Re: JCO: Oates Country & THe Falls

Hi, Jane. A friend drove me around the Lockport/Millersport/Niagara region
last winter. JCO's childhood home was torn down some years ago and replaced
with a modern house, but I enjoyed seeing "the creek" running behind the houses
-- quite visible from the road with the leaves off the trees. A lot of her
"back there" stories involve "the crick" -- also the story "The Molesters" which
appears in the novel EXPENSIVE PEOPLE. We passed the little airfield where
JCO's father took her flying in his plane. (See Greg Johnson bio.) Before
leaving the area we stopped at the county library down the road from the old JCO
homestead, but the librarian didn't know a thing about the author or her history
in the neighborhood. I said "You'd better read about her -- she may win the
Nobel Prize somday." :>}
Yes, let's talk about THE FALLS. I read it a couple of months ago, but
it's still fairly fresh in memory. I was intrigued by The Woman in Black who
turns up in the graveyard. At first I thought it was Nina, but then she had
that stilted, upper-class diction like Ariya's mother-in-law. Or maybe it was a
phantom! What do you think?
Cyrano

In a message dated 10/7/2004 8:52:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
jward199@sbcglobal.net writes:

<< So, to change the subject . . ..

My best friend and I are going on vacation to Oates Country (a.k.a. Western
New York) at the end of this month. Being from Central Illinois, where the
Illinois River is the only thing to break up the corn fields that replaced the
magnificent parries that once covered this land, I am excited to see the
landscape of so many of JCO's stories.

Also, having just finish The Falls, I'm quite excited to see Niagara Falls
for the first time!

>>
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