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From the book jacket: Exploring the theme of a family torn
about by external events, Oates sets her story around the
majestic Niagara Falls and the less than majestic Love Canal
area on the eastern edge of Niagara Falls.
Comment: This is a fairly long book (one reviewer comments it has
enough material for two or three books!) but well worth the
read. I found the first 100 pages or so good but not gripping,
but got totally caught up in the story after that. All
reviewers seem to rate The Falls as one of Oates' best
books to date (and considering that she has published around
100 that is quite a claim - see Oates'
bio at BookBrowse for a partial bibliography). For
example, the Washington Post describes The Falls as
'hypnotic', Booklist describes it as 'vivid and memorable',
and Library Journal rates it 'highly recommended'.
Oates explains the historical background to the novel in a
brief
Q&A
at BookBrowse. In this she confirms that the majority of the
information in the novel about Love Canal is historically
accurate. The original Love Canal was built by William T Love
in the early 1900s with the intention of joining the upper and
lower Niagara Rivers, creating an opportunity for
hydroelectric power which would fuel the industry and homes
that he planned to build along the canal. The project
collapsed around 1910, and in 1920 the partially dug ditch was
turned into a municipal and industrial chemical dump - and
used by a number of local chemical companies to dump a variety
of hazardous waste. In 1953 the ditch was covered over with
dirt and sold to the city for $1. Soon about 100 houses and a
school had been built on the site. Although there were reports
of many critical health problems in the intervening years, the
time bomb did not fully explode until the late 1970s when a
record amount of rain triggered significant leaching from the
dump, leading to what Eckardt C. Beck, local administrator of
the US Environmental Projection Agency at the time, described
as 'one of the most appalling environmental tragedies in
American history'.
Read his 1979 report.
This review
first ran in the August 3, 2005
issue of BookBrowse Recommends.
If you liked The Falls, try these:
by Deni Y. Béchard
Published 2012
In assured and mystically powerful prose, Deni Y. Béchard tells a wide-ranging, spellbinding story of a family trying to create an identity in an unwelcoming landscape.
by Morten Ramsland
Published 2010
From a fiercely funny Danish John Irving, a bighearted, epic story of mad dogs, naughty boys, strange relatives, and family secrets.
by Pat Conroy
Published 2010
The one and only Pat Conroy returns, with a big, sprawling novel that is at once a love letter to Charleston and to lifelong friendship.
L.A. Women by Ella Berman
Two ambitious writers in 1960s LA face betrayal when one writes a novel based on the other's life.
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