burnaby is unexpectedly transfixed by the strange, otherworldly gaze of this plain, strange woman, falling in love with her though they barely exchange a word. What follows is their passionate love affair, marriage, and children - but the tragedy by which their life together began shadows them, damaging their idyll with distrust, greed, and even murder. 

"In her hypnotic new novel, The Falls, Oates juxtaposes a majestic and dangerous natural phenomenon - the Falls at Niagara - with a man-made monstrosity, the deadly witches' brew of nuclear and toxic waste known as Love Canal - as the threatening elements underlying a family saga of self-destruction and redemption."  -  Jane Ciabattari, The Washington Post

The Falls is a love story gone wrong and righted, examining what happens when the richly interwoven relationships of parents and their children are challenged by circumstances outside the family, and it alone places Joyce Carol Oates definitively in the company of the great American novelists.