Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. is a 2020 novel by American writer Joyce Carol Oates, about a man who was killed by the police and the aftermath of his death on his family.[1] Its title comes from a poem by Walt Whitman.[2]
Plot
John Earle McClaren, nicknamed "Whitey", is a well-respected 67-year-old man who served as the mayor of Hammond, New York, and is the father of five children. Whitey, who is white, intervenes in a police stop of an Indian American man. He is tased by the police, suffers a stroke, and dies. The rest of the novel concerns the fall-out of Whitey's death for the McClaren family—Whitey's widow, Jessalyn, and his children, Beverly, Lorene, Thom, Virgil, and Sophia—including Jessalyn's relationship with a Cuban artist and Thom's pursuit of charges against the officers responsible for Whitey's death.
Reception
The novel received mostly positive reviews from critics.[3] Reviewing the novel in The New York Times, author Bret Anthony Johnston considered it a positive installment in Oates's engagement with the topic of race, comparing it favorably to her 2015 novel The Sacrifice, though he noted that its "considerable length" may dissuade readers.[1] Hephzibah Anderson in The Guardian called it "an uncomfortable snapshot of modern-day America" and noted its resonance with the murder of George Floyd.[2]Kirkus Reviews described it as "a brooding, thoughtful study of how people respond to stress and loss".[4]
