I’m still reading Joyce Carol Oates’ new novel Fox, and I’ll never get over her being 87 and having a brain that can produce something this brilliantly thought out, exquisitely structured, and passionately delivered. I urgently need to know the details of her lifestyle and diet because can you imagine? She found a way never to be old.
Yes, yes, it’s probably genetic. But still.
Also, it’s funny because I thought she was a crap author after coming across her social media posts. Now I understand that she hired some stupid woke child to manage her accounts. But before, I’d chance upon them and wonder how somebody who wrote so badly could have become a recognized author. Forget ideology, the posts were atrociously written.
In her novel, Oates demonstrates not only a phenomenal command of the English language, stunning erudition and a capacity to write simultaneously for the highly literate and modestly educated readers, but also a sensibility that is not even conservative but right-wing.
If I’d known her age, I would have figured out that she wasn’t writing her own social media posts. But I somehow placed her as much younger than she is and took the posts seriously.
Almost missed an extraordinary readerly experience as a result.
Clarissa's Blog 
My goodness, Clarissa. Joyce Carol Oates would no sooner allow someone else to WRITE for her than you would. Someone has given you some bad intel.
That said, she sure does sound different on X/Twitter. She has said publicly that she enjoys the platform for its relaxed evanescence (she likens it to “vapour”). Her critical essays and her poems also sound very different from her novels.
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If I wanted to develop my brand, I’d 100% hire somebody to write LinkedIn and Insta for me.
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I just went to her X account and this is the post (not a retweet) that I found:
https://x.com/JoyceCarolOates/status/1958537902909968762?t=fBJMFS4BDgymn-S0TPX7cw&s=19
Leaving aside the ideological dimension, what do you notice about the quality of the prose? Would you read a novel written by somebody with this grammar and punctuation?
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I was certainly startled and puzzled when I first came upon her Twitter feed, the writing being so informal and even careless at times. I came to the conclusion that this was a platform that allowed her to let her hair down – and that she did indeed compose her own posts. I’ve been following her for fifty years (my Mom’s influence), and we’re both from the Buffalo/Syracuse areas.
As a young man I was mesmerized by hitchhiking. I realized right off that the precision of my regular vocabulary and grammar really irritated most drivers who picked me up. I had to affect a range of demotic constructions in order to stay in the car and extend my rides. I needed to loosen up on the “hitchhiking platform,” as it were.
These rides were the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me. That I figured out how to talk in a new way, over and over and over again, is something I am very proud of. At any rate, I think I understand the attraction sloppy tweeting might have to Oates.
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She inadvertently pisses off woke people on twitter too much for it to be an account managed by a young person, such as when she lamented how difficult it is for young male writers to get published
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This does seem to be a big topic for her because in the novel there’s a whole part on how white men are purposefully excluded from academic jobs.
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