This fiction book contains the real-life characters Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland, Mark Twain and Upton Sinclair. All of them purportedly knew each other in 1905 Princeton, New Jersey where the story takes place.
Annabel Slade is to be married and during the wedding ceremony she is whisked away so quickly it seems to be magical. She is brought to the Bog Kingdom where her lover treats her like a slave and allows his friends to have their way with her. She suffers through all of this and manages to escape the Bog Kingdom and makes it back home. She is pregnant by this time and both she and the baby die in childbirth.
Todd Slade, Annabel's nephew is distraught by Annabel's death and is in the cemetery so much that he soon turns to stone and becomes a statue in the cemetery.
A class of young girls as well as their teacher all see writhing snakes in the classroom, but when help comes, no snakes can be found. Another man, Horace Burr, stabs his wife to death and then kills himself. Many other wild occurences take place as well.
All of these incidents take place in 1905-06 Princeton and are blamed on The Curse. This book's goal is to clarify all of these incidents and to prove once and for all what really happened that year in Princeton.
This 667 page book skips from one character and event to another with sluggish speed. It also has so many characters it is hard to keep track of them all. The addition of ex-presidents Woodrow Wilson and Grover Cleveland as well as authors Upton Sinclair and Mark Twain only makes things confusing because the reader is left wondering what is true about these people - and what is not since this is a fiction book.
If you are a die-hard Oates fan, then definitely read this book as it is part of series of several gothic tales written by the author that are supposed to be thematically linked. If you aren't, you might want to skip this book.
Rating: 6 / 10
ISBN: 9780062231703
Publisher: Ecco
Edition: 1st Edition