American Appetites

Extremely well written. Dense run on sentences with characters you cannot possibly like and strange events. Much to talk about and think about.

Taken from my comments elsewhere on this site --

I reread Oates' novel American Appetites (1989) yesterday.

I picked it up because, on a quick flip, I was tickled to realize that a significant part of the storyline relates to a shady Egyptian boyfriend, Fermi Sabri, who's suspected of abducting and/or killing his American girlfriend. I never really noticed that the first time I read this, several years ago. And so, since the representation of Arab and Muslim characters in literature interests me nowadays, I decided to reread this book.

(Can anybody think of any other Oates story that features an Arab or Muslim character...?)

Anyway. The words that kept coming to mind as I read were 'impulsive' and 'displacement'. Those also seem, to me, show more like the kind of descriptors Oates might have been going for in terms of the 'American appetite' overall. There's a thoughtless, almost careless impulsiveness to the way that characters make significant personal decisions (to begin an affair, for instance). Most of Oates' main characters here are, as in many of her books, among the intellectual and economic elite. The men work think-tanky jobs; the women maintain themselves and their homes and write cookbooks. The cushion of money and social capital makes their lives seem almost buffet-like... and yet most of them seem bored and dissatisfied. So they impulsively sample whatever seems exciting (or is 'supposed' to be exciting) and/or obsess over whether others are doing the same, typically in a very passive aggressive way.

Connected to the impulsiveness and suspicion and passive aggression are the male characters' constant displacements of their emotions: fears, neediness, anger. I felt like displacements really drove the plot. It also seemed like, when things fell apart, the (white, well-off) male characters tended to focus their suspicions on either 1) the dark outsider (the Egyptian Fermi Sabri), or 2) the infidelities of their women.

Along those lines, because he's Not Really Guilty, and unwilling or unable to defend himself by admitting personal responsibility or vulnerability, the (white wealthy male) main character Ian loses control of his life and gets sucked into a media circus. For a while, he has no handle on the way he's portrayed to others. As a figure of suspicion, he can't 'represent himself' anymore, either socially or in court. In fact, in an interesting twist that I noticed on this second reading, he winds up effectively taking the place of Fermi Sabri by the end (both in the courtroom and in a relationship). It's another displacement, and one that Ian barely survives... by the end, it's not clear if he even wants to.

Not my favorite novel by Oates, but somewhat suspenseful and easy to read. For a more compact piece along these lines, you might want to try her shorter novel 'Cybele.' show less

A well-to-do couple in an upper-middle class neighborhood live both literally and figuratively in a glass house. Although they appear happy on the surface, they have their appetites and their secrets. One night, their marital politeness explodes into a physical fight that ends with a fatal accident. Or did it end in murder? Excellent.

I enjoyed this book and would have marked it higher if it hadn't been for the ending. It didn't convince or please me.

Read it a while ago.. I think I liked it four stars.